The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - Mark Manson - Everything is F*cked, How To Find Hope, How To Stop Feeling Hopeless, The Pitfalls Of Success, & Why Self Control Is An Illusion

Episode Date: May 14, 2019

#188: Mark Manson is a, Best Selling Author, Entrepreneur and Blogger. He has a highly popular blog called Markmanson.net and he’s the author of the massive international Best Seller titled; The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. We were fortunate to interview (Ep 48) Mark during the early days of our podcast when his book first released. Mark is back on the show to talk about his new book: Everything Is Fucked, A Book About Hope.  To check out Mark's new book: Everything Is Fucked To connect with Mark Manson click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by GOMACRO Enter promo code SKINNY for 30% of your order at check out. We love these all natural, plant based, and organic bars. We keep them in our bags on the go and love that they are a completely natural and farm produced bar.  This episode is brought to you by RITUAL Forget everything you thought you knew about vitamins. Ritual is the brand that’s reinventing the experience with 9 essential nutrients women lack the most. If you’re ready to invest in your health, do what I did and go to www.ritual.com/skinny  Your future self will thank you for taking Ritual: Consider it your ‘Lifelong-Health-401k’. Why put anything but clean ingredients (backed by real science) in your body?  Produced by Dear Media

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She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur, a very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the Skinny Confidential, him and her. You know, if you have this dream, it's like this vision of your future that is better.

It's some better version of yourself. And you wake up every morning and that vision motivates you to get up and start working towards something and start building yourself. And it creates this sense of meaning in your life. And then as soon as that vision is taken away from you, then you feel like there's nothing meaningful to work towards. Welcome back. Welcome back, everybody. Everybody, welcome back. That clip was from our guest of the show today, New York Times bestselling mega, mega author Mark Manson. On this episode, we discuss hope, the feeling of hopelessness, why depression is an all-time high, uncomfortable truths, and how to rid yourself of feeling hopeless. My name is

Michael Bostic. I am a serial entrepreneur and brand builder. Most recently, the CEO of the Dear Media Podcast Network and the co-host of the Skinny Confidential Him and Her Show. You don't say. Fancy seeing you here. And across from me, my voluptuous wife, Lauren Everts. What's voluptuous? I don't know. Your lips are looking good today. I did a post on my lip filler. Did anyone see it? Did you see it, babe? I did not see it, but I go check it out. It's on the blog. I'm Lauren Everett. I'm the creator of the skinny confidential. If you want to read that post, you can just Google the skinny confidential lip filler. It's up. It's live. Guys, we have so many great episodes coming through. If you

didn't check out last week's episode with Khalil Rafati, go check it out. It was a tearjerker. But outside of having some great episodes coming, we also want to know how we can get better, how we can improve. Constant feedback. We read all of the comments, concerns, emails, and we honestly just want you guys to be involved. Give us the feedback. Let us know who you want to interview or us to interview.

Yeah. And if this podcast has brought you any kind of value, I know last week I got so much value from Khalil. Please leave a review. It takes five seconds and it's such a great way to build the podcast and build the community because we will be doing live tours soon. Right, Michael? Working on it. So let us know positive, negative, any feedback is good for us to review. Let us know if you want to take a particular guest on the, or get a particular guest on the show. Do you know, I've been having a lot of requests for someone that you're going to be surprised.

Who? Who do you think? I don't know. I mean, that is, there's so many different, my mind goes to 50 different places. A lot of people want Taylor, the bare naked cucumber to come back on the show to give us an update on his one minute man situation. Let me guess. Taylor, your mic's not on, is it?

Nope, it's not. His mic's never on. He just can't. He can't get it together. You know what's so funny, too, is on Instagram stories, whenever he sees that I'm walking in, I notice that he starts like pulling his hairbrush out of his drawer and starts, you know, playing with his mustache if he has one or. I don't think I've had a mustache all my life, actually. There was like a couple of hairs. It kind of looked like my mustache look this weekend It's like a long black hair

Like a evil villain Like an evil villain You do try to like get ready when you see me coming in You know what I should go for is the Fu Manchu look Where you have that long like handlebar mustache that goes down Must have missed that one You should go for the Kill Bill It's Palme and he's got that long

You should go for the competent producer look must have missed that one you should kill bill it's it's palme and he's got that long you should go for the competent producer look and the competent producer look is having your mic and your headset ready to go when we're podcasting so you don't have to fiddle back around back there i made an assumption i was like it's probably probably not going to be in this one and i was wrong again you never know i love a plot twist i want to say 10 out of 10 times i've been wrong and making that assumption as michael's dad said you're fiddle fucking around fiddle fucking around back but a lot of people want taylor to come back on the podcast to give an update all right taylor 100 positive i include me i'm down we know we we know twist my arm why don't you it's the only threesome you'll ever have with us speaking of

people that just that are getting ready to come back on guys one of the most requested guests is ed my let for doing doing around to lauren and i were just on his show down in orange county that are getting ready to come back on, guys, one of the most requested guests is Ed Milet for doing a round two. Lauren and I were just on his show down in Orange County, and that will be coming soon. One of the interesting topics that came up when we were on Ed's show, and if you haven't heard Ed's show with us, it was the beginning of this year that we posted. It's one of the best ones that we've ever done. But when we did this recent episode with Ed, one of the topics that came up was around self-improvement.

And one thing that Lauren and I have been talking about frequently, Lauren. Wait, we've been talking about or I've been telling you about and you've been making it your own idea like you always do. That's probably a more accurate way to describe it. Is all of us as individuals, everyone listening, ourselves included, we're always so focused on self-improvement, reading books, listening to podcasts, watching seminars, watching doc, whatever it is, self-improvement. And it's very rare that outside of the self-improvement, improving yourself, that you actually take the time to improve the relationships that you have to improve

the intimate relationships you have, the friendships. So Lauren and I, Lauren, I see you looking at me, are really focused and committed on doing that and committed to doing that as well. I just told Michael the other day when we were driving up to Orange County, we had some time in the car, which is rare because normally we're scheduled back to back. I said, you're so focused on self-improvement and so am I. I think it's so important to improve yourself, which obviously is the foundation. You got to do self-care. You guys know I'm all about that. But I also think that as a couple, instead of growing parallel, it's important to also grow together and work on your relationship together. So whether that has to do with sex, intimacy, writing each other love notes,

hint, hint, Michael Bostic. Making your wife coffee with cinnamon in the morning, hint, hint, Michael Bostic. Massaging your wife's back, hint, hint, Michael Bostic. Massaging your wife's back. Hint, hint, Michael Bostic. Anyway, I think it's important not to just focus on self-improvement, but to focus on relationship improvement. And that could be I don't want to bash reading books because we have a very prominent author on the show and we love his books. So who is Mark Manson? Mark Manson is a best-selling author, entrepreneur, and blogger. He has a highly popular blog called markmanson.net, and he's the author of the massive international bestseller that many of you have probably read, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. What a title. That book has sold tens of millions of copies and is honestly a phenomenon in the book world. You guys have, if you haven't checked it out, you have to. It's the bright orange cover with a big paint splatter

that says fuck right on the front. We were lucky enough to interview Mark during the early days of our podcast career. And when his, when his first book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, was first released, we did not have the pleasure of sitting face-to-face with him at the time. We had to do it over Skype, and we now refuse to do any interviews that aren't in person. We just think it makes for a better interview to have the person right in front of us. So, no matter who the guest is, that goes for everybody, even if Obama wants to come on the show. Really? Obama, open invite.

Still, the episode is Obama open invite. Still, the episode is worth checking out. It's one of our earlier ones just to see his progression and ours. That's episode 48. Well, now Mark is back on the show in person in the studio, and we are talking all about his new book, which I'm sure will be another massive seller. The book is called Everything is Fucked, a book about hope. We love Mark and his writing because he calls it how he sees it while also presenting really insightful, high-level content that is digestible by all. He doesn't try to be fancy. He doesn't try to seem smarter than the rest of us, even though he has a good chance that he is. He is relatable and his books speak volumes. So buckle in for this deep conversation with one of our favorites, Mark Manson.

But first, we need to talk about a real epidemic that's happening, hypoglycemia. I have found the cure to hypoglycemia. We all have a friend or significant other that's constantly complaining when they get hangry. So I traveled to Charleston last week, and these bars, Macro Bar Minis, saved my life. Michael was so grumpy. He forgot to eat breakfast, which is normally not a big deal, but for some reason he probably had a small dinner the night before and he was complaining. And when he complains, it's like, you know, the teacher in the peanuts, you know what I mean? Want, want, want Charlie Brown, want, want. That was him while we were traveling. Thank God I had my macro bar minis. Basically, they are these little mini bars that you can keep in your purse and they have

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shout out the peanut butter chocolate chip because that's Michael and my favorite, and that's the ones I always keep in my purse. But my nephew also likes the sunflower butter and chocolate, so you just have to do you here. You know what I mean? Anyways, a few cool things about the company that I think make them really unique. They're mother-daughter owned. They use 100% renewable energy in the production of the bars. They're made from sustainably grown ingredients. Like I said, they're plant-based and they're available in over 25,000 stores nationwide, which is insane. Anyways, stock up on the peanut butter chocolate chip. If you have a kid, try out the sunflower butter plus chocolate.

You're going to love it. For a hot little 30% off plus free shipping discount, use promo code SKINNY at checkout. You get free shipping plus 30% off when you use the promo code at checkout. That is SKINNY. Guys, try the bars. You're going to love them. This is the skinny confidential him and her Mark Manson back in the studio. Actually the first time in the studio, first time,

first time in the studio. Last time we did this was almost three years ago, almost episode. I think it's like 48 50. So we didn't even hit the year mark and now we're like 180 something. So, uh, it's evolved since then. And we didn't have the pleasure of sitting with you the first time it was over Skype. And those are always a little bit awkward to do. Cause you can't see, you know, we actually refuse to do them. Now people come in like, Hey, we're gonna be on Skype. I'm like, no, no, no, no. We don't do them just because it gets, it's that awkward thing where you're trying to ask somebody a question and you don't know if they're talking or not. And then you're like, try not to interrupt them. So it's good to be able to look in the face. Your life has been a rocket ship since then to say the least. The subtle art

of not giving a fuck. There's a lot to give a fuck about now, I think. Yeah, there is a lot to give a fuck about now. And I think we'll probably get to that. It is funny to think back because I think you guys were like one of my first interviews for that book. Wow. And I think it was right around launch week. And so I remember talking about that book and being like, oh, well, I really hope it does well. And like, gee whiz. Gee whiz, it crushed it. Yeah.

Gee whiz, seven million copies later what is it 13 how many countries has this book been a national best or international bestseller it's been number one in 13 countries wow that's what i thought yeah i mean that's insane well lauren's been a fan of your blog content for so long she showed me early days even before you had the book and then i became a fan it's been pretty incredible i mean literally you cannot go to an airport in the united states or even most of the world and not see the book yeah it's been pretty incredible. I mean, literally you cannot go to an airport in the United States or even most of the world and not see the book. Yeah. It's almost impossible. Yeah. Yeah. It, it's been nuts. It's been a little bit nuts. So for, for those that are new listeners or new to new audience, let's get a little context, a little background for the, just like, you know,

bullet point brief. Sure. Um, so I actually, I started blogging in around 2009, 2010, mostly about like relationship advice and dating advice. And then around 2013, I switched to just talking about life issues because like, let's be honest, if you're having issues in your dating or relationship life, it's because you have a personal issue going on in your personal life. And then as soon as I did that, it just blew it just blew up. It, my blog took off, started getting millions of readers, had a bunch of articles go viral. And then from that, I got, I got the book deal for Subtle Art. And then, you know, the, the goal, my, my style and my approach has always been, you know, it's self, it's self-help and personal development, but it's, it's non-bullshitty. You know, I've always felt that that whole genre of, of book is kind of, it's just sugarcoating. Yeah. It's all fluffy and

rainbows and you know, Hey guys, we're all the greatest. And no, no, no, that's not, we're not all the greatest, you know, like life sucks sometimes. And, um, and so I really wanted to write a book that was just very honest about that, that just things suck. We fail a lot and we need to just get good at accepting it and dealing with it. And yeah, it resonated big time. What kind of response was it from the first book? I mean, it just, the funny thing is, is it's weird being an author because you're so removed from your fans and followers. So it was literally just me waking up every other day and like clicking on the numbers and being like, oh, wow, they went up again, like 5%. And that just happens like a hundred weeks in a row to the

point, you know, where it's like you hit a million sales and then 2 million sales and then 3 million sales and 5 million and six million. And the whole time I'm just kind of sitting around on my couch like, this is crazy. What about like DMs and people tagging you on Instagram story and Instagram? I mean, that must have been crazy. I know I went to Instagram in the book right away because like the cover is dynamic. We talked about this a little bit off air. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, the tags and DMS and everything I've always gotten, you know, even back in my blogging days, I'd get tons of those. So I was kind of used to that and I've already got like, you know, my assistant kind of screens them and you know, I, I've got, I schedule my time. It's like every Monday afternoon, it's like I go through all my email and my DMS and everything. And so, so it was weird because my life didn't really change, but there's this huge book out there that's on everybody's bookshelf. So it was a very strange and kind of disorienting experience. I think when I talk to people, they expect that it's like this massive,

like you said, a rocket ship taking off. Like all of a sudden your life's just completely different. But it was actually, it was very disorienting in the opposite way. And that my life felt exactly the same, but you know, there's like 3 million of my book out there or whatever. When your publisher sees you, do they just look with like hearts in their eyes? Money signs, money signs coming out of their eyes. They roll the red carpet or what? You know, it's so funny. So when I was taking, when, you know, before subtle art came out, when I was taking meetings at my publisher, you know, I, I live

in New York, so I'd actually go down to the office and, and they'd put me in like a cramped little conference room and it'd be like my editor and some assistant publicist. And they're like, all right, we got 15 minutes. Like, you know, here's the one thing we're going to do for you. And now I go down there and it's like the CEO comes out, the VP of marketing, here's the one thing we're going to do for you. And now I go down there and it's like the CEO comes out, the VP of marketing, the VP of publicity. Ask for caviar. Yeah. It's like, I should just create a writer for every time I walk in. They bring in the drink cards. Yeah, totally. When did you decide that you wanted to write another book? How quickly? Well, so it's funny because there was tons of

pressure. That is one thing that happened is that as soon as Subtle Art took off, there was tons of pressure to write another one, like immediately after. And so I signed on to do another one, but it took about a year for me. You know, the way my writing process works is it's kind of like therapy for me. So I need, it's the way I process all the crap that I deal with in my life is I write it out. And so I needed, I needed more time to kind of figure out what I needed to process. I always tell Michael as a creative, it takes me a minute to wrap my head around things. I can't just, and when you create something, you almost need space between the next creation. Absolutely. I feel for you. Absolutely. Yeah. It's, it's almost

like, you know, it's like if you go out and run 10 miles or something, like you can't just get up and run 10 miles the next day. You're not a fucking racehorse. Yeah. You gotta, you gotta rest and recover and, and kind of like recalibrate. So it took about a year to start this next one. So I just, I have my notes up now and i see episode 48 that's the episode you want so people want to go and look back and listen to that episode about the subtle art not giving a fuck you should go there the new book everything is fucked a book about hope a book about hope we all need some hope let's because everything's fucked let's dive in so let's why talk like what what made you want to write about hope like what triggered that was it kind of the response to this

book or was it analyzing human culture like what what was it that made you want to write about hope? Like what triggered that? Was it kind of the response to this book or was it analyzing human culture? Like what was it that made you want to write about hope specifically? So it was a combination of two things, really. The first was personal. So like I said, the whole subtle art thing was very disorienting. And one of the reasons why was, this sounds this is gonna sound crazy to people but hear me out you know i had a dream for like 10 years i want to be an author i want to be a best-selling author i want to sell a bunch of books i want to like go speak all around the world

and all these things and that dream carried me for a decade like i worked my ass off for a decade and in my mind i was going to work on towards the, you know, these dreams for the next 20, 30 years of my life. And slowly one by one, I'd accomplish them. And I'd have a very like meaningful and fulfilled career. Subtle art knocked all of those out in like three months. So I basically go from, you know, sitting at my desk and like, all right, yeah, I've got this long career ahead of me because I've got all these goals. And then, boom, all the goals are done.

That's so gnarly. And it's astronaut syndrome. Yeah. What is that? Astronauts, when they go to the moon and they come back to Earth, they feel depressed because they've gone to the moon. And so what what ends up happening is if you grow too fast. Yes. It almost ends up happening is if you grow too fast, it almost ends up fucking you. Yes, absolutely. And it's funny because you got to write a blog on that.

Yeah. So I, yeah, I got depressed like 2017. I was actually the most depressed I've been since like I was a teenager. And the worst part about it is that you can't really tell anybody because they're like, Hey asshole, you just sold a million books. You know, like people can't really tell anybody because they're like, hey, asshole, you just sold a million books. People can't relate. Absolutely. But it's very common with high achievers where they think that they're going to spend their life attaining this goal, but then they get it. It's like, what do I do now?

Walk us through that, though. So you're depressed. You can't talk to anyone. What do you do? Do you just sit in it? Well, I. So you're depressed. You can't talk to anyone. What do you do? Like, do you just sit in it? Well, I played a lot of Zelda. Don't you play that? The Breath of the Wild.

Okay. So good. It is really good. Played a lot of Zelda. I played a lot of video games. And it was funny because, you know, I think everybody has this imagination that it's like, you get this huge bestseller book, you get a ton of money dumped on you,

and suddenly you don't really have to do anything. Like there were whole months that I sat around in 2017, didn't do a damn thing, and I checked the reports and everything, and it's like, oh, sales went up 20% this month. So there's this bizarre thing where it's like, wow, I'm making more money every month by not working and when people hear that they're like dude that's that's the fucking life like what are

you talking about but people don't realize how it gets old very fast like it's you know you take the wife to paris and then you you know maybe take your parents to a nice restaurant or something and you buy a few things and then like three weeks later you're like what now it's very relatable in a way right i was we talked about on the show there's that line in the in the dark night the batman yeah i've talked about it here before where they're basically like interrogating the joker yeah and he says i'm like a dog chasing a car i wouldn't know what to do with it if i caught it exactly it's like that so you have to you know you have to find those moments between the goals between the process where where you're enjoying it because it's the same thing.

Like we have this issue too, like not celebrating a milestone or a success because I think every time you do that, when you get to the goal, you're like, okay, like it's not, which first it's not what you expect. You're not as happy as you are when you get there. That's my experience. And then you're constantly like, well i did that what else you do and it leaves you almost in a way feeling unfulfilled which is scary because something that you chase for so long all of a sudden you realize like wait a minute i've got it yeah not

that happy why am i not that happy yeah so back to the question of kind of where this book came from this this whole astronaut syndrome like it really fascinated me. I was like, what the hell, you know, what the hell is going on? Like the last time I was this depressed was when my life was awful and like a bunch of things had gone wrong. And so it got me thinking about hope because, you know, if you have this dream, it's like this vision of your future that is better. It's some better version of yourself. And you wake up every morning and that vision motivates you to get up and start working towards something and start building yourself. And it creates the sense of meaning in your life. And then as soon as that vision is

taken away from you, then you feel like there's nothing meaningful to work towards. And the most typical way this happens is, you know, like somebody close to you dies or a relationship ends or you get fired from a job or something like that. And what I never considered is that another way that vision, that dream can be yanked away from you is if you achieve it. And so if you hit all your dreams at the same time, suddenly you have no more dreams and you have no vision for the future. You don't know what to hope for anymore. And so this idea that we're essentially motivated by hope and also we derive meaning from what we hope for in our lives was kind of the starting point of this next book. So that's the first component.

That's the personal side. The second component that kind of motivated this book was, I think we can all agree. I mean, you, you guys, your careers on social media, my careers on social media. I mean, you get on social media for 10 minutes and you would think like it's the fucking apocalypse is upon us. You know, everybody is freaking out over everything all the time. And then two days later, they've like forgotten what they freaked out about two days before, because there's something new that everybody's freaking out about.

And so, you know, everybody's kind of feeling this like growing sense of panic and stress in our culture. And there's this really interesting paradox that's going on right now, which is, you know, materially, the world is better than it's ever been. We're safer, healthier, wealthier.

We're living longer. We've cured a bunch of diseases. Making more money. Making more money, you know, fewer wars, less violence, more equality, you know. More connect to everything, yeah. Yeah, but depression, anxiety, suicide, drug overdoses, all these things are coming back in a big way. They're surging right now. And so if everything is so good, if everything's the best that's ever been, like why is everybody

emotionally and psychologically just feeling so panicked and like upset all the time? And so I made this connection of like, you know, this idea of hope that is such a central issue of my life over the last few years. I kind of looked out in the world and I think there are a lot of things about our technology, about our media, about social media that are making hope difficult these days. It's complicating our ability to create that vision for ourselves or that vision for our society or our culture. And like, what's an example of that? So a really basic example is like,

let's say you want to lose some weight. Very simple example. You go online, you look around, you're like, oh, okay, cool. You know, gluten, carbs are bad. And then 10 minutes later, you're like, oh, okay, cool. You know, gluten, carbs are bad. And then 10 minutes later, you're like, okay, so I'll stop eating carbs. 10 minutes later, there's all these articles start popping up on your newsfeed saying that, no, carbs are great. It's fat that's bad. And then there's, you know, the next day, there's a bunch of articles that

are saying that, you know, nutritionists don't know anything and they're tricking you just to make money. And then there's another thing that pops up and says,, you know, nutritionists don't know anything and they're tricking you just to make money. And then there's another thing that pops up and says, no, no, no, don't listen to them. Buy my ebook. And it's, there's all these like conflicting and information overload and it's contradictory information. So, you know, for me personally, we're like the whole nutrition, like, I don't even know what the fuck to believe anymore.

Like I've seen anything. You can't eat anything. Everything's going to kill you. Everything's going to make you fat. You know, it's so you just stop caring and you just you're like, well, fuck it. You know, why? Why pursue anything? And so I think in a sense that that information overload, since it's so contradictory, it makes it hard to find something coherent to wish for, some coherent path to pursue. And I think that's just happening on so many levels of our society. Like it's everything from politics to education to relationships.

I mean, if you take something like Tinder, you know, it's on paper, it sounds amazing. It sounds perfect. But it's like anybody who's spent a year on Tinder knows that it's like this hellscape because it complicates. You reach a point where there's so many options, you don't even know who you're attracted to anymore. You don't even know who you want to be. Those college kids, they build the machines with the eraser and just the pencil spinning around. It just swipes right on every picture. No, but that's pretty funny. they don't even look at the phone

it's just it's just a machine that twirls around and around i think we all kind of missed the tinder era yeah yeah all three of us did you certainly missed it i know thank you know thank god though i don't know what i would be doing yeah yeah it's funny because i remember if i did maybe i'll get somebody to build me one of those machines. Who knows? Yeah. Tinder came out, I think, a year after my wife and I met. And I remember when it came out, my wife and I were like, oh, man, maybe we should just break up for two weeks just to go on Tinder and see what it's like. And now all of our single friends are like, man, you guys are so lucky. It's a dark world out there. I've seen some of our buddies down there.

Listen, power to anybody that wants to use it but sure it's a it's a some of those people report a dark dark world so so what should you do with all this information should you get off social media should you not let it affect you what's what's your thought there i think i think the social media question is um it's we need to become much more conscious of how we're using our attention. I'm definitely not one of these people who thinks that, you know, Facebook's ruining the world and we need to delete everything. Like, I think there are practical uses for social media and there are benefits to it. But I think the problem is, is that it's such a new technology and it's such a new force in our culture that we need to be aware of the drawbacks. We need to be aware of how we're using it. And we need to train ourselves to have a lot more control over

our attention or our choices that we're making. I think it's the same way, you know, like when TV came out, people freaked out. They're like, oh man, kids are just watching TV 10 hours a day. And it's because it's a new thing. Nobody realized the effect it had on people's brains. And, you know, by the time you get to the 80s and 90s, people, there's all sorts of like tools and tricks and parents learn. It's like, yeah, don't let your kids sit in front of the TV all day. We have to learn to psychologically adapt our behavior to the technology. And I think

just with social media and the internet, everything's happening so fast. Like we never have time to do that. We always feel like, like it's running us, not the other way around. I think it's just because of our relationship to it. Like there's, you know, there can be healthy balances to that, but people can abuse those relationships. Um, so would it be fair to say, and tell me if I'm wrong here, that I don't want to say the sum of, it's not the sum of the book, but like the core, one of the core principles is that in order to consistently generate happiness or be happy, that you have to find hope in an area of your life. Is that fair to say? And I think at the core of your book, you're saying, you know, we as humans, we want to feel in control all the time. And if we feel out of control,

there's a feeling of hopelessness. Yes. So what have you seen then to inspire hope in individuals? Well, I think, so I have a chapter in the book that I talk about freedom. And one of my, I have a criticism of our cultural conception of what freedom is, is I think our culture is confused freedom with variety. It's confused freedom with opportunity. I think in terms of like, and a lot of this comes from commercialism and stuff like that, but it's, you know, if you ask a random person off the street, like, would you rather have the choice between two types of pizza or 15 types of pizza? You know, everybody's going to say 15. We perceive that as more valuable. adding more variety and opportunity for experience actually detracts from the meaning and

enjoyment of that experience. So for instance, it's like, like if you want to try to learn or like every sport, if you want to go out and do baseball and basketball and track and football, you're not going to be good at any of them. You know, this is, it's, it's basic common sense, but we don't apply this to the information that we consume. We, we sit on the internet and we consume everything. We dive down every rabbit hole. We feel like we're missing out from everything that comes through. And so there's, I try to redefine our concept of freedom, not as experiencing more necessary. I redefine it as self-limitation. The only true freedom is deciding which ways you're going to limit yourself. You know, what are my social media habits going to be? What is the information I'm going to consume?

What is the one sport I'm going to pursue? You know, this is the only freedom in life, especially when you live in a world of abundance of infinite opportunity. Um, because when you have infinite opportunity, like you just, you start losing control of your, your attention and your, your impulses. I always say that you're the top five people of, of whose content you consume. Yeah. So I strategically picked five people that I was going to consume every day. And those are the only five Instagram stories I watch and I will not watch anyone else's. And I put that limitation on myself. So, and that's, I think that's helped me or else I would go down a rabbit

hole. Like you said, of so many different people. Oh yeah. And when you look at successors, I'll use you and Lauren as an example. You guys really started in a niche area of writing on blogs. And over time, like the success of those writings evolved into, you know, as an example. You guys really started in a niche area of writing on blogs. And over time, like the success of those writings evolved into, you know, best selling books and podcasts and whatnot, but you didn't launch as, okay, I'm going to do a YouTube channel and Instagram. I'm going to do a blog. I'm going to go do a podcast. Like you, you started in one specific area. And I think a lot of people are seeing individuals create online now and like, oh, okay. They're doing all of those things. Maybe you're looking at a career that's been established over 10 years. You're saying, oh, okay, they're doing all of those things. Maybe you're looking at a career that's been established over 10 years. You're saying,

okay, I'm going to do all of those things. Like I will say I'm not the best on social at the heart. I'm a business person. Um, but I like to talk. So I was like, okay, I'll get on a mic. That's easy. Like have interesting conversations. If I try to do everything else, I think I'd be completely fucked. Sure. I mean, there, there's a practical component, which is, you know, Jack of all trades is an expert at none, but then there's like a, there's a wellbeing component as well. And I mean, there's a practical component, which is, you know, Jack of all trades is an expert at none. But then there's like a there's a well-being component as well. And I think, you know, what we didn't have to, you know, so back in the day, like our parents or grandparents, like there's three channels on TV. So if you don't like what's on, you just turn the TV off. You know, today there's essentially with the Internet, there's infinite number of channels. And so we've lost, we haven't, I don't think we've realized as a culture that we need to

develop the skill to just turn it off. And we're, instead we let ourselves be sucked down those rabbit holes consistently. Let's take a quick break. Do you have your ritual vitamins next to your copper tongue cleaner, your electric toothbrush and cinnamon toothpaste? I know I do. If you don't, you're missing out. Ritual is so efficient, you guys. It's basically everything you need in one

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to your tongue cleaner. So let's say somebody's reading your work or listening to this podcast or going to a seminar. There's a section of your book where you write about people feeling in control because they're able to change themselves or change aspects of their life. You say that ends up, and correct me if I'm wrong, being somewhat confusing. And then there's a sense of hopelessness. So how do you, if you're talking to an individual, how do you, I don't want to say coach them, but maybe point them in the right direction of like, this is the type of content you should consume, or this is the way you should contextualize consuming content. I think, I mean, if you think about it, if you have an infinite amount of information out there, infinite, infinite opportunity to access

that information, the most important question becomes what information are you going to decide is most valuable to you? And that is, that needs to be a conscious decision that we make for ourselves. Um, because if you just follow the viral clickbait that pops up all the time, I mean, that's, that's essentially the same thing as, you know, being a couch potato and watching TV for 10 hours. Like you have no, you were taking no active role in the information, uh, that, that dominates your life. And so like, like Lauren said, like, I think I really liked that idea of like picking five people because it's, it's, you, you essentially decide like, okay, these are the people I trust. You know, you look for sources of information that you trust, that relate to your interests and, you know, just bring joy to

your life in general. And then you just cut out the rest. Like you don't need to hear all sides of every story and get sucked into every little narrative. You know, one thing I find, I think one of the reasons we're seeing so much political dysfunction in our world today is that it's essentially that it's all of the quote unquote issues are basically just clickbait. You know, it's the stuff that actually affects us as a society doesn't even get mentioned anymore for the simple reason that it doesn't drive traffic, it doesn't drive clicks, it doesn't create outrage, it doesn't create tweet storms.

I think we talked about this before, too, where just people picking up stories that don't really necessarily have any relevance, but it's just you're outraged about something that literally has no effect on you. Yeah, exactly. It sounds like the takeaway to the audience here is that instead of subconsciously consuming social media on a day-to-day basis, sit down and have a

very real conversation with yourself, write it out about what you want to consume, how you want to consume it, when you want to consume it. Like I have this guilty pleasure where I read Daily Mail, which is like total trash, but I love it. And I, I, I, I, no, I mean like, I just, I love like just sitting down and eating a sandwich and reading daily mail. Like there's something about it that's relaxing. So I have told myself, okay, if I'm going to read daily mail, like I just want to read it at lunch. I don't want to wake up and read that because it's going to offset my day. So I think putting those limitations on yourself is super helpful. Um, instead of hopping out of bed and getting your cortisol all up because you've just

consumed 10 different, like it's, it's too much. Yeah, absolutely. And, and my argument is that that is actually what freedom is. Freedom is actually being able to decide, okay, this 30 minutes each day is what I dedicate to Daily Mail because it's not important enough. You know, it's a, it's an empty pleasure, you know? I've done the same thing with, my guilty pleasure is Twitch, like watching video games on Twitch. And it's, I, if I don't, if I don't create those parameters for myself, I will sit on that damn thing, like for three hours straight and not get anything done and so it's for me i've done the same thing my lunch break it's like all right load up twitch watch some you know i got a good twitch channel have you seen those ones now that they're where they're role-playing gta have you heard of

this no the people are like getting i just actually i just met with twitch yesterday and they were telling me that there's a channel that exists where all these gamers going in they actually role play like down to the t really the characters GTA. Like they are, they become the people. That's the whole thing going on. I see that. I think there's so much, this is kind of a tangent, but there's so much room on Twitch for like, I can't wait to see what Twitch is like in like 10 years. They're, they're going to start to evolve into other things. I mean, listen, Amazon is just, Oh yeah. They're taking over the world, man. With Twitch and everything. So there's a, there's a section of this book where you talk about people feeling in control because they feel like they can change, right? They can read your information

like, okay, maybe I'm out of control right now, but if I read Mark's book, I can change this aspect of my life and I'm, then I can have a source of hope and I can change and I'm in control of that. Sure. And you, you somewhat make the argument like, is like, how realistic is it that people can just change on a dime like that? Well, yeah, one thing I talk about, which I think it's a very kind of ironic thing about self-help, is, so this idea, let's say you go to a self-help seminar and you're like, you know what, I want to like, I'm too anxious all the time. I really want to get better. I want to change. I don't want to be so stressed out all the time. And that desire to change is your vision of hope. So that gets don't know what the hope for anymore you

know and god forbid you decide like well I guess I'm fine now I like myself no there's something else at that seminar that you're like oh shit I need to change that now and so you get you see a lot of people kind of get into this endless it's almost like a treadmill of, okay, I got to change this about myself. And then they go and change it. And they're like, oh God, now I got to change that. Oh, okay. Now I got to change that. And it's, and if you actually watch them, nothing's really changing. It's just their perception of themselves is constantly, you know, going around in circles. And so it's one of the arguments I make in the book is like, look, like, stop, you know, stop worrying about yourself. You know, essentially when you fall into this

trap of constantly wanting to change yourself, really what you're doing is you're just, you're just becoming self-absorbed because you're constantly thinking about yourself. If you don't want to be anxious, don't worry about yourself. Just worry about anxiety. You know, just worry about like not feeling anxious. Don't worry about what that means about you. What that says. Are you an anxious person? Oh, maybe I was anxious before. Well, now I'm not. It's like, who knows? Who knows what an anxious person is? Just like try to live your life as best as you can. And so it's one of my big, I actually, I take some shots at the self-help world in this book. And that's one of them, because I think I've always felt like there's a lot of

counterproductive aspects to the self-help world. And I think a lot of it comes back to that. Really what self-help is selling you is some kind of arbitrary vision of hope. You know, it's like, buy this book, be less anxious, go to this seminar, you know, feel better about yourself. And it's, you don't really know who you are in the first place. And you're not gonna really know who you are afterwards. You know, so it's just focus on the single moments

and actions that you commit to throughout your life. We've received some shit because, or maybe I've just received some shit because we went to this Tony Robinson. I was like like listen i appreciate what he's doing and i like his content a lot of read all his books but i looked around at the seminar and it's like you see all these people jumping up and down they're all excited and they're high-fiving and i just like felt like okay how many are actually going to go and apply this for a very long time for their to their life mark's right he's selling hope yes hope. But that's what I'm saying is that,

how, is that temporary hope? Or is that, you know what I'm saying? Well, the funny thing about Tony Robbins, and I have a lot of conflicted feelings about it. Like I think he's got a lot of really good advice. I like how you squint when you say careful here. Really good advice. No, so the funny thing,

so my take on Robbins is, I actually think a lot of his advice is good. I think the execution of it, I think the business model, his business model is not optimized for people. It's optimized for money. Yeah. And, you know, that is what it is. And I imagine his argument would be like it's a means to an end. You know, it's like, well, hey, I'm helping people, so whatever.

His message is good and his content's great, but I just think you have to contextualize how those seminars are put out. Oh, but so the seminar thing, you know, what I mean about his business model too is that it's optimized for, to create that kind of almost religious feeling of hope of like just getting a bunch of people in the room

and rah, rah, and pumping. He even says it, He pumps their state. He pumps them up emotionally so that they're a little bit more squishy and moldable to hear his advice. But the problem is those emotional pumps never last. And then on top of that, he's, you know, to kind of bring this back to the whole treadmill of hope thing that I was talking about. If you go spend, if you go spend time at Tony Robbins seminars, you actually, you get, you, you, you get pitched for other Tony Robbins seminars, like half the time you're there.

Me and Michael were so interested when we went, cause we were looking at the business aspect. So we went in and we're like, Oh my God, look at that. Like Stan that tells you that you need to go to Tahiti to do business. You know what I mean? There's so many different facets. It's interesting to look at it from a business perspective. Yeah. And it makes me feel a little skeezy too. The one that I saw was he did this whole thing where he pitched.

He like upsold. So everybody's at like a $1,000 seminar. But then he spends like an hour pitching a $10,000 seminar and he, everybody who signs up, he brings up on stage and he's like, these are the people who have tried, who are investing in themselves and decided to change their lives. You know? So he's basically like guilt tripping the whole audience for not signing up and stuff

like that. That just feels very emotionally manipulative to me. And, and, and it's, I think it's a perfect example of like leveraging those constant cycles of hope. You know, it's like, you've got these people in this room, they want to change themselves, but if they do change themselves, then they don't know what the hope for next. So you give them a, you know, a $10,000 seminar and that, then they can hope for that. What's happening here behind closed doors. Are you getting a lot of shit from a lot of these self-help authors? Are you getting people messaging you?

Dude, no. You know what's funny? I get cold shoulders. You know, it's... You get cold shoulders? Yeah. You're so approachable and nice. Yeah.

It's, you know, people, I'd say it's split, you know, pretty, I'd say it's like 70-30, like 70% of the people in the industry, you know, they really respect what I say, or a lot of them are like, thank God somebody's saying it. Um, but I'd say there's probably like 25, 30% of the people in the industry who just. Yeah. Cause bullshitters don't like being called out. Of course. Of course. Who are these people?

Drop names. Drop the names. No, I, I don't want to go that far, but it's, um, um, it is frustrating sometimes. Um, you're not a salesy selly sleazy kind of guy at all. No, I'm the opposite. Honestly, like my, my, my team is always like, dude, you got a pitch sometime. And I'm like, oh yeah, I forgot to sell my thing. Yeah. But look, look what that did. I mean, look how many sales you got. You're doing something right. Yeah. And I think I strongly believe that, and I know Gary V talks about this a lot. I strongly believe in this kind of comes back to information overload, but like in this day and age where there's just so much bullshit being slung around all the time, like authenticity

and trust is like one of the most valuable things you can have as, you know, an influencer or anybody with a platform. It's like, you cannot, and I used to tell people on my team this, it's, it's, it's protecting that trust that my readers have for me. Like the fact that I'm being honest, like I've told my team, I'm like, if we lose that, we lose everything. Like it's the only reason they're here is because they trust me and they they believe what i'm saying don't want the bs it's like me coming on it's okay listen you want to learn how to create a great podcast yeah give me 9.99 i'm going to show you how to do this like motherfucker like don't do that people wonder why that doesn't work i want to give it all away for free let me

teach you how to build a social media following. If you just give me $49.99. I completely agree with you that that's the foundation of an audience is keeping and maintaining that trash. It's so important. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It's funny you mentioned that, you know, my go-to, I get asked all the time, like, how

do I build a blog? How do I build a business out of a blog? And my go-to answer for years was write 50 posts and come back and ask me again. And like, I don't do it out of like a hundred hundreds of people who asked. Maybeett his investing secret. He's like, okay, if you sit down for five hours a day and you read these papers and these books and these things, you do that every single day and you make long-term decisions and you basically take this information. It's like, that's exactly what I've done. That's exactly how I made the money. He's like, well, I'll tell you like 99% of the people will never do this. It's just people don't want to put in the work. I mean, on this side of it, obviously running your media, people come and say, okay, how do you do a podcast? Listen, you have to go, you have to be willing to put in at least a year minimum yeah of really like

perfect i mean honestly when we first interviewed you we were in a warehouse maybe in our bedroom and it was yeah i think you guys it was very like i mean i think if someone if people go back and listen to that you'll see the the difference but you have to i mean listen like i said we're at almost 200 of these things now. You have to put in the time. It's just in anything you got to put in the time. And no course is going to fast track you there. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I always told people with blogging, it's like two years minimum before you can even define your voice. I didn't make a dime for three years and I blog seven days a week. Not one dime. Wow. So like when people ask me that, I'm like, you're, you gotta have your intention. Like it's gotta be the right intention of why you're starting. And you gotta love it. Like you gotta, every blogger I know who's made it,

if you want to call it that, they didn't start to make money. They started just because they really wanted to say something. And, um, you know, for me, it was just this goofy thing that my friends were doing. And I was trying to like, I had this affiliate business and, you know, blogging was, it was the cool new thing that everybody was doing in 2008. And so I was like, all right, screw it. I'll start writing a blog. And I didn't even take it seriously for like two, three years. But by then I built up like, you know, a cult following and found my voice and figured out like- You love doing it. Yeah, what works.

And yeah, and I discovered, I was like, wow, I really enjoy it. Like it was the highlight of my day. I'm obsessed with your blog. I love, my favorite post, I think I told you this on the last episode and I'm going to flub the title is about what are you willing to struggle for? Yes.

Oh, I love that one. So good. You guys go Google it. What is it? to flub the title is about what are you willing to struggle for? Yes. Oh, I love that one. So good. You guys go Google it. What is it? It's called the most important question of your life. It's so good. I actually wrote about it on the skinny confidential because it was so good. Is that how you guys originally got connected? That's how I, I actually took his article completely, obviously gave you all the credit and said, this is his article from his site. And this really resonated with me and shared it, shared it. And I think you like retweeted it or something a long time ago. Um, but I'm obsessed with that article. Everyone should read it. Yeah. It's that, that was one of my first like big viral articles. I think that was 2014. Besides reading your book, what can people do at home? That's something they can do every day that will provide more hope in their life.

I think, I think it's, it's important to actually just take time for yourself and just actually cut off. Like, I think it's becoming way, way, way more difficult to kind of just sit silently and think for yourself. I'm glad you're talking about this. Yeah. And it's so funny because when I tell people this, they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, meditation. Yeah, I've got this program I'm doing and I'm on like level six on my app. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. You just like sit and just twiddle your thumbs for a while

and think critically about about you know whatever's going on in your life you know journaling can be a really good way to do it um i'm actually like it's reading like really long books i'm becoming more and more of a fan of that it's just like finding the longest book that seems interesting to me. It sounds like you. And just take it slowly. Like there's something I'm trying to like train myself to savor, like really slow, gradual satisfaction. Because everything else that goes on in my life, like works against that. Yeah, it's fast paced.

