This week I’m very lucky to be joined by an amazing guest and someone that I personally admire for their exceptional and unique work. It’s none other than Mark Manson - the best selling author of the incredible book “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck”. In this episode Mark takes us through how he started as a writer and what inspired him to write his smash hit book. We also go deep into what his book and philosophy really means… because it’s not as simple as the title might suggest. We go through what is worth investing our time and energy into, “The Attention Diet”, how to set boundaries for yourself and much more. Mark has been published and/or featured in over 50 of the biggest newspapers, magazines, and television/radio shows on the planet, including NBC, CNN, Fox News, the BBC, Time Magazine, Larry King, Dr. Oz, New York Times, New York Post, USA Today, Buzzfeed, Vice, and Vox, among many others. Men’s Health called him, “unnervingly well-read” and the Sunday Times described my writing as, “the local drunk who spent too much time in the philosophy section of the bookstore.” (he took it as a compliment.) Mark has had the great fortune to speak to some of the most successful and innovative companies on the planet, including Google, Microsoft, Blackstone, Stack Exchange, Xero and LinkedIn, among others. He’s also been a guest lecturer at a number of universities. But before Mark was an author, he was a blogger. He started a blog in 2009 and within a few years it was being read by more than a million people each month. Today, this site is read by more than 15 million people each year and in 2015, he was one of the first brands to launch a paid subscription model that has since been adopted by most of the online publishing industry. Mark has never hosted ads and never will. Hit subscribe, join the community, and dive into this amazing episode with one of the most sought after and inspirational authors on the planet right now. Have you read Mark’s book and put it into practice? Tell us in the comments below.
This week I’m very lucky to be joined by an amazing guest and someone that I personally admire for their exceptional and unique work. It’s none other than Mark Manson - the best selling author of the incredible book “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck”.
In this episode Mark takes us through how he started as a writer and what inspired him to write his smash hit book. We also go deep into what his book and philosophy really means… because it’s not as simple as the title might suggest. We go through what is worth investing our time and energy into, “The Attention Diet”, how to set boundaries for yourself and much more.
Mark has been published and/or featured in over 50 of the biggest newspapers, magazines, and television/radio shows on the planet, including NBC, CNN, Fox News, the BBC, Time Magazine, Larry King, Dr. Oz, New York Times, New York Post, USA Today, Buzzfeed, Vice, and Vox, among many others.
Men’s Health called him, “unnervingly well-read” and the Sunday Times described my writing as, “the local drunk who spent too much time in the philosophy section of the bookstore.” (he took it as a compliment.)
Mark has had the great fortune to speak to some of the most successful and innovative companies on the planet, including Google, Microsoft, Blackstone, Stack Exchange, Xero and LinkedIn, among others. He’s also been a guest lecturer at a number of universities.
But before Mark was an author, he was a blogger. He started a blog in 2009 and within a few years it was being read by more than a million people each month. Today, this site is read by more than 15 million people each year and in 2015, he was one of the first brands to launch a paid subscription model that has since been adopted by most of the online publishing industry. Mark has never hosted ads and never will.
Hit subscribe, join the community, and dive into this amazing episode with one of the most sought after and inspirational authors on the planet right now.
Have you read Mark’s book and put it into practice? Tell us in the comments below.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
1. The quality of your life is determined by the quality of the things that you choose to care about.
2. With all the information available to us via the internet and social media, it makes it confusing to know what is worth investing our time and energy into.
3. “The Attention Diet”: Like being conscious of what food we put into our bodies, we need to be conscious of what information we put into our minds. If we indulge in too much crap then it can make us physically AND mentally obease.
4. Life is short and we only have enough time to become excellent at one or two things. It’s important to get clear on what these are, focus on your strengths and not on the nonsense online, or in life, that isn’t going to get you anywhere.
5. The people who are most free right now are the people who know how to set boundaries for themselves and limit technology and information.
6. “Who you are is defined by what you’re willing to struggle for.”
BOOKS
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life - https://amzn.to/2Xv3D5b
The Passive Investing Playbook - https://theinvestormindset.com/passive
LINKS
Mark Manson - www.markmanson.net
Learn more about our fund opportunities - https://www.vonfinch.com/fund
Learn more about investing with Steven at https://theinvestormindset.com/invest
Join the MultiFamilyMBA and get exclusive free training:
https://theinvestormindset.com/mfmba
Steven: [00:00:01] In a day and age where we have nearly unlimited options and opportunities, how do we live in a way that's meaningful and with purpose? And today's guests, Mark Manson has explored that question deeply, and his no-nonsense attitude and style of writing has attracted millions of readers to dive in. And today we're going to dive into that topic and more, so you're going to want to listen, let's get right to it.
INTRO: This is The Investor Mindset Podcasts and I'm Steven Pesavento. For as long as I can remember, I've been obsessed with understanding how we can think better, how we can be better, and how we can do better. And each episode we explore lessons on motivation and mindset from the most successful real estate investors and entrepreneurs in the nation.
Steven: [00:00:50] Welcome back to The Investor Mindset Podcast. I'm your host, Steven Pesavento. And today I have a very special guest, Mark Manson is in the studio today with me. How are you doing Mark?
Mark [00:00:59] I'm good Steven, it's good to be here.
Steven: [00:01:01] Well I am really grateful to have you and for many of you guys who don't know, Mark Manson is a two times number one New York Times bestselling author whose books have sold over 13 million copies worldwide. And before he was an author, he was a blogger, which he started back in 2009, and today, his site has more than 15 million people a year reading and learning, and he wