Mark Manson - The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*** - ManTalks Podcast #61

The self help industry and our culture in general needs to let go of this idea that you can have this problem free life and start asking themselves instead. What problems do I want to have? What problems are worth my time? What problems? Invigorate me, excite me, inspire me. You've got some living yet to do. I won't give up on you. See, these machines can bring you back to life.

Welcome, guys, gals, to the Man Talks podcast. I'm Connor Beaton, the host and founder of Man Talks. This podcast brings together the best thought leaders, teachers and extraordinary individuals to teach and mentor you on how to be a top performer in life, love and business. Imagine having experienced mentors with decades of wisdom delivered right to your ears. We'll talk about purpose, legacy, influence, love, relationships, sex, success, and so, so much more. Don't forget to leave us a review. Subscribe and join the thousands of other change makers in our community on Facebook or go to www.mantalks.com. today we have an extremely, extremely special guest, Mr. Mark Manson. So some of you may know him because he's an author, he's a blogger, he's an entrepreneur, and basically he writes personal development advice that doesn't suck. That's his own tagline, personal development that doesn't suck, which I love. And some people say that he's outlandish, outrageous, and other people say that his writing has actually saved their life. So he's got a huge, huge following online. 2 million monthly readers will go onto his site and check out his content on happiness and self knowledge and habits and relationships, and he dives into some really interesting topics. But for today, we're going to be talking about not only that and some of these concepts. By the way, he's been featured on Forbes, cnn, Vice, Time, the Huffington Post. He's kind of been featured everywhere. But today we're going to be talking about his new book. And so Mark has actually written a new book called the Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, which is an absolutely incredible, incredible title. Um, and basically what we're going to talk about is how not necessarily not caring, this isn't about not caring. This is about relinquishing and letting go of some of our, you know, expectations and how we think that things should go, how we think that things need to play out in order for us to have happiness, success, joy and love come into our lives. And so it's a very unique approach. And, and Mark has some incredible insights we're going to touch on. You know, something we're going to Touch on death, which is a very interesting and sort of like, taboo topic in some areas. And we're going to talk about success. We're talking about fulfillment and joy. So without any further ado, I'd like to introduce Mr. Mark Man.

Hey, Mark. Welcome to the Man Talks podcast. Thanks so much for joining us.

Hey, guys. It's great to be here.

Like we always do. We always want to ask our guests if they can share with us defining moment for them. As a man, I'm wondering if you have something that comes to mind.

Oh, man. That's not an easy question to start the show with. That's usually it's like, what did you have for breakfast? Or.

I mean, you could tell us.

What you had for breakfast first and then we could dive into that.

My breakfast was quite defining as a man, actually.

No, this is probably biased because it's recent. I'm sure there's plenty of things that have happened in my life that have really influenced my masculine identity, but.

I'm engaged at the moment, and.

I basically spent all of my.

Teenage years and my young adulthood as a total commitment phobe.

Player, womanizer. And it was, I guess reaching that point where I realized I wanted to marry my fiance did a total number on me. Like, psychologically, it was a pretty. It was an amazing. It was a scary. But it was also, like, an amazingly liberating realization when I realized that, like, wow, I, like, want to make my life with just this woman.

And I feel like because I had spent so many years just kind of, like, chasing validation through vaginas that, like, relinquishing me, myself of that, like, no longer defining myself of that, like, making that commitment. I feel like it really actually freed me up to be me. Very cool.

Yeah, it's interesting that you. I feel like our stories might be very similar.

Yeah, I mean, I think that resonates probably with a lot of guys, but your story definitely resonates with me as well. And seeking the validation seems to be a big thing that a lot of men struggle with, whether it's with women or through success or through finances or whatever the case may be. So how has that shift just before we kind of move on, but how has that shift kind of shown up in the rest of your life? Have you seen changes because of this shift?

Yeah, I feel like. I mean, it's subtle on the one hand, but it's funny in a way. All of many of my hobbies and things I was once interested in. It feels like my personality changed quite a bit since I hit that point with her, I used to be a big party animal, and I was the guy out at the club until five in the morning. And I kind of hit this point where it's like, it's not really doing anything for me. There's no reason to be there. There's nothing to prove. And suddenly I just stopped finding it fun and I wanted to sit at home and pursue other hobbies. It's weird. I'm, like, discovering new hobbies and passions that I never had before. And I'm, like, relinquishing hobbies and passions that I had, you know, throughout most of my 20s.

Very cool.

And there's gotta be a piece of you that at the time when you decided to, you know, ask, you know, ask your girlfriend to marry you, you were kind of shedding that old life and that old way of living, and you kind of. I'm sure you go through a bit of a. Like a mourning process almost, but the realization that this life, this new life is better has got to be incredibly freeing.

Yeah, there is. There is a mourning process. And I think that's actually like the perfect word to describe it. There was a period where I just felt very like I missed it. Like, and it. It was weird because I would miss it and then I would, like, go out and try to kind of re. Experience it. And it wasn't the same. It just wasn't. I. My identity had changed, so I didn't have the same reactions as I used to. But, yeah, there was definitely a period where it felt like losing an old friend. And there was a time period where I kind of had to grieve and get over it.

Right. It's almost like that transition from high school to university or like, university into.

The real world, right.

Where you get a whole bunch of different friends from high school to university, and you feel weird about it, and then you move into this new phase, but you feel more mature and more grown up. And at least that was my personal experience is that when I looked back, it was like, well, I'm really not the same guy anymore. And that's okay because, you know, I don't want to be that university kid anymore. So it's. It can be. It can be a great experience. And I think for a lot of men. What would you say for what would be, like, the advice you would give to. To guys out there who are maybe in that phase? Because I know for myself, I would have loved to have had some advice on how to, like, move through that sort of.

Philandering and partying. And.

Sort of sleeping around phase. So what advice would you give to any guys out there?

Well, I actually. I want to write an article about this at some point because I know that when I was in that phase.

I definitely had some negative preconceptions and biases against marriage and commitment and monogamy and, and things like that.

And I use. And looking back, it was basically. It was just a bunch of bullshit to kind of justify my behavior to myself. And.

I would just. I want to write an article. The title idea that I have is like, you know, like the, The. The Unspoken Defense of. Of marriage or something like that. Basically, like the, the argument that you don't hear for why you should get married or commit to a person. And it's just the biggest thing for me is that it freed up so much mental space and energy and emotional energy to pursue things that are actually really deeply important to me. You don't realize how much mental and emotional energy you're investing into dating and chasing women and being the cool guy that all the girls like and all that stuff until you actually let go of it. And then you're like, wow, I have all of this free time and free energy to, like, invest somewhere more meaningful.

So I would just say to guys in that phase is like, just make sure it's a phase. Don't. Don't get so caught up in it that you think, you know, this is. This is how it should be forever.

Like, I love what you just said there because I think most people would look at the idea of marriage in the complete opposite way. It's when you get married, you give yourself up to somebody else and you create a life with somebody else, which is a very cohabitating sort of way. Whereas you just came at it from a bit more of a selfish way. You're freeing yourself up of all this mental space and energy. And that's what I love about you, is that you're not afraid to go the other way and do what everyone else is sort of thinking. And I hope you really do write that, and I hope it ends up on the blog one day. And for listeners out there that haven't been to Mark's blog, it's absolutely incredible. And that's really one of the things that we wanted to touch on today is just your writing and your voice. But more importantly, the voice that you've been putting on the blog for all these years is now being done into a book, which is called the Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. Wonder if you can just give us a Quick little overview of the book.

So the subtle art of not giving a fuck. Some people might remember there was a very popular article last year by the same name. And the book, it's basically. I mean, the irreverent language is I tell people it's kind of just a way of tricking the reader into thinking about their values. Because when you hear, as soon as you hear the word values, I think Everybody's eyelids dropped 50% and they start checking their phone and whatever. But I really, really wanted to write a book about value because I think it's so important. It's basically what are we choosing to find important in our lives? How are we defining success and failure for ourselves? To me, this is the ultimate personal growth question. And it's very hard to talk about. It's very hard to talk about openly. And so through the blog over the years, I found that using very irreverent, kind of ridiculous language was a good tool to be able to talk about it, to get people to start thinking about not just trying to feel good or be happy all the time, but actually how are they measuring themselves? How are they defining happiness or success for themselves? Because in my own life, what I've discovered and using the example of chasing women is a perfect example, is when you define success with a poor metric, you choose a poor definition of success. You can achieve it all you want, but it's not really going to give you anything.

