The backwards law will change how you make every decision — Mark Manson: Full Interview

[0:00] My name is Mark Manson. I am the author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, [0:04] as well as some other works. I'm a YouTuber, podcaster, and my work focuses primarily on [0:09] the importance of values. This is Big Think, and today I'm going to be talking about how to grow [0:18] into an emotionally mature adult, how to develop a healthy sense of hope, how to improve your life [0:26] by changing your values, and how to find success through failure. Chapter 1. Becoming an emotionally [0:36] healthy adult. One of my spicier arguments is that I think happiness is greatly overrated [0:44] in today's age. I think people focus on it way too much. I think their focus on it backfires [0:51] pretty consistently. But worst of all, I think people have started confusing comforts and highs [0:58] for the same thing as happiness. It's interesting, if you look at the ancient world, Aristotle actually [1:03] argued that there are two versions of happiness. There's hedonia, which is kind of pleasure, [1:08] comforts, short-term satisfactions. And then there's eudaimonia, which is kind of a deeper [1:14] purpose-driven, this is a meaningful way to live my life kind of feeling. And I think the modern age [1:23] has been very optimized to promote as much hedonia as possible. Everything is designed to make us as [1:29] comfortable as possible, to give us quick dopamine hits all the time, to make us feel good all the time, [1:36] and to promise us really simple superficial happiness all the time. But the problem is, [1:42] is that what actually drives life satisfaction is that sense of eudaimonia, that sense of [1:48] my life was worth living, I have zero regrets, everything I've suffered or struggled through [1:56] was worth the trouble. One thing to keep in mind in all this is an idea that comes from Alan Watts that [2:02] I call the backwards law. And basically the backwards law is that the more you chase a positive experience, [2:07] that chasing in and of itself is a negative experience. And the more you accept a negative [2:14] experience, the more that acceptance itself is a positive experience. So you see this show up in [2:21] all sorts of different areas of life, different ways. You know, the, the, the more you try to impress [2:27] people, the less impressive you're always going to feel. The more beautiful that you want to be, [2:33] the uglier you will constantly see yourself. The more money you want to make, the more you will feel [2:39] too poor and inadequate, like you don't have enough stuff. The more love you feel like you need, [2:45] the more lonely and isolated you will feel. The more spiritually enlightened you want to become, [2:51] the more self-centered and narcissistic you'll likely end up being. The more you try to be happy [2:57] all the time, the more easily you'll be upset. Whereas if you just accept that sometimes life is hard and [3:02] shit goes wrong, the more happy and easygoing you'll become. So the significance of the backwards law [3:09] is important because so much of what we're exposed to on a day-to-day basis is kind of selling us these [3:15] benefits of self-perception. Hey, look at this, buy this product. You'll become more beautiful. [3:20] You'll become happier. This will solve your confidence issues. Hey, we can fix your health in [3:25] 30 days or your money back. You know, all of these things, they sound very enticing, but [3:30] what you discover as you start to go down that road is that you actually increase the likelihood [3:36] of your negative experiences because you are constantly chasing that positive. So what I tell [3:41] people is I say, instead of asking yourself, what's going to make me happy, ask yourself, [3:46] what am I willing to struggle for? What are the problems I actually kind of like having in my life? [3:53] Sometimes when I give talks, I ask the audience, what kind of masochist are you? What's like the pain [3:59] that you secretly enjoy that most other people don't? Because it's in that pain, that special [4:06] relationship that you have with that struggle, that's actually probably where most of the meaning [4:11] and purpose in your life is going to be found. It's going to be found in the struggles that you [4:17] kind of relish having and in the challenges that you are most proud of overcoming. And this comes back [4:23] to that backwards law and that when you're constantly chasing the positive experiences, [4:27] you end up on this experience of like a treadmill and that every day and every moment you're looking [4:33] for the next hit, the next high to keep you going. Whereas when you find the negative experiences that [4:39] you're happy to accept, that you're willing to embrace, that embracing of that negative experience [4:45] is actually what's going to generate a much longer and sustained positive experience. [4:51] Because this is the sneaky truth that most people don't understand is that happiness is not something [4:57] that you pursue and achieve in and of itself. It's the natural side effect of finding something more [5:03] meaningful and purposeful in your life. If you find something that feels important, that's worth [5:10] giving a fuck about, the happiness will happen on its own anyway. I think another common affliction [5:16] today is this idea that we are each special and unique. And because we're so special and unique, [5:24] we deserve special treatment, special results, a special place in the world. Ultimately, what this [5:31] breeds is a sense of entitlement. It's a sense that we deserve certain outcomes without having to put in [5:37] the effort or the work. And I think this comes from two different places. I think one was very well [5:42] intentioned, which was our parents raised us, telling us that we were special and amazing and [5:48] unique and that we had unique gifts to share with the world. And they simply did this because the [5:54] self-esteem research at the time said, this is what you're supposed to tell your kids. Of course, [6:00] nowadays, we realize that that's not the case, that when you raise children telling them that [6:06] they're special and they deserve to have everything, you're not raising a human with high self-esteem, [6:10] you're raising a little narcissist who thinks that they deserve all the benefits without any of the [6:15] costs. Now, what most people don't realize is that there's two flavors of narcissism. And when most [6:22] people think of an entitled narcissist, they think of what's known as a grandiose narcissist, which is [6:26] the person who believes that they are bigger and better than everyone else, that they are amazing and [6:32] perfect and the best and they deserve special treatment because they're so superior. But there's a flavor [6:38] of narcissism that most people haven't heard of, and that's the vulnerable narcissist. The vulnerable [6:43] narcissist defines themselves as a special, unique victim. Everything has gone wrong. Everything [6:51] is unfair. They've been treated uniquely poorly. And because of all those things, they deserve special [6:59] treatment. And what's interesting is that grandiose narcissists and vulnerable narcissists, while having [7:05] completely opposite attitudes and justifications for their selfish behavior, the result is exactly the [7:11] same. Everyone should pay attention to me. Everybody should stop everything they're doing for me. [7:17] Everybody should give everything I want to me. I think the second cause is just the nature of [7:23] how the internet has evolved itself, is that everything is personalized. It's catered exactly for you. [7:28] You get online and everything in your newsfeed is perfectly curated for your interests and the [7:35] things that you care about and the things that you want to know about. All of the ads are directed at [7:41] how special you are and how much you deserve this outcome and how, how, if you just buy this product, [7:47] then you are going to live up to all the potential that you always knew that you had. I think this [7:53] messaging has become the water that we all swim in and it's terrible for our mental and emotional health. [8:00] Most conventional self-help techniques are really just focused on these sugar highs of making you [8:08] feel a little bit happier for a moment or making you feel special for a moment. Like the idea that [8:14] you should stand and look in the mirror and tell yourself that you're beautiful or you're smart or [8:18] that people are going to like you. Ultimately, the research shows that that's not that effective. [8:25] In fact, what the research finds is that a lot of these techniques like visualizations and [8:30] affirmations and gratitude practices, they work better for the people who don't need them. So if [8:36] you already feel good about yourself, then yeah, standing in the mirror is going to make you feel [8:40] a little bit better. But if you feel like crap about yourself, the only thing that standing in the [8:46] mirror reciting lines to yourself reminds you of is that you feel crap about yourself, that you are the [8:52] type of person who needs to stand in front of a mirror and say affirmations to yourself. [8:56] It just makes you feel more pathetic. So a lot of these techniques, they are sold and marketed as [9:03] solutions to feeling happy and fulfilled and satisfied every day of your life. But really, [9:09] they're just amplifying what's already there. So when I was in my 20s, I developed a really intense [9:16] fascination with developmental psychology, you know, like most 20-year-olds. And I started reading a lot of [9:24] really brilliant and famous researchers from Jean Piaget to Lawrence Kohlberg to Robert Keegan, [9:31] Eric Erickson. And they all have these amazing frameworks of just how people develop throughout [9:38] their lives. And the early developmental psychologists like Piaget, they began in early [9:44] childhood. And they kind of looked at how an infant develops basic logical reasoning and rational skills [9:51] and can identify, you know, the difference between self and other. And then other psychologists came [9:56] along later and they continued by looking at how adults develop and how different moral frameworks [10:03] arise at different parts of our lives and how there are different tensions at different ages that really [10:10] define how we see the world. So I just kind of became obsessed with this, with a bunch of these theories [10:16] and frameworks. And I eventually kind of simplified everything into a framework that I think really [10:23] ties together a lot of what we're trying to achieve in our lives. So I broke it down into three really [10:29] simple categories. There's childhood, there's adolescence, and there's adulthood. Each is defined [10:35] by something very simple, but the progress from one stage to the next is not necessarily guaranteed. [10:41] So the child sees the world in the simplest of ways, which is, I want a thing. Do I get the thing or [10:49] not? You know, the child wants ice cream. It reaches for the ice cream. The child wants a cookie. It [10:54] reaches for the cookie. All it understands is I want this thing and I either get it or I don't get it. [11:00] If I get it, I'm happy. If I don't get it, I'm unhappy. After being upset enough times, I start [11:05] developing a theory of the world that explains why I don't always get a cookie when I want it. Well, it turns [11:10] out mom gets to decide whether I get a cookie or not. And it also turns out that mom has a different [11:16] experience and perspective than I do. Oh, that's actually really interesting. There are other people [11:21] who have their own perspectives of how the world works and they have their own desires. They want [11:26] their own cookies or they don't want their own cookies. And sure enough, when you look at a lot [11:31] of studies, young children, they don't have a concept of self yet. They don't understand that other [11:39] people have different perspectives than themselves. They're not able to empathize [11:43] like older humans are able to empathize. They're not able to understand social status or social [11:51] signaling or cultural standards or anything like that. And so once the child develops these theories [11:56] of mind, they enter the adolescent stage, which I kind of think of as like the transactional stage [12:02] of life. If you think back to high school, essentially what high school is, is everybody's trying to [12:09] barter with each other for social status, right? It's like, oh, if I wear this jacket, maybe they'll think [12:15] I'm cool. If I wear the right shoes, then maybe I'll fit in and they'll be friends with me. If I say the [12:21] funny thing in class, then, you know, maybe the cute girl will pay attention to me. Everything is [12:27] conditional. It's tit for tat. It's if I do this, it will get that reaction out of that person. [12:34] And this is very logical, right? Because once you understand that, like, okay, every other person [12:39] has their own perspective, then what is the behavior that I need to do that is most likely going to make [12:46] them allow me have my cookie? Now, this carries over into the real world. And in fact, there's a lot [12:51] of relationships in the real world that function this way that are very conditional. Like, you know, [12:55] the coffee shop I went to this morning, I have a conditional relationship with the barista. [13:01] I don't really care who they are or where they went to school or where they grew up. I just want [13:06] them to give me my coffee and give it to me quick, right? And that's fine. That's fine in very small, [13:12] marginal situations. But what you start noticing as you go through life is that this constant [13:17] conditional interaction with people, it's exhausting. It feels inauthentic. It feels like you're [13:24] performing all the time. And even when you get people to like you, it's very unsatisfying. [13:31] And so what you eventually start to realize is that the only way to truly be happy with other [13:36] people and be happy in the world is to behave unconditionally, is to find something in your [13:42] life that matters so much to you that you're willing to be disliked for it, that you're willing [13:48] to suffer disapproval. You're willing to not get the cookie because you found something more [13:53] important than the cookie. And this is what adulthood is. It's finding the things that [13:58] really you're willing to plant your flag in and say, this is who I am, take it or leave it. [14:03] And if I'm not for you, that's totally fine. I get it. Live and let live. But I'm going to go look [14:10] for the people that are right for me and that share in these values. Now, the tricky thing is, [14:15] is that I think a very large percentage of people get stuck in that adolescent mindset, [14:20] that they're stuck bartering with the world, performing for approval all the time. [14:26] And I think a big reason for that is that the modern world is more transactional. It is more, [14:33] you're exposed to so many different people in so many different ways. And there's so many [14:37] different opportunities that you feel like you should be performing all the time to get what [14:42] you want. And so if you never watch that performance fail enough times to start living [14:47] virtuously, then you'll never cross over into that adult framework of living. And if you don't cross [14:54] over into that, if you don't find the thing that you're willing to be disliked for, then you're [14:59] never going to have a stable, happy relationship in the world. If we zoom out, like philosophically [15:06] speaking, the reason we want to get to adulthood is because living that way makes us anti-fragile. [15:15] Like the adolescent mindset, the childlike mindset, they're very fragile. They're easily disrupted. [15:21] If things don't go your way, if you don't say the right thing, if you don't do the right thing at [15:26] the right moment, everything falls apart. Whereas with the adult mindset, if you just have something [15:33] that you stand for and you're willing to struggle for, and you're willing to suffer through being [15:38] disapproved for, any hardship or setback actually makes you stronger. It actually shows you, [15:45] it helps you adapt to new circumstances. It helps you find new ways and reasons to work towards the [15:53] thing that you believe in or stand for the thing that you care about. And the funniest thing about [15:59] all this too is, you know, I went down this like deep modern psychological rabbit hole. And when I got [16:08] to the bottom of it, I just found Aristotle. This is basic ancient Greek, Aristotelian philosophy 101. [16:16] His whole argument was third basic virtues. These are things that you can practice in each and every [16:22] single moment that you can practice when people love you and when they hate you, that you can [16:27] practice when you're broke and when you're rich, that you can practice when, uh, things are going [16:32] well. And when things are a total fucking dumpster fire, they're in your control at any given time. [16:39] And they're always socially constructive regardless of where the political fault lines are that week or [16:47] that month. And if you prioritize them, if you make them your highest