I guess I'll share some good book recommendations with you. If you're looking for like- What are you reading right now though that's really long i'm reading well there's a do you know james clavell you've heard of him wrote the book shogun and taipan i've heard of shogun yeah those books shogun taipan so i mean they're like 1500 pages each like yeah that'll occupy some time you know what i do i instead of turning my phone off i let it. So you can't turn it on. And then I take a real book and like one of those vintage book lights, you know what I'm talking

about from Barnes & Noble, and that's like what I'll have. And that really helps. People don't like to be alone with their thoughts. I mean, think about it. You go for a run, you gotta put on a podcast or you gotta put on music. You do anything. You gotta go out with somebody. Nobody can sit alone at the bar by themselves. People don't like to be alone with their own thoughts. I just had a

conversation with a buddy of mine. He's like, listen, I think I talked about the other day. He's like, everything's going so well, but I've never been this depressed. And he's just constantly around people, whether it's in his office or girlfriend or whatever it is, he's constantly stimulated. And so when he gets alone, he doesn't, he like doesn't know how to function right now. Yeah. Yeah. It's almost you have to like desensitize yourself, you know, back to not having something to do constantly. And it's, you know, one thing I talk about in the book too is you just mentioned your buddy is like everything's going well in his life. Why am I so miserable? And I think that that's kind of the core question that so many of us are confronting right now. And one of the points that I make in the book is that

if you really look at just kind of how human psychology is built, like there's a Goldilocks level of stress that we need. Like if life is too easy and it's too like, it flows too well, there's not any resistance or challenge anywhere, it starts to lose its sense of meaning. Because it's the struggle is, to bring it back to the article you love, it's the struggle that actually creates the sense of meaning. It's by sacrificing something, by feeling some sort of pain that makes an experience, when we look back, feel like it was worthwhile and meaningful to us.

And so when you remove all those struggles and stresses and pains and everything, and it all just seems to feel superfluous and pointless. And so what I talk about is, you know, there's this Goldilocks level of pain. So there's too little, everything feels meaningless. And if there's too much, then you just become traumatized and emotionally damaged and all this stuff. So there's like, you need to like lean in just enough that you feel like there's meaningful challenge, but not go too far to one end and burn yourself out or not go too far to the other end and make yourself too comfortable. It's very war of art. Yeah. I selfishly want to know your process. Is there a time that you wake up every morning that you write your book?

Is it just when you feel like it? I like, I want to know how you've trained yourself to write these books. I mean, because I know how much discipline that is to sit down and stare at a computer screen. It's hard. It's really hard. I wish I had, I'm not good with like consistent structure. What I have found is that my best creative times are in the morning and at night. So how early and how late? I don't

like getting up super early. So usually, you know, if I'm working on a book, like working on this book, I would typically get up 7.30 or 8. And then I'd be working on it. I'd be sitting down by 9 and working on it. And for me, it's I have a laptop. So I have my normal computer and then I have a laptop, which on the laptop, everything is blocked. I have one of those programs. It's called Focus.

That's so smart. Everything is blocked. That's genius. Everything programs it's called focus that's so smart everything is blocked that's genius everything that's self-discipline yes well it's i needed it like uh i'm gonna do that to your computer so you can't watch porn on any of the screens focus only on the porn yeah when you're watching porn there's only porn uh but it's so everything is blocked and i and i even set up the program that uh it has a thing called hardcore mode which means you can't actually you like block yourself from getting into the settings and changing it so it's like i can't even go in and change it anymore um those programs are intent our producer taylor installed taylor what was that fucking program you installed the alarm we had to do that he woke up and he was

having alarm you have to solve like really in-depth math equations. The longer the alarm goes off and you can't turn it off. And what's he doing? He, but he couldn't get to the, he couldn't figure out the problems or the answers to the problems quick enough. So it just would go louder and louder and louder. You can't get out of it. I love it. But yeah, I mean, this is one thing I talk about too, is that I feel like for so long, our technology has evolved. You know, our brains are very flawed. Like we're very, we're, we're irrational creatures. We're bad at what, knowing what's going on. And it's, our technology has been developed to take advantage of those flaws rather than compensate

for those flaws. And so I love, I love seeing apps and programs like, like these, because it's, that's what we need. Like these apps make us better people. Like they, they actually implement the discipline and the freedom into our lives that we can't really implement for ourselves. And, um, and I, I think it's a, it's a much needed thing, but back to But back to the process, so I would write usually from like nine to noon and then I started getting really lazy in the afternoon. So I typically book like all my interviews

and business meetings and stuff like that in the afternoon. And then if I'm really deep into a project, my mind doesn't shut off at night. So the only way to get my mind to shut off and be able to go to bed is by sitting down and cranking out another few hours, like say eight, nine, 10, 11. Um, and then by then I'm probably like in a fetal position under my desk and crying and, you know, thinking nobody's ever going to read anything I write. And so that's a good time to go to bed. Only 7 million people are going to read it.

Yeah. You know, what I love about your work is that you're not scared to go anywhere. And one of the topics that you tackle here is religion. Why did you feel it was important to discuss religion and hope in this book? And maybe you could shed a little bit more light around the process there. I think religion, it's funny because I get asked about religion for years and I've never touched it for obvious reasons, but I felt compelled to go there with this book for, for a couple of reasons. One is I think religion is one of the central sources of hope for most people on the

planet. You know, talking about that better vision of the future for a lot of people like Jesus or Muhammad or whoever, like provides them that vision. And because it's a belief in some sort of supernatural being, that vision is unshakable. It doesn't matter what happens in your life. If you're a Christian, you still believe that, you know, God and Jesus did all this stuff and you're going to heaven or whatever. And most of the time, even if something does happen in your life, it just draws you closer in a lot of ways. Yes. And so I felt like it was impossible to not talk about religion, but I really wanted to be careful. Like I'm personally an atheist, but I wanted to be really careful to talk about religion in a way that wasn't divisive or judgmental.

Because I honestly, unlike a lot of atheists, I think there's a lot of psychological benefits and fulfillment to be found in religious practices. So that was the first reason. The second reason is that there's an interesting trend. If you look at, there's a lot of studies that show that religiosity is going down in the modern world in like the last few decades. And that is the rise of science or just like access to information. Yeah. I think science, technology, access to information, like we were talking about. I also think a lot of it is just that social life. So social life used to revolve around the church or the synagogue or whatever.

Social life doesn't revolve around those things anymore. So that's been happening. But I find it kind of unavoidable to notice that a lot of the like secular groups from political parties to, you know, sports fans to, you know, even people like brands, you know, people, there's a religious component. We were talking about Tony Robbins. There's a religious component to a lot of these corporate and secular groups and entities that's arising that you didn't see before.