You're not going to live a full or fulfilled life. The book is basically diving into that.

Awesome.

And that book comes out on September 13th across Canada and the United States. What's the number one thing that you hope guys and women take away from reading it?

The biggest thing I hope is to just set a little bit more realistic expectations. There's part of the book where I basically say, look, life is full of problems. You never get rid of your problems, you just get better problems. And so the self help industry and our culture in general needs to let go of this idea that you can have this problem free life and start asking themselves instead, what problems do I want to have? What problems are worth my time? What problems invigorate me, excite me, inspire me?

Yeah, I mean, it's a really great look on it. There's a talk by Alan Watts which is very. It's not similar. He talks about how whether or not we can actually change ourselves at all and whether it's even possible. And he kind of dives into how in North American society, one of the biggest challenges that we all face Is this idea that we should have this Disney esque, perfect life, perfect marriage, perfect health, perfect finances, and that it's actually, it's not realistic and that it's an illusion. And so I really love that approach that you've taken and I think that you've made it really mainstream. Like you seem to have been able to tap into a niche within, within the personal development world. And you know, even your tagline, personal development, that doesn't suck. I love that. And I think back to before I was even in this realm and if I had stumbled across your blog sort of like, you know, seven years ago or six years ago, I would have been like, yeah, this is wicked. I want to give this, I want to give this a read. And so I'm curious as to like, can we just go back in time a little bit to when you started your blog and just give us and our listeners some insight into why you started it and what you were hoping to sort of land with people when you started it?

Sure. It's kind of a funny story because I never.

Conceived. I mean, if you go back to when I started my websites and my online business, I never thought I'd ever be a writer or blogger. It was never an aspiration of mine. Basically back in 2008, I started a couple different online I read the Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss and.

I just graduated from university. The great Recession hit so there were no jobs. And I read the Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss and was like, oh, sweet, I can make a website and go live in Argentina. That sounds amazing.

It all sounded so simple and like very like straightforward. So I started a few Internet businesses to try to make a little bit of money online. And back then it was basically I just wanted to travel and party and meet girls. So it was like very kind of simple, humble goals.

And as I was starting out back in like 2008, 2009, the the big thing, if you watched any marketing seminars or Internet business gurus, the big thing everybody was saying was like, start a blog, you have to start a blog.

So I was like, okay, I guess I'll start a blog. And one of my businesses was revolved around dating advice, primarily for men. And so I started blogging about it. And as a couple years went by, I realized that A, I was kind of a crappy marketer and didn't really know how to sell things. But B, people tended to really like my writing and I really enjoyed writing. So it was around 2011, 2012, I said, well, you Know, all the marketing, all this stuff on these other websites isn't really working out. So maybe I should just put all my energy into my blog and try to make it the best blog I can possibly do. And from there, things just started to take off. I wrote a men's dating book called Models Attract Women through Honesty. And it did really well. It's still doing really well. And the blog just grew and grew. And then in 2013, I kind of realized, why am I just writing for men? Because a bunch of women were coming to the site too.

And I changed it to markmanson.net, so it kind of just kept. I don't know, it just kind of evolved on its own.

It was never a conscious decision to be this big blogging personality.

Yeah, I mean, on your website you talk about. There's one great question in your sort of about section that says, do you have a degree in psychology and shouldn't you have one? And your answer is no and no. I told you not to take me seriously, remember? But I think that's a really interesting, interesting approach because you're kind of like, you know, in the, in the personal development world, I get the sense that you're, you're kind of like the real guy that just gives real talk and is like super fucking relatable to most people who aren't sort of like on the, on the fringes. And, you know, what are, what are some of the, some of the things like growing up that you. That kind of like, shaped that and sort of like shaped your voice? Because I think that's something that a lot of people struggle with, is like, how do I find my voice? How does it come out organically? And, you know, how do I find the balance between taking action and surrendering to what life's putting in front of me?

Oh, man, that's a whole bundle of questions right there.

Yeah, sorry about that. I was going to ask you like 10 questions all at once because I'm really excited to have you on the podcast.

Well, let me start with the comment about the.

So I got really into the self help material when I was a teenager, and I've always been a little bit uncomfortable. Something about the whole guru thing. The guy standing on stage with screaming at 2,000 people of do this and your life's going to be amazing today. Something about that always made me a little uncomfortable, and it took me a long, long time to kind of figure out what it was. And basically the way I would describe it is if you take people who feel as Though they're struggling in their life or they're suffering from depression, or they've got just, they're down on their luck, like things aren't working out right now the way they want them to. Often the number one issue that these people have is that they don't take full responsibility for themselves and their own problems. They've basically spent their life always looking for somebody else to tell them what to do. And they've never learned how to decide for themselves who they want to be and what they want to do with themselves. And I see a lot of self help, like the guru model is being kind of an extension of that.

Ironically, I feel like sometimes the best advice a guy on stage could give to people is don't listen to me.

Just ignore everything I say, go decide for yourself. And so.

I try very hard in my work to make it very clear because I get tons of emails, people saying like, oh, what makes you such an expert? Or why should I listen to you? And.

I hate being put in that position that I feel like I have to defend myself or justify myself because the fact of the matter is they don't have to listen to me and I'm not right all the time. And I don't know what's best. For a random person who read two of my articles and emailed me a paragraph, it's unrealistic to expect that to work. And so I like to see what I do not in terms of me standing on a hill telling everybody below what they should be doing for themselves. What I try to make clear is that everything I write about is something that I'm struggling with myself. In fact, often the reason I'm writing about it is because I'm struggling with it. It's this very public form of therapy for myself that is then consciously crafted in such a way that I know that thousands or millions of people are going to read it and hopefully gain some insight or inspiration for their own process. Now, to go back to the next question, where does that come from? I think a lot of that comes from. I'm very contrarian by nature. Even when I was a kid, I was a very rebellious kid and teenager. I got in a lot of trouble.

I was always the kid that was mouthing off to the teacher or telling the teacher that they were wrong. I was very obnoxious. But I think there's just this streak, like this independent streak in me that's always been there and that maybe was exacerbated by things in my family situation or where I grew up. I grew up in.

Way out in the middle of suburbia, conservative part of Texas. I am not, if you haven't noticed. I, like. I don't really fit in to, like, living out in the middle of a conservative part of Texas. So I always felt very out of place as a kid, and I just got in the habit of speaking up about it, and my mouth often got me in trouble. But I think fortunately, building those habits in my adult life, it's. It's actually served me because I feel like one of the. One of the things that has made my site so popular is that I feel as though I'm often the person who is saying something that everybody else is thinking but nobody else wants to say it. Right.

And you have a really good sort of bullshit detector, I find, which. Which I'm sure, you know, you've had a. You know, you've sort of honed that over the years just through your. Your experiences. But it's funny, it all started with a blog, and I find that these blogs take on a life of their own. And when you say people are sending you comments and you get all these emails, it's like, this is just my point of view. And you happen to be the one that came to it and followed it. And you're not claiming to be a doctor or you're not claiming to be any sort of professional. You're just putting your point of view out on your site. So it's funny that it's gotten to that point.

Yeah, it's. It's something I experienced early on that. Because early on I kind of did. I think what everybody's natural reaction to do is I defended myself. And I'm like, well, I did research on this and this, and if you read this book, it will show you that I'm right. And first of all, like, that never really. I don't think that actually accomplishes much when people, when people are skeptical of you or they don't. They don't agree with you. Like, you're never gonna, like, be like, well, I read more books than you, so I'm right. You know, it's. That's. It's not really a valid or productive way to go about it. But the other thing, too is, like, once the blog started blowing up, I started getting, like, a lot of, really people in, like, very, very desperate situations. You know, fathers who just got divorced and lost custody of all their kids and lost all their money and they didn't know what to do, or maybe people who are suicidal or women in physically abusive Relationships. And I am just flat out not qualified to help these people, especially given the fact that I have no idea who they are. All I know is that the paragraph that they wrote to me.