values, you can pursue them in [16:53] every moment. You can live unconditionally. You can be anti-fragile. You can gain from failure and [16:59] rejection. You don't have to perform for others. You don't have to chase status or accolades. You don't [17:05] have to prove anything to anybody. It's, it's this basic virtue ethic that has been sitting in front [17:12] of us for the entirety of Western history. And I, I found myself, uh, staring at it in the face, [17:21] uh, in between scrolling on TikTok and Instagram being like, oh, this was the answer all along. [17:27] And so I think ultimately it's, we are all developing towards an adulthood that is [17:33] just reflective of what some of the wisest minds in history called out all along that just pursue [17:41] virtue, just value the timeless things that are good for everybody. And don't get lost in the hedonic [17:51] treadmill of chasing more likes or chasing a couple more bucks or getting the next car, getting the next [17:58] date. Cause that's, that's temporary. That's a, it's, it's just, it's a high and it's just going [18:05] to create more suffering than it alleviates. So I guess we're back at the start. [18:12] Chapter two, developing a healthy sense of hope. [18:21] So there's something I call the uncomfortable truth of life, and it's not fun to hear or think [18:27] about. And that is basically that you and everyone, you know, are going to die. And that basically [18:34] nothing we do is going to matter in the grand scheme of things that in the infinite expanse of [18:41] the universe, we're just insignificant, microscopic dust milling about, and none of this matters. And [18:51] while that sounds very dark and fatalistic, I do think there is an optimistic view of that, and that [18:58] we get to create and construct meaning for ourselves. We get to decide what matters in our lives, [19:05] and they sustain us through hardship and challenges. And when things go wrong, our hope keeps us [19:13] getting up in the morning and moving forward. But there's a dangerous side of hope as well, which [19:19] most people don't think about. And that is that we defend our hopes often violently, that we cling to [19:27] our hope because it sustains us so much emotionally. And so if we hope for the wrong things, or if we hope [19:35] for things that are unrealistic, we can end up painting ourselves into a corner where living a [19:44] fulfilling life is simply impossible. So I break our hopes down into three component parts, and these [19:52] component parts are largely based on self-determination theory, which is the predominant framework for [19:57] understanding motivation and psychology. So the first one is, do you have a sense of autonomy? Do you feel [20:03] like you control your future? Do you feel like you're able to make decisions for yourself? The second [20:09] component is, do you have something that you feel like is more important than yourself? Is there something [20:14] in your life that you're willing to struggle for or sacrifice for? And then the third is, do you feel [20:20] like you belong to something? Do you feel like you have a tribe of people around you who share your [20:26] values or support your values as you pursue them? And if you have all three of those things, then you can [20:32] develop a healthy sense of hope. But as we'll see, each one of those three things gets very [20:38] complicated. So the first complication comes around autonomy and self-control. And that is essentially [20:45] that self-control is an illusion. What psychology shows us is that we are fundamentally irrational [20:50] actors. We are very emotionally driven, and then we rationalize our emotional decisions after the fact. [20:57] And so a lot of what we think about in terms of self-discipline, habits, goal setting, [21:03] self-control, these are largely dictated by our emotional impulses. And so paradoxically, [21:10] the way to develop more control and discipline in your life is not to implement rigid structures and [21:18] just brute force everything with willpower. It's actually to develop a better relationship with [21:23] your own emotions. Because once you get in touch with your emotional impulses, you can start directing [21:29] them in more productive directions. Plato characterized it as a chariot and a horse. And the rational [21:36] thinking part of ourselves is the chariot with the whip and the reins trying to control the horses of [21:43] our instincts and making sure that we go where we actually want to go. So imagine that we have two [21:49] brains. We have the thinking brain and the feeling brain. And imagine that our consciousness is a car. [21:54] Most of us assume that the thinking brain is driving the car, and the feeling brain is in the passenger [22:01] seat being this kind of noisy child, you know, screaming, looking at stuff out the window, getting [22:08] excited or upset about various things. But the truth is, is that it's actually the opposite. The feeling [22:14] brain is driving the car, and the thinking brain is sitting in the passenger seat and trying to act as [22:21] the navigator. So the job of the thinking brain is to effectively communicate to the feeling brain to [22:27] kind of almost like a, a dog tame the feeling brain into going where it should go. Because if you don't, [22:37] then the feeling brain is just going to drive over the median into oncoming traffic, follow whatever [22:43] shiny object that it wants to chase after. And so this struggle and tension between our thoughts and [22:48] emotions is ever present. And really what it boils down to is developing a healthier relationship [22:56] with ourselves, an understanding of our emotions without suppressing them, a comfort experiencing [23:04] various emotions without overindulging them, and learning how to direct some of our impulses and [23:12] cravings without overdoing them. In my book, Everything is Fucked, a book about hope, I write a full [23:20] chapter about Isaac Newton as kind of an allegory of understanding how our emotions and our identity [23:25] interact with each other. In that story, I create Newton's Three Laws of Emotion. The first one is, [23:32] is that for every action, there will be an equal and opposite emotional reaction. So every action that [23:38] we take in our life or every experience that we have in our life, whatever its impact on our identity, [23:45] how we identify ourselves, there will be an emotional reaction that is proportional to how we perceive [23:52] that experience to interact with our identity. So let's say I have a large identity as an author and [23:57] I run into somebody on the street who says like, wow, you're a terrible hand model. Well, I don't [24:03] identify as a hand model. It's not a core part of how I see myself. So I'll probably just kind of laugh [24:09] and be like, wow, that's really weird. But if I run into somebody on the street who like stops me and [24:14] says, oh, wow, I read your books. You're a terrible author. Since that's such a core part of my [24:19] identity, I will probably have a proportional emotional response to that experience. And I'll [24:25] probably get very upset, embarrassed, confused, angry, whatever it is. But the emotional response [24:30] will be directly proportional to how much the action is taking effect on my identity. [24:37] Newton's Second Law of Emotion is that your identity is the sum of all of your emotional [24:41] experiences throughout your life. So if you have consistently felt bad around yourself, [24:46] you will start to develop an identity of somebody who is bad, somebody who's just fails at things, [24:52] is incapable of doing things. Nobody's ever going to like you and so on. Whereas if you experience a [24:58] large sum of positive experiences through your life, you'll develop an identity around those positive [25:03] experiences. And ultimately, this is why we adopt certain identities. I adopt an identity as an author [25:09] because I have intense positive experiences trying to be an author. I've adopted an identity as bad at [25:16] cooking because I have pretty much nothing but negative experiences every time I try to cook. [25:22] And in Newton's Third Law is that there's an inertia to your identity, that your identity will [25:26] continue to be your identity until some force acts against it and redirects it. And so when you're [25:32] trying to change who you are or try to change your understanding of yourself, the only way you can [25:38] actually do that is to go have contrary experiences. Go out into the world and do things that act against [25:44] the identity that prove your self-definition wrong in some way. Now, the lesson to take in all