I don't think it's an exaggeration to call a lot of what we see in both political parties in the US religious behavior. I think a lot of the behavior you see around brands like Apple and Nike and stuff like that, it's religious behavior. So I wanted to investigate that too, because that's also a source of hope. You know, if you're feeling like you have no aim or vision in life, but you really care about a certain cause and this political party is like championing that cause and doing everything they can to like, make sure it happens like that, that becomes your avenue for hope. It's in a weird way. It's, it's a way that I see a connection between, you know,

all these increases in depression and anxiety and suicide and whatnot. And then also kind of the, the religiosity of politics and corporate life that's been happening. Well, I like the way you break it. I mean, even in your first book, you don't only, when you read your work, you don't just look inward at yourself. I mean, that's part of it, right? Looking in the mirror and really analyze yourself, but you also call society out in general. And why I wanted to bring up the the aspect of religion is whether it's a political party or brand or an actual religion you you write about the us versus them dichotomy yes and i think that is interesting like even the things like if you like one of the things you're like if you don't

example you use if you don't support the war then you support terrorists but it's like basically pitting you know it's like if you're not with us you're against us or god created science to test faith in god therefore anything that contradicts the bible is merely tests of our faith in god like you write these these ways and it really you know i'm not for against one way or the other but it at least forces the question of like actually am i looking at this in an unbiased open-minded way or am i looking or am i just being completely biased here and and it's so there's a whole section anyone who criticizes feminism is sexist yep and i've gotten that a lot like i've actually gotten a lot of emails of like just for criticizing a woman people call me sexist i'm like well no

those are very different things just because i criticize one woman doesn't mean i'm criticizing all women on the planet um but it's uh yeah i there's a very long section in that chapter about the us versus them dichotomy and i think it's important because we all kind of our natural psychological tendencies is to fall into these dichotomies like it is the tribal heritage of our species is to start to be biased, to see certain in-groups and out-groups and to see people who are similar to us as more righteous or more, you know, or better, superior than people who don't, are different than us or share different values than us. And the only way to really surmount that is to A, be aware of it

and B, kind of be skeptical of this whole hope business in the first place. You know, it's like, we need these visions in our lives to move us forward. But if you cling to that vision too tightly, it becomes destructive. And you start finding, if it comes down to hurting another person or protecting your hope vision, a lot of people will protect their hope vision and let the other person suffer. And that I think is the fundamental kind of moral question that's going on today. Sounds like we need to take the reins into our own hands and not let outside influence dictate where we're going. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's hard because we, we need to engage in society, society and listen to other people and care about other people. But it's also

at the same time, we, we can't let ourselves get so... And again, coming back to the technology, I think social media and just the media landscape in general right now is conducive to forming these in-groups and out-groups, these us versus them dichotomies very quickly and very intensely. Like, it's amazing. You'll see something... Like, my vice right now is Twitter. And it's amazing you'll see something like my my my vice right now is twitter and it's amazing how it's it's wild out there it's oh man it's it yeah it's crazy i don't even read the feed i don't even i don't click the feed i know i know and i don't know why i do don't do it but it's it's you'll see these like flare-ups you'll see like some are there'll be like two economists like what you know there'll be like two economists, like one, you know,

there'll be an economist at like Stanford and another economist at like Harvard and they disagree about something and you go into the comment threads and it's like by the time you get to comment number eight. You might as well read Daily Mail. Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. Actually the Twitter feeds are some of, maybe it's a lot worse. But it's just people trashing each other and slapping labels on each other. And so I think there's something about this, you know, the media, social media, but also the media in general today, the way information is kind of transmitted throughout society that just makes these us versus them dichotomies like flare up really fast and really intensely. I really don't like where we're getting into society where it's like one side or the other yeah i think that's so dangerous right like yes you could be fiscally conservative and socially liberal but at this

like in society now if you're on one side or the other it's like nope you can you have to be one or the other and any issues that fall and if it's not on this side of the fence then you then then you're over you can't talk about it i i hate that that's where we're at, where we have, because you know, I don't get too political on this show, but being in a position where the decision's already been made for you based on the decide that you, or the side that you decide to identify with is, is a bad position to be in. Yes. I agree. And the other thing that drives me crazy is that people instinct, instinctually try to like find which side you're on. You know, I get emails all the time, you know, trying to figure out which side of the political spectrum I'm on, which side of each issue I'm on. And if it's like there's any hint that I'm on this side or that side, you know, I'll just get blasted by the other side. It was funny actually writing this book. One thing that I very intentionally did as well, because I have, you know, I have a lot

of readers. I think most of my readers are probably on the left, but I have a very large readership on the right as well. And so I really wanted to write this book and have a serious conversation about religion and politics with, that could be read by either side, you know, conservative or liberal, and both sides would see themselves and see... I think bridging the gap a bit.

Yeah, and I even told my publisher, I said, I think I'm in kind of a unique position to do this and I really want to write it in such a way that it doesn't condemn either side. It's not divisive. Yeah way that it's, you know, it's not, doesn't condemn each side, either side. It's not divisive. Yeah. And it's, it's funny because there were, there were some people, there were some people, you know, there were some sections where people were like, well, man, don't you think Trump

should, you should talk about Trump right here? You know? And I'm like, no, that would defeat the whole purpose. You know, it's, it's, I really wanted to write something that was universal and, and coming back to the, you know, being number one in 13 different countries, it's this type of this, whatever's going on here, all the polarization and the divisiveness and a lot of the anxiety and stress and panic and everything, this is happening all over the world right now. And so I want my readers in Korea or India or Brazil to also read it and see themselves. You know, they don't care about Trump or healthcare or whatever, you know?

And there's a chance that people read this five years from now in which they wouldn't be around at all. Totally. It blows my mind that anyone puts one speck of their energy towards trying to figure out what side you're on on an issue. Like, honestly, people need to put energy into themselves as opposed to emailing you worried about that, in my opinion. I mean, I completely agree. But I also, it's, you know, they have their little tribe.

Their little tribe is where they get hope. And they like my writing. And so they want to know if I'm part of their tribe because it makes them feel better. And, and I get that, you know, it's, it's. You have to be empathetic, I guess. Yeah. I mean, I see where it comes from, but I definitely, you know, in the book, I argue against it.

Here come the emails. Before we wrap up, tell us where to find you. Uh, so markmanson.net is my website. The book is called everything is fucked. A book about hope comes out May 14th should be out by the time people hear this. Um, I'm doing a speaking tour all across the U S and probably Canada and Australia as well. Um, So you can check out tour dates at markmanson.net slash book tour. And then yeah, social media. Instagram. Do I have to?

Instagram is markmanson.net, all one word. And we'll leave your book in the show notes. And we'll also leave that article that I love about Struggle in the show notes. Yes. Mark, come back anytime. Glad we got to do this in person. Yeah, I told you it'd be better when we see each other. Anytime you want to come on the show. Yes. Mark, come back anytime. Glad we got to do this in person. Yeah, this is good. Told you it'd be better when we see each other.

Anytime you want to come on. This is great. We make our way out to New York sometimes. That'd be cool. Cool. Thanks for coming on. If you liked that episode, be sure to go to tscpodcast.com

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