So I quickly reached a point of like, I'm not going to open my mouth when I don't know what I'm talking about. So I tell these people. Usually what I do is I just try to direct people to resources that are more specialized and more knowledgeable about their situation, because I just don't feel. I mean, even if I get it right, say in.

10 of those situations, I get it right nine times that one time I get it wrong, that could completely screw up a person's life, and I'm just not willing to put myself in that situation. I don't. I don't think I have that kind of authority or knowledge.

So I'm curious. You know, you've gone all these years writing on your blog, but now you've put some of the ideas from your blog into your new book, the Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. What was that process like for you? Was it freeing, or was it actually quite limiting in a way, because you only have so many pages in a book to fit everything in. And I'm sure you had an editor sitting over your shoulder who. Who had their comments to add in. What was that like to essentially partner up?

I love my editor. So his name is Luke Dempsey. He's at Harper One. I loved it. It was funny. I came here to New York last summer to basically pitch the book to a number of publishers and editors. And I think my agent and I, we visited like, seven or eight publishers. And I remember I walked into the room and some of the meetings went great. And then some of the meetings were kind of like. You could tell that the publisher had no idea what I was about. They basically just saw the numbers of my blog and were like, oh, sweet money, let's publish this guy.

But I remember I walked into the meeting with Luke, and the first thing he said to me is, he said, I'm a cancer survivor. It's one of the best things that ever happened to me, and I want to publish this book. And as soon as he said that, I was like, holy fuck, this guy gets it. He is 100% in. And so actually working with him was great. I mean, the process of writing the book was very hard because with articles.

There'S just one idea, and it's like, okay, you can just kind of get this out in a thousand, two thousand words, and then you're done with a book.

It'S amazing because it allows you to dive into much further depth and just show a lot more meaning. And how some of these concepts apply to many more areas of your life than maybe is immediately apparent. But on the other hand, you run into this danger of going too nerdy and wonky and getting way philosophical about something that you just really don't need to be. So for me, it was very hard finding that balance between providing the more depth on some of these ideas that offers a lot of value, but at the same time not getting into this philosophical treatise on the nature of identity or whatever. And so actually my editor was very helpful with that. He was good at catching that and reigning me back in and being like, dude, let's leave this stuff out. Like we get the point, you know.

That'S what editors are for. So let's dig more into the book and I especially want to talk about this whole concept of not giving a fuck. And I'm hoping you can kind of walk everybody through that concept, but through the lens of the story around Charles Bukowski, because I know that story's in the book. Wondering if you can kind of share that with us.

So I opened the book with the story about Bukowski because I immediately wanted to demonstrate that this is not your typical self help book. And what I talk about is that Bukowski was an alcoholic, he was a total failure and loser. He had no money.

He just was kind of a disgusting human being for most of his life. And he wrote poetry for I think it was like 30 or 40 years.

Yeah, I think it was 35 or so.

Yeah. Without ever getting published, he was rejected from everything, pretty much non stop. And then finally in his 50s, an editor took a chance on him and gave him a book deal. And he actually kind of became this sensation. And his work is actually, it's incredible. I'm a huge fan of him. So I kind of start the book with this and I'm like.

This is kind of your prototypical American dream story. Man believes in himself, works really hard, fights through the odds, battles with his demons and depression, and comes out the end, success and famous and this big literary hero.

But it's funny because Bukowski, on his gravestone, he put the words don't try. Which has baffled a lot of people ever since his death. And the point I try to make with that is that often success or getting what you want out of life, it's not really so much of achieving something great, it's simply letting go of what's not Important Letting go of preconceptions you might have about what a successful or famous person should be or what you have to do to be successful or famous, what you need to do to be a good person. What the book essentially argues is that our problem isn't that people aren't achieving enough. The problem is that people expect themselves to achieve too much. There's too much. People's expectations for themselves are unrealistic. And that's where not giving a fuck comes in, is when you take an account of your life, take inventory of your values and what you're spending your time on, what you care about, and really being brutally honest with yourself and saying, you know what? That doesn't matter. I need to stop caring about that. And there's all sorts of kind of prototypical examples can come into play here. It's like we were talking earlier. Validation from women or sleeping with a lot of women, chasing money, having a really nice car. We all know deep down that these things don't bring lasting fulfillment or happiness, yet we get so caught up in chasing them all the time. And the irony. Or actually I referenced Alan Watts in the first chapter. Alan Watts used to call this the backward law, which is that often the more you let go of needing all of these external markers to make yourself feel good, the more you let go of those things, ironically, the more you achieve, the happier you become and the more fulfilled you become.

Yeah, interesting. It's kind of like what we touched on before, which is that idea of being able to still take action in your life, because I think, you know, it can. The pendulum can swing really far in the other direction of, you know, the kind of like the book, like the Secret, right, Where the whole premise is like, just manifest. Just have a. Just have a vision and just manifest that shit. And like. And just like let. And just like let go and just think about it and it'll just happen in your life. And so I think what. What you're saying is really this. This sort of, you know, counterbalance or this balance between still taking action in life and being really realistic about the things that you need to do in order to achieve some sort of success, but letting go of the sort of immense amounts of expectations that we put on ourselves and letting go of this sort of. I mean, yeah, just. Just in a. In a very roundabout way, not giving a fuck about whether or not it happens exactly as we have envisioned it, ordained it, trying to ordain it to happen. Does that sound about accurate?

Yeah, as you go through the book, it kind of dives into it slaughters a number of sacred cows, I guess you could say, in terms of things that our culture is always telling us are really important or really matter. And the book just kind of takes them one by one and it's like, no, you shouldn't give a fuck about that. No, no, no, don't give a fuck about that either.

So can you give us a few examples of just a couple things off the top of your head that you shouldn't give a f. Tell us about.

A sacred cow that needs to be slaughtered?

Well, career success for one.

Or being extraordinary is one I spend quite a bit of time on because again, it's something that comes up in self help all the time, is everybody's exceptional. Everybody can be extraordinary. And what I'd point out is that just fundamentally at the beginning, that is logically inconsistent. If everybody is exceptional, if everybody is extraordinary, then by definition nobody is extraordinary. Because the definition of extraordinary is that you are like one out of a million. So I make the argument that it's the vast majority of our lives, and the vast majority of us is.

We'Re.

More or less somewhere near the average. Things are pretty humdrum and repetitive. And that's just part of life. That's part of life for everybody. Even the people who are extraordinary, like a Brad Pitt or Steve Jobs or something, their life is repetitive and becomes mundane and they become desensitized to things. And I think we've just been sold this idea that there's always this kind of amazing achievement out there for ourselves, that once we get that, our life is going to be so much better or so much more amazing. And I dive into all the reasons, all the logical fallacies of why that's not true.

So where's the sort of the middle ground then? Because I think a lot of people, a lot of people pursue like, we've been sold this sort of like, again, like Disney idea of what our life and relationships should be like, that they should just be these perfect things. And that's pumped out through, you know, personal development channels and the sort of like gurus of the world. And so a lot of people seek meaning and fulfillment in this idea of being unique, special, and, you know, extraordinary. So in. In your sort of dive into this, in this topic, you know, how do you bring people back to meaning and fulfillment? Like, where do you have any suggestions for people that might, you know, see that that's a bit of a fallacy to chase this, you know, perfect, extraordinary life? And how do they find fulfillment in their Everyday, you know, the everyday sort of like quote unquote struggles.

Yeah, I make an argument and it's really not a sexy argument, which again is why you need all this kind of crazy language. But I basically make an argument for the ordinary.

The most meaning in our life, really. It generally comes from.

A handful of our closest relationships, like spending time with the people that we care about the most, a couple skills that we feel we're very good at, and feeling as though we're building something or contributing something. Whether that's just volunteering in the neighborhood or raising good kids or building a huge unicorn startup.

The scale of it really is inconsequential to how impactful and meaningful we can feel about ourselves. And again, a lot of this comes from my life. I just got so caught up in these grandiose visions of myself for a number of years that it's like one of the biggest shifts for me in the last five years or so is just kind of this realization of simplifying and getting back to just kind of like having some very like humble aspirations. You know, it's. For me, it's like I just want to be the best writer I can be. I want to be a positive influence on the people who read my work and I want to have like good, meaningful relationships in my life. And like, as soon as I kind of like just cut all the crap out and like narrowed my circle down to just those few goals, life became so insanely simpler and less anxious and less.

I just, I stopped like brooding and obsessing over all sorts of things and I don't know, it just became easy and enjoyable. I don't know how else to describe.

It, but I could see how for the average guy out there, letting go of some of these things is going to be a scary process. It's got to have a lot of fear and anxiety attached to it. When the reality is when you let go of those things, you create less anxiety for yourself. But not having to worry about your career or not having to worry about success to a lot of guys is a scary thing to even consider.

Totally. And usually the first knee jerk reaction of people who are caught up in this is like, well, if I, if I stop wanting to become regional vp, then I'll never achieve anything. I'll just barely work and I'll be a loser. And that's actually not true.

This is what the book gets into the nitty gritty of.

I wish you just have that saying at the end of every stupid argument. That's actually not true.

This is. This is what kind of the book gets into the nitty gritty of. Is like, you know, we all have to give a fuck about something. Pay attention to where you're giving your fucks. And some places are better to give fucks than others. And, you know, and so what I would say to a situation like that or like, what the book would talk about is giving a fuck about, like, reaching some certain rung on the career ladder is actually less effective than, say, giving a fuck at being an inspiring leader or developing your leadership skills or becoming the foremost expert in your field in a certain part of your field.

There's much better yardsticks to measure success by than simply becoming vp. And again, there's all sorts of reasons for this, but the big reason is that studies have found that when our goals are purely external, when they're purely external signifiers such as receiving a certain title or making a certain amount of money, people cut corners. People start doing things that are ethically questionable. People start lying and fibbing and smudging the lines of maybe exaggerating a little bit of what they were doing before. Because when the goal is a purely external reference, then the way you got there doesn't really matter. And so, to put it simply, what the book would argue is that what you should be giving a fuck about or what the goal should be is the way to get there. And then you just let that external signifier happen as a side effect.

Awesome. And I can imagine that not giving a fuck is a really powerful tool when dealing with things like adversity or big challenges in our life. So I'm curious, do you dive into that topic at all?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. There's an entire chapter on, like, basically telling you to stop giving a fuck about your emotions.

It's like, oh, you're tired and cranky and angry because you feel like life's a fuck. You, like, get over it. It doesn't matter.

You're not saying that you can't still feel tired and cranky and angry?

No, yeah, of course it's. What I say is that it's. Emotions are essentially just feedback mechanisms. They exist for a reason, particularly negative emotions. They. They evolved for a very good reason. Pain evolved for a very good reason. So we shouldn't avoid it and we shouldn't despair when we feel it. There's. They're just simply sick, like, road signs saying, hey, slow down. Or, like, don't go this way. Nothing more, nothing less. And it's very hard for people. So many people get so caught up in that, and they make it such a huge priority in their lives and their decision making that it leads them to a lot of trouble. And that's where the adversity thing comes from. It's like if the thing you give a fuck about is something really big and important, then adversity is not even. It's nothing. It's just like. It's a speed bump. You're like, okay, whatever, some adversity, I'm going to deal with this problem and I'm going to move on. Whereas if the primary thing you give a fuck about is just feeling good all the time, then as soon as adversity pops up, you're going to freak out, you're going to lose control of yourself because suddenly your primary goal is being jeopardized.

Yeah. So it kind of sounds like what you're saying in a roundabout way is that improving our life doesn't really hinge on our ability to turn lemons into lemonade, but our, you know, learning how to stomach lemons better.

Yeah, exactly. Learn how to like the lemons or find. Find something that you care about enough that it's worth eating lemons. Nice. So.

So we just need to start wrapping it up soon. But I'm. I'm curious, you know, like, you, you've probably done a couple interviews on the book and, you know, it's. It's getting a lot of attention out in the public right now. What's one sort of like, fun fact or something that you may not have shared on?

Fuck you, Lawnmower.

Yeah. On other podcasts about the actual book.

Oh, man.

We want the secrets here, Mark. We want the secrets.