of this [25:50] is that ultimately you want to identify with things that are beyond yourself. As long as your emotional [25:56] stability is based on how you perceive yourself and others perceive you, it's going to fluctuate [26:02] wildly and you're going to lose control of your own actions. But if you have something outside of [26:07] yourself that you identify with, that you really give yourself to, then that grants you a certain [26:14] amount of stability in your life because it's no longer about you, right? It's like if you give your [26:20] life to raising a family, then you no longer care if people criticize you for being a bad author or a bad cook. [26:32] It doesn't matter to you. There's this more important thing outside of yourself that you [26:37] can tether your hopes to that provides more emotional stability and a greater amount of [26:42] self-control. And finally, the third complication comes around community. So when we find something [26:50] outside of ourselves, we develop like an emotional gravity in that we attract people with similar [26:56] values as our own. And we repel people with opposite values of our own. So when you start to value [27:02] something outside of yourself, you will naturally start to coalesce with other people around similar [27:08] shared values. And eventually, you develop a community. Now, communities are amazing. They're [27:15] great. They're absolutely fundamental to our mental health. We're very much wired as social creatures. [27:22] Our relationships are probably the highest correlated thing to our happiness and well-being out of [27:28] everything that we've ever measured in psychology. So developing a community around shared values is [27:33] amazing. It's incredible. The problem is, is that humans have a tendency to not just create a benign [27:41] community and celebrate something. Once they've got the community, they like to play politics. [27:47] They like to start thinking, you know what? Our little community is better than that community. [27:53] I think our community should have more access than that community. I think our community should maybe [28:00] be in charge of that community over there. And this is where hope can turn dangerous. Because if your hopes [28:06] hinge completely on your community having more access or power or resources over that community, [28:13] then your hope essentially hinges on gaining power and gaining control over others. It starts to hinge on [28:22] something that is by definition exclusionary and antagonistic to the rest of the world around it. [28:28] And I think an unintended side effect of the modern world, by making it so accessible and possible [28:36] for people to form communities around shared values, we've unintentionally amplified the ability to [28:45] create strife and conflict around each other's hopes. All of these perspectives and ideas that I've [28:51] been talking about, they're not fun. They're not exciting. But they're good for you. And they make you a [28:57] better functioning human being. So in this sense, I think of them like psychological vegetables. [29:03] Nobody likes eating vegetables. But we all know we need to eat our vegetables. And vegetables are [29:08] boring. They're everywhere. They're ever present. They're in every meal, but they're always the least [29:13] exciting part of the meal. But the thing is, is that when we have a diet that's predominantly vegetables, [29:19] we end up becoming healthier. We're more energized. We have more ability to focus. We have more ability [29:25] to act in the world. It's ultimately what's good for us. Whereas chasing the highs of happiness, [29:32] believing that everybody should like you all the time, believing that you're special and you deserve [29:36] special treatment, these are like the sugar and desserts of our psychological diet. They feel good [29:44] for a brief moment, but they always come with a hangover. And they always make us deeply unhealthy in [29:50] the long run. Chapter three, how to fix your life by changing your values. I think a lot of people [30:02] discount my work simply because of the profanity. They think that it's juvenile, that I'm kind of [30:09] pandering to my audience by making them giggle. And I think what a lot of people miss about my work is [30:16] that the whole not giving a fuck thing, it's really just a bit of a Trojan horse for discussion of values. [30:23] Because if you think about it, we all have to care about something. We all have to give a fuck about [30:28] something. The question is, what are we choosing to give a fuck about? And what we choose to give a [30:34] fuck about, what we give our attention to, or what we choose to focus on, ultimately that is a reflection [30:40] of our values, of what we are prioritizing in our lives, what we find most important to ourselves. [30:47] And that prioritization that we do internally and probably unconsciously, [30:52] ultimately has an effect on everything that we do. It becomes kind of the filter or the lens [31:00] in which we see everything. And so I think the big blind spot in the self-help industry, [31:06] it's not, how do I become happier or how do I become richer or how do I become more successful? [31:12] It's, why do you want to be happier? Why do you want to be richer? Why do you want to be more [31:17] successful? Like, what is success? How are you measuring that? How are you defining that? Because [31:22] if you're defining it in a really terrible way, if the underlying value is just bad, [31:28] then achieving that success is actually going to be a bad thing for you. You can waste years of your [31:35] life chasing this thing that's ultimately not going to make anything better. So this raises the question, [31:41] what should you give a fuck about? What is a good value? What's a good thing to focus on? Well, [31:48] I think there's a few principles that can help us figure this out. So the first principle is, [31:53] are you giving a fuck about something that is immediate and controllable? Is it something that [31:58] you can control within your own environment? So for example, the reason people-pleasing is a [32:03] terrible value is not because it's bad to be liked. We all want to be liked. The problem is that [32:09] you can't control what other people feel. And in fact, when you try to control what other people feel, [32:14] that makes you an asshole. You're interfering with their agency. But when you focus on what you can [32:20] control, your own behavior, your own honesty, your own vulnerability, that will make your relationship [32:27] stronger, but it won't necessarily make you liked by everyone. The second principle of having good [32:34] values is valuing something that is reality-based, something that you can verify and know to a certain [32:41] degree is true. We tend to get very caught up in fantasies and invent a lot of ideas in our head [32:48] about what's true about the world, the way other people should be, different beliefs about how [32:56] society should work. And it's unavoidable that we're going to be wrong about something some of the [33:00] time, but we should always be working towards some reality-based version of truth, simply because [33:07] believing in illusions ultimately is going to make us suffer. Being attached to the illusion that [33:14] everybody should say hi to me on Saturday morning, it's just going to piss me off every Saturday, [33:22] because it's unrealistic and it's based in this fantasy version of the world that doesn't actually [33:27] exist. This principle is particularly tricky because it requires us to constantly evaluate the [33:33] ways that we might be wrong, the ways that we might be believing in a fantasy or have some false [33:39] assumption about ourselves or other people or the way that the world should work. And then the third [33:45] principle for having good values is that it should be socially constructive. Now this sounds very obvious [33:51] and simple, but it gets very complicated because yes, you should be nice to people, you should be [33:58] helpful, you should believe in things and care about things that are good for society. I think we all, [34:03] the vast majority of us believe in something like that. The problem is, is that we all have a tendency [34:10] to delude ourselves into thinking that what's good for us is actually good for society. And so most of [34:16] the harms that we cause on the world are well-intentioned and also ignorant. So if we're trying [34:23] to live a life where we don't give a fuck, and by that I mean we're trying to live a life where we're [34:27] giving our attention or our focus in the right places, there are three subtleties that come along with [34:32] that. So the first one is that not giving a fuck is actually about being comfortable being [34:38] different. It's being comfortable with the fallout or repercussions of having a different opinion or [34:45] having a different point of view or caring about something that other people don't care about. [34:49] The irony is that the people who want to stop giving a fuck the most, they are the people who [34:54] are trying not to be different in any way, shape, or form. They're the ones who are trying to make [34:59] everybody happy all the time. They're the ones who are trying to just blend in with the crowd. [35:05] And ultimately that becomes very stressful because they don't stand for anything. They don't have [35:10] anything that they get to own and call their own. Which brings us to the second subtlety, which is that [35:16] the way to stop giving a fuck about adversity is to give a fuck about something more important than [35:22] adversity. And basically the way to stop giving so many fucks what everybody thinks all the time [35:27] is to find something more important than what everybody else thinks all the time. It's this idea [35:32] that you have to find something in your life that you're willing to struggle for, that you're willing [35:37] to stick your neck out for, that you're willing to plant a flag in and say, this is mine. This is what [35:43] I care about. This is what I stand for. And if you don't like it, fuck it, deal with it. Like not giving [35:50] a fuck, it doesn't get rid of adversity. It just makes the adversity okay. And then finally, the third [35:57] subtlety is the realization that you are always giving a fuck in every moment. You're always [36:03] choosing something to give a fuck about, right? Like if you're choosing to trying to not give a [36:09] fuck about what anybody else thinks, that is giving a fuck about what everybody else thinks because [36:14] you're trying to not give a fuck about it. So it's giving a fuck is not optional. It is something that [36:20] is very much hardwired into our psychology. It is something that is always operating and dictating [36:27] what we focus on and what we don't focus on. And so the question is, what are you choosing to focus [36:32] on? And what are you choosing to not focus on? What are you choosing to suffer for? And what are you [36:37] choosing to not suffer for? Where are the yeses in your life and where are the noes in your life? That [36:42] ultimately is the important question. So the tricky thing about our values is that we often lie to ourselves [36:50] about what we actually value. We say to ourselves and others, oh, I really care about honesty. And then we [36:57] turn around and lie to somebody. Or we say that we really care about our health, but we are [37:02] binging cheesecake on a random Thursday afternoon. So even getting an accurate sense of what we are [37:09] prioritizing, what we are giving a fuck about is often a difficult process. But there are two [37:14] techniques that I'm going to share with you that can help you figure out your values in the next 20, [37:19] 30 minutes. So the first one is what I call a time audit. And it's pretty simple. You take out a sheet [37:24] of paper, you write down what you spend your time on throughout the week and try to be as honest as [37:30] possible. And if you want to get really hardcore about it, you can actually track for five days. [37:36] How much time did you spend on the computer? How much time did you spend watching Netflix? How much [37:40] time did you spend talking to friends? Just doing that time audit often surprises people. They think [37:46] in their head, they're like, oh, I'm spending a lot of time at work. But then they realize they're not [37:51] doing a whole lot of work. Or they think that they're spending a lot of time keeping in touch [37:55] and connecting with family, but they're actually not talking to their family nearly as much as they [38:00] thought they were. So when you do the time audit, you get a clear picture of how many hours are going [38:06] into each activity in your life. And then you can also gauge those in terms of how much you actually [38:11] value them. And you start to realize like, oh, this thing that I barely value at all, I'm spending 15, [38:17] 20 hours a week doing it. Whereas the thing that I really value and I feel like I lack in my life, [38:22] I'm only investing two hours a week into it. The second technique you can do is a classic stoic [38:28] practice known as memento mori, which is you imagine your own death. You imagine that you're [38:34] on your deathbed and you're looking back at your life and you ask yourself what was worth doing and [38:41] what was a complete waste of time. And this practice is incredibly powerful because I think [38:46] nothing gives us real clarity on the value of the things in our life the way imagining our own [38:54] death does. Because most of the things that we care about on a day-to-day basis are not going to [38:59] matter anymore once we're dead. Only a few things are. And what you realize when you do this exercise [39:04] is that those few things that are potentially going to matter long after you're dead, those are actually [39:09] the things that you wish you were spending more of your time on. And as humans, we instinctually [39:13] avoid thinking about our own deaths. It's not fun. It's very uncomfortable. But I think it's so [39:19] useful for this reason. And there's a lot of different ways you can do it. You can project [39:24] into the future. Imagine when you're 80 and you're on your deathbed and you're looking back at your [39:28] life. You can do it that way. Another way to do it is imagine if you have one year left to live, [39:34] what would you spend the next year doing? Another way to do it is what Steve Jobs did when he was alive, [39:40] which is every morning he would look in the mirror and he'd say, if this was the last day I was going [39:45] to be alive, would I be happy with what I'm doing today? And if he said no too many days in a row, [39:50] then he would make a major change in his life. So there are a lot of different ways to attack it, [39:54] to approach it. But what's important is that you develop some sort of regular habit of at least [40:00] thinking about it. I think we resist not giving a fuck about things because we feel like if we let go [40:07] of something, it's going to go wrong. It's going to fall apart. It's going to fail. But the problem [40:14] is, is that any sort of growth or development comes from a feeling of uncertainty, comes from [40:20] not knowing what you're doing, comes from the willingness to be unsure about what's right and [40:27] what's wrong. One of the fundamental Buddhist principles is this idea of attachment, that all [40:35] suffering is ultimately rooted and being attached to, whether it's an idea, a feeling, a view of the [40:42] world. And I really see that as kind of an indictment on certainty and not doubting yourself. [40:50] And actually the experience of not giving a fuck about something is, it's actually quite liberating, [40:56] like narrowing your focus to just a handful of things that really matter in your life. [41:00] It's, you're not actually limiting yourself. You're freeing yourself from having to dedicate [41:07] mental bandwidth to dozens and dozens of things that ultimately don't matter. You know, it's funny. [41:13] I, I, when I was dating my wife, um, like a lot of men, I agonized over whether I should propose to [41:20] her or not. I spent months and months and months thinking about it and talking to friends and family [41:25] and, uh, just like weighing all the pros and cons. And I'm trying to like project into the future, [41:32] like understand like a clairvoyant, like, is this the woman for the rest of my life? Am I making the [41:37] biggest mistake ever? And it was funny because the second that I proposed all of the doubts and [41:46] uncertainty, it just melted away because all that mattered was that commitment. It's like, do I know [41:51] if she's the right person for me for the rest of my life? No, I don't, but I do know that I have [41:57] control over how much I commit to trying to make her the right person for the rest of my life. [42:02] And because I narrowed my focus to the one thing I had control of, it allowed me to, to turn off. [42:09] It was like turning off a hundred television screens in my mind of like all these alternative [42:14] realities, all these like ideas of like other people I could date and other lives I could live. [42:20] And like, what would happen if, if this happened or that happened, it all just got shut off. And [42:25] suddenly my mind went silent and there was just this resulting peace as a result. So it comes back [42:31] to this original Buddhist idea that it's what we cling to that determines our suffering. We all have a [42:39] natural instinct to crave certainty in our lives. And I think the more chaotic the world seems, the more [42:46] confusion we have around what to do, the more we crave knowing something for sure. I think most of [42:54] our suffering comes from our certainties about ourselves, about how the world should be, how people [43:02] should treat us, about ideas other people should have. When we cling onto those things and refuse to [43:09] let go, that's what causes all the tension and conflict, both within ourselves and with others. [43:13] And so I actually think that we should embrace more uncertainty. I think we should know less. I think [43:20] people should have fewer opinions and hold them more loosely because the way our identities work is [43:27] that the more I believe myself to be something, the more I'm going to defend it with everything that [43:32] I've got. In my book, I have this concept called Manson's Law of Avoidance, which states that the more [43:38] something potentially threatens your identity, threatens your certainty of who you are, the more you will [43:43] find ways to avoid it. And what's interesting about the law of avoidance is that it applies to both good [43:49] things and bad things. I think everybody's had an experience of avoiding something that could be [43:54] harmful or upsetting or uncomfortable for us. You know, we find excuses to not go to the gym. We find [44:01] reasons to not have a difficult conversation with a colleague. But a lot of us have also had experiences [44:06] where we avoid things that are good for us, that we sabotage our own opportunities, that we mess up good [44:13] relationships. And I think at our core, that happens for the exact same reason, that the good thing in [44:21] our lives also challenges our notion of who we are. It also potentially threatens our certainty of how we [44:30] see the world. And so our instinct is to resist it and to act against it. And so I think the looser you [44:36] can hold your identity, the less sure you can be about yourself or who you are, the less you can find [44:43] yourself, the more open you are to all of the experiences that are going on around you and the [44:49] more objective you can be as you choose to move through the world. So one way to actually look at [44:55] this in yourself is to do a little journaling exercise. So if you take something in your life [45:01] that you're struggling with and take kind of the core belief behind that conflict or that struggle [45:08] and just sit down and ask yourself three questions. First one is, what if I'm wrong? And take a minute [45:15] and write out all of the ways that you could potentially be wrong. You're not necessarily [45:19] saying you are wrong, but we just want to think through all the possibilities of maybe you're [45:27] mistaken somewhere. Maybe you're missing something. Maybe there's a perspective you haven't considered [45:31] yet. Then the second question is, what would it mean if I'm wrong? What would that say about me? [45:38] What would that say about my life? What would that say about the world? And this is where you [45:43] actually start to uncover a lot of the deep core sensitivities that you're probably avoiding dealing [45:51] with, right? It's like, well, if I'm wrong about this, then that probably means that I don't know [45:57] what I'm talking about. Or if I'm wrong about that, then that means I'm actually the problem in my [46:02] relationship. What you start to uncover are a lot of implications that you probably instinctively [46:09] avoid. And finally, ask yourself the third question, which is, would being wrong give me [46:16] a better or worse problem than being right? I think a lot of people would be surprised that [46:22] being wrong, although very painful in the short term to accept, gives them a much better problem [46:28] in their life than holding on to being right. But as soon as we let it go, the experience that we have [46:34] is a liberation, a liberation from all of the things that we don't have to care about. It's funny because [46:40] a lot of people, they hear this and they say, well, that's easy for you to say, Mr. Big, [46:46] successful author, you didn't grow up like I did, or you haven't been through what I've been through. [46:53] And what's funny about this is that I think the more hardship you've gone through in your life, [47:00] the more important this is, right? Like if you think about somebody who's very wealthy, [47:06] like a trust fund kid or something, they can afford to not figure out their values. They can afford [47:12] to kind of drift through life aimlessly and not worry about anything. Whereas like if you've grown [47:18] up in poverty, if you had a lot of tough shit handed to you throughout your life, you don't have [47:24] that luxury. Like you have to get focused. It is a hundred times more important that you know [47:30] what you're spending your time and attention on because you don't have the luxury of being able [47:37] to waste your attention away on things that don't matter. And the other irony here is that I actually [47:45] think it's easier the harder your life circumstances are. Like if you think about like a subsistence [47:51] farmer in India, they don't have many options. They wake up, there's one thing to do. You go out [47:59] and farm. There's no question. There's no like, oh, what am I doing with my life? Is this what I'm [48:05] meant to be? Have I found my purpose? No, they go out and farm because if they don't farm, they're not [48:11] going to eat. It's that simple. So any question of purpose or what they're valuing or what they're [48:16] prioritizing, it's already solved. They don't even have to think about it. Whereas if you're [48:21] like a typical upper middle class young person in the United States or, or Europe, you have [48:29] grown up with so many options, so many opportunities, so many different paths in life that you could [48:36] potentially take that it's petrifying to consider these things that you are, you probably feel [48:42] completely adrift because you can envision 20 different versions of your own future. And because [48:48] you can imagine 20 different versions of your own future, it is terrifying to pick one because that [48:53] means you have to kill the other 19. I think this is why this message is resonating so much in this [48:59] day and age, and particularly with these younger generations, because these are the first generations [49:04] that are growing up with this much optionality, with this much exposure to all the different live [49:11] paths that they could take. That's when you need values the most is when is when you could see all [49:17] of these different options and opportunities, but you only have access to take one. Ultimately, in all [49:24] of this, the important thing to remember is that the quality of your life is determined by the quality [49:30] of your values. And the quality of your values is determined by the quality of the problems that [49:36] come with those values. Because no matter what you choose to care about, no matter what you give a [49:41] talk about, it's going to create problems in your life. There are going to be struggles associated [49:46] with that thing that you care about. And so you want to care about the things that bring the right [49:51] problems, that bring the problems into your life that you are happy to have, that feel worth having, [49:57] because that ultimately is what's going to create that long-term sense of happiness, [50:03] that eudaimonic happiness. Chapter four, achieving the right kind of success. [50:12] Today, we live in a success-obsessed culture. People feel like if they can just make enough [50:21] money, if they can just have the right car or buy the right house, if they can find the right [50:27] partner, then everything's going to be fixed and fine. And what's tricky is that I think we tend to [50:34] be kind of bad at defining success for ourselves. We don't think very hard about how are we measuring [50:39] success? What is the metric by which we determine whether we're making progress or not? [50:44] And a lot of this comes back to understanding our own motivations, right? Like a lot of people, [50:51] maybe they want to have a really fancy car or a really nice house or live in a certain part of town, [50:56] and they think that's actually what they want, but really what they want is respect or approval or [51:03] attention. Not realizing that there are way easier ways to go about getting