All right, so something that hasn't come up on any other podcast. The last chapter is actually about death. And I personally think it's like, it's my favorite thing that I've ever written. And I think it's completely different. It's like a very. God, I don't even know how to describe this. It's basically the whole chapter is telling people to get comfortable with the idea of take time. Carve the time out of your life to contemplate your own death and become comfortable with the idea of it, which to me is the most anti self help message that could ever exist. But I think it's something that's been very profound in my own life. And actually it's probably the part of the book that I'm the most excited about and very few people have seen it yet, so.

Awesome. Awesome. The shit just gets dark at the end.

Yeah. Yeah, but it's uplifting, too. It's crazy. I love it.

I mean, it's a really important message because, you know, A, a lot of people struggle with their own mortality and B, a lot of people, you know, a lot of sort of theologians and philosophers talk about the importance of envisioning and understanding our own mortality. So why did you put that in there? Why do you think it's important?

Well, essentially, I tried to kind of ground a lot of that philosophical stuff and make it a little bit more practical. And essentially the argument I make is that when it comes to determining all these things that the book talks about, like what do you give a fuck about? How do you measure success and failure? How do you decide what matters and what doesn't? The only really objective thing that you can compare it to is death. Death is the ultimate equalizer. So suddenly, right now, buying that Corvette might seem really, really important. But if you take the time and think about your own death for long enough, you suddenly realize how unimportant it is. Whereas something like, say, spending more time with your kids, death puts that in perspective in a really useful way as well. So I think on a very practical. Because there's so much stuff out there right now about life purpose, find your passion, find your life purpose, and obviously it's a very important thing to do. But.

I don't think you can separate that question from thinking about your own death. Because how do you know what the value of your life is if you don't think about what the world would be without you in it? If that makes sense.

Yeah, no, that makes. That makes total sense. Just before we wrap up. Thank you so much for sharing about the book. I think that gives us some really great insight.

September 12th. It's going to hit the shelves.

1313.

Sorry. 13th. Damn it.

Wonderful. So before we wrap up, we have some rapid fire questions for you. Are you ready?

Go for it.

Awesome. Okay, so the one experience you'd recommend to anyone and everyone.

Sex. I don't know.

Awesome.

Perfect.

What's the most underrated trait for modern day success?

Humility.

The one book you'd take with you if you were stranded on a desert island.

War and Peace by Tolstoy.

And the one movie you take, and my question to myself is, where are you getting the power to run the movie?

Well, I would have a generator, obviously I would take. My favorite movie of all time is American Beauty.

Nice. Single biggest lesson from blogging, single biggest.

Lesson is that people all think that their problems are really unique and special and not shared by anybody. But.

Everybody'S problems are pretty much the same.

And who do you think is the most influential person of all time? And why?

Oh, wow.

Just a light one for you. Just a softball.

Oh, man. Well, I would have to go with either Jesus or Newton.

Jesus or Newton.

Total very different.

Because, I mean, well, Jesus, obviously the whole Christianity is the biggest religion in the world and was largely responsible for a lot of the imperialism. But Newton, like, he birthed modern science, which has completely changed everything. So I actually, I'm going to lean towards Newton on that one. I love it.

That's a really good one. And then finally, what is the legacy that you want to leave in the world? Speaking of mortality.

The legacy I would like to leave is I would like basically just my writing to have a strong and powerful influence on a lot of people. And I would basically just like to be known for bringing, for grounding self help again, keeping it realistic, keeping it accountable for its own bullshit. Because we all have bullshit. And so we just need to admit that.

Awesome.

Well, Mark, you've done an incredible job with the vlog and we can't wait to read the book. Guys, go out and get the book. It's going to be absolutely incredible. It's going to be on shelves September 13, but you can pre order it right now on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, all those different places online. You can also go to markmanson Dot and you can pre order the book. He's got all sorts of really awesome pre order giveaways. Thanks again, Mark. We really, really appreciate it. You can learn more about man talks by visiting mantalks.com for more podcasts, blog posts, lots of amazing new articles that are up there and information on all of our events. And please, please, please subscribe to us on itunes or Stitcher so you never miss an episode. And please leave us a rating. It goes a long way to help man it forward and get the podcast into as many ears as possible. Thanks so much for listening to the Man Talks podcast. Catch us next week for another conversation with an inspiring man.