respect, approval, [51:09] and attention in your life than having to go spend a million dollars in a house on the other side of [51:15] town. If we don't question how we're measuring success, then we're going to be unclear on what [51:20] we're willing to give up to get there. And if we're not willing to give anything up to get there, [51:25] then we're basically guaranteeing that we're never going to be successful in the first place. [51:30] And these days, people are particularly obsessed with extraordinary success, like massive outlier [51:36] success, multi-multi-billionaire type success. And people want to replicate that, but I don't think [51:43] people are paying attention to the right thing. I don't think they realize what is actually involved. [51:49] Because if you want to achieve massive, extraordinary amounts of success, you have to do three things [51:54] well. And people tend to ignore or overlook two of them. The first one is, is that you have to have [52:01] a contrarian take. This is just basic logic. If you want to capitalize on an opportunity that is [52:08] greater than 99.9% of other opportunities, then you have to be willing to look somewhere that 99.9% [52:15] of other people are not willing to look. You have to find an idea that 99.9% of people think is a [52:22] stupid idea. You have to be willing to consider it. And the irony is that this willingness to be [52:28] contrarian, this willingness to look at ideas that other people think are ridiculous, usually goes [52:34] completely against why people want to be extraordinarily successful. People imagine [52:38] that if they're extraordinarily successful, they're going to be celebrated and everybody's [52:42] going to love them. Everybody's going to want to hang out with them and be friends with them. [52:46] And it's like, no, actually the thing that's going to make you that successful is going to make you [52:51] a pariah. It's going to make you look ridiculous. You're going to sound stupid. People are going to be [52:56] like, that guy is crazy. What is he on about? Step number two is you have to be right about that [53:03] contrarian idea. Most contrarian ideas are contrarian for a reason, because they're horrible [53:09] ideas. They're ridiculous. They're wrong. They're stupid. So you have to find that rare contrarian [53:16] idea that everybody else is overlooked and everybody else is wrong about. And then step number three is [53:24] you have to have enough conviction on that idea to execute on it massively. And this is where everybody [53:32] gets tripped up because they look at somebody like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, [53:39] whoever, name your famous, super successful person. And they look at like, okay, what was their morning [53:44] routine? How many hours a day were they working? What did they do with their weekends? Completely missing [53:50] the fact that this person took an idea that everybody else thought was ridiculous and then [53:57] completely rearranged their life to optimize for that idea. The optimization itself is completely [54:04] secondary. Whether you wake up at 4 a.m. or 6 a.m. or work 13 hours a day or 12 hours a day, [54:11] like it doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter. What matters is, is you found the right contrarian [54:18] idea. You're correct about it where most other people are incorrect. And then you invested massively [54:24] into it. Like one of the things Warren Buffett said himself is that over the course of a career that [54:30] has spanned nearly 80 years, the vast majority of his success could be boiled down to roughly a dozen [54:38] correct bets. And the truth is, is that almost nobody will do this because A, they're probably not [54:45] going to have a contrarian idea to begin with because they're too dependent on the people around them to [54:50] dictate what they think. B, even if they have a contrarian idea, they're probably not going to [54:56] be right about it. And then C, even if they're right about it, they're probably going to be too [55:01] scared to drop everything else they're doing and go all in on it. And even if you do get to the other [55:07] side of it, even if you do get all the money and the accolades and the fame, now you're in a situation [55:14] where everybody who comes to you, you don't know why they're there. Are they there to get something [55:20] from you? Are they there because they want something from you? Are they trying to take [55:25] advantage of you in some way? And you start asking yourself, where were these people before I was [55:30] famous? What you realize is that that extraordinary success, it creates conditions for people to be [55:36] attracted to that undermines the benefits of having them in your life, that it complicates your [55:43] relationships. It complicates your lifestyle. It makes you consider all sorts of repercussions and [55:50] motivations that you never had to consider before. I see this misalignment all the time with people [55:55] who come to me with questions. Obviously, I hear from a lot of aspiring writers and authors who come [56:01] to me for advice. And it's funny because so many people come and they're like, I want to be a writer. [56:07] I want to do what you do. I've got all these great ideas. How do I get there? And my answer to them [56:13] is always, go publish 50 articles and then come back and ask me again. And I say this for two reasons. [56:19] One is it determines who's willing to actually do the work from the ones who just want to fantasize. [56:26] But the other reason is that by actually writing 50 pieces and publishing them and getting feedback [56:33] on them, that in and of itself is probably going to solve 90% of the person's questions. They're [56:39] going to learn everything that they would have asked me. They're going to find out anyway. [56:42] And it's funny because I've been giving this answer to people for almost two decades. I've probably told [56:49] multiple hundreds of people to do this at this point. And only two people ever did it. [56:55] And what that tells me is that people want the result. They don't want the process. People want [57:02] the benefits. They don't want the cost. And if you don't want the cost of something, [57:07] then I would argue you don't actually want the thing. I went through this myself when I was younger. [57:13] Before I was a writer, I attended music school and I wanted to be a professional musician. [57:18] And it's funny because when I was in high school, I was the music guy. I'd bring my guitar to parties [57:25] and I'd sing and play songs. And it was kind of a social identity. And I loved it. It kind of defined [57:31] my whole adolescence. But when I got to music school and I actually tried to be a professional [57:36] musician, I realized something, which is that the experience of playing music for people and [57:43] hearing applause and being seen as this really talented guy on stage, that's like less than [57:49] 1% of what the experience of being a musician is. 99% of the experience is practicing and rehearsing [57:58] by yourself, alone in a room, being celebrated by nobody. And I hated that experience. I didn't enjoy [58:06] any aspect of it. And it took me about two years in music school to finally accept to myself [58:12] that I don't actually like being a musician. That because I'm not willing to sit in a room [58:17] by myself for five hours a day practicing songs, I'm also not willing to do what it takes to be [58:23] the guy on stage. So I think people need to stop separating the process from the outcome. [58:29] They need to realize that being a successful bestselling author is posting hundreds and hundreds [58:35] of articles online. It's having your writing ridiculed. It's having people trash you in the [58:41] comments. It's having people misunderstand you constantly. That is what the process is. That is [58:48] what the reality is. The benefits are just 1% of it. The other problem of focusing so much on the [58:55] outcome instead of the process is that it can paralyze you. It seems too big. It seems impossible, [59:01] like this gigantic mountain that you have to climb and surmount. And so I think people just lose [59:08] motivation and they become too afraid to start. You know, one of the most important life lessons I [59:12] ever learned was actually from my high school math teacher. His name was Mr. Packwood. And I remember [59:17] we were sitting in class, we were taking an exam, and I guess most of us were having trouble with it [59:24] because we were just sitting there staring at the page, not writing anything. And I remember he [59:29] stopped the class and he said, can I say something really quick? He said, let me give you a piece of [59:34] advice. He said, if you're stuck on a problem, just rewrite the problem and try to find the first [59:42] step. He said, don't worry about solving the entire problem. Just rewrite it and find step one because [59:49] there's something magical in the process of just writing step one that steps two, three, four, and [59:54] five will start to reveal themselves. And sure enough, it was crazy. I remember sitting there writing out [1:00:00] the problem, writing out like the most basic step, and then suddenly seeing the problem differently [1:00:05] and realizing what steps two, three, and four were. And as I got to university and adulthood, [1:00:10] I realized that this applied to so many things in life. Like if I had a term paper and I didn't know [1:00:16] how to start it, I'd pull back and I'd say, you know what, let's just write two sentences. Let's just [1:00:21] write one sentence. And sure enough, in the process of writing that one sentence, I could see the whole [1:00:26] first paragraph. And then in the process of writing that paragraph, I would see the whole introduction. [1:00:31] I saw this in my social life. You know, I'd go to a party, I'd see a cute girl, [1:00:36] I didn't know what to say to her. Just walk up and say hi. And in the process of saying hi, [1:00:43] I'd find the next thing to say. And then in the process of saying that, I'd find the next thing [1:00:47] to say. And next thing you know, you're in a 20 minute conversation. Eventually, when I started [1:00:52] writing, I codified this and I called it the do something principle, which is basically when you [1:00:57] want something and you're stuck, just do something like anything, find the minimum viable action, [1:01:02] find the action that feels doable in this moment and just go do it. Because in the process [1:01:09] of doing it, you will generate the motivation and inspiration to keep going. And I think this [1:01:14] is actually one of the most profound realizations that I've had in my life, which is that inspiration [1:01:19] is not the cause of action. It's the effect of action. The action comes first. And then once [1:01:26] you've done the action, you get the inspiration to keep going. You don't magically feel motivated [1:01:32] one day on the couch and then go get up and go to the gym. You get up and go to the gym. [1:01:37] And the fact that you're there motivates you to actually do something. And so when you're [1:01:42] stuck in life, look for that minimum viable action. Look for the simplest thing you can [1:01:46] do in this moment, because just in the act of doing it, you will generate the motivation [1:01:52] to keep going. The other reason people don't take action is a simple fear of failure and [1:01:58] rejection. They don't want to embarrass themselves. They don't want to make a fool of themselves. [1:02:02] And it's funny because if you zoom out and you think about this a little objectively, [1:02:07] this is very irrational. Because what is rejection? Rejection is you signaling to the world, [1:02:16] this is what I'm about. This is what I care about. And it is a certain percentage of the [1:02:21] world looking at that and being like, no, not for me. And that's great because now you don't [1:02:26] have to deal with a bunch of people who weren't going to make you happy anyway. This is something [1:02:30] that is very true, I think, in dating that applies to everything, which is that rejection is secretly [1:02:35] a good thing because it is the sorting mechanism of the universe for removing all of the things [1:02:42] that are not going to make you happy. The other way failure and rejection benefits you is that [1:02:47] it's information, right? It shows you what you're good at, what you're not good at. It shows you [1:02:53] how you can do things better. It's part of the learning process. It's those failures that [1:03:00] generate the information and feedback that allow you to become great at it. Nobody became great [1:03:05] the first time they did anything. So once you start seeing failure as part of the process, [1:03:10] you see rejection as part of the natural filtration of your life. Not only do you stop being afraid of [1:03:17] it, but you actually start leaning into it. So it's funny, in my own career, I quit my job in finance [1:03:23] in 2009 to start blogging. And everybody around me thought I was insane. But I just, I had this [1:03:31] conviction, you know what, content on the internet, it's going to be a thing. This is really going to [1:03:36] go somewhere. There's going to be opportunities. And so I was publishing every single day. I was [1:03:42] writing articles all week, every week. I was working around the clock. And for a few years, I was struggling [1:03:50] to get by. But what I didn't realize at that time is that I was market testing my ideas. I was finding [1:03:56] different perspectives that worked with people, that connected with people. And I was getting reps [1:04:01] that most other writers in the world weren't getting. Most other writers at that time, they [1:04:08] would publish once a month or once a week or once every other year if they were writing a book. So they [1:04:14] didn't get that market feedback from the reader. They didn't have that immediate relationship. [1:04:18] And so because I got all those reps and because I wrote all of those bad articles and because I got [1:04:24] to see what all my good ideas were and all my bad ideas were, when I did get my first book deal, [1:04:30] I had a much clearer sense of what I wanted to say and what I thought was going to resonate and what [1:04:36] people connected with when I talked about it. And all three of my books were massive, smash hits. [1:04:42] And it's funny because by that point, I had spent seven years being on this island, you know, [1:04:49] going home at Christmas, having everybody in my family look at me and be like, what do you do for [1:04:53] work again? And me trying to explain to them like what a blog was and why. Like, no, it's thousands [1:05:01] of people read this, I promise. And them just kind of shaking their head and being like, who? Like, [1:05:07] how do you make money? And then suddenly being this huge number one New York Times bestseller, [1:05:12] my book is, it's in every airport, it's in every bookstore, it's on TV, it's on the radio. [1:05:19] And seeing the way people's disposition changed and seeing how suddenly different people started [1:05:27] taking a different attitude towards me, different aspects of my life started changing. And don't get [1:05:32] me wrong, success is great. Money's great. Like, I wouldn't take it back. But it does complicate [1:05:41] things. And it doesn't play out as cleanly or smoothly as it does in your fantasies. [1:05:47] And what really surprised me is that after my books took off, and I found myself with with all [1:05:54] of this publishing success, I went through a bit of a period of depression, because I didn't know [1:06:02] what to hope for anymore. I didn't have dreams anymore. Like basically everything I had dreamed of [1:06:09] since I was 20 years old had come true. And while that was amazing, it was amazing for, you know, [1:06:17] a few months, maybe a year. But then after that, I woke up, I was the same guy, had the same problems, [1:06:26] dealt with the same bullshit. And I had nothing to look forward to. It was like, oh, wow, everything, [1:06:33] the best things I could have imagined for myself are in my past. So what do I have to look forward to? [1:06:41] Why do anything? And it was a surprisingly hard period to work through, especially because nobody [1:06:51] wants to shed any tears for a depressed multimillionaire. Nobody wants to, nobody [1:06:58] sympathizes with the guy whose book is number one everywhere. It is like, I'm sad. I don't know what [1:07:05] to do with my life. And so you find yourself in this like very odd, lonely position that really the only [1:07:13] people that relate or understand are other people who have experienced sudden astronomical [1:07:18] success. And it is, it's, it taught me a lot about, it taught me a lot about what is actually [1:07:28] meaningful and important and in our lives. And I'm extremely proud of the books and I'm extremely proud [1:07:36] of the success, but it showed me the importance of, of a, having, having things to look forward to [1:07:45] outside of my work, having dreams that exist outside of, uh, my own achievements and, and B, [1:07:53] um, always maybe, maybe caring about something that, that can't be achieved, that isn't worldly [1:08:06] or material. Want to support the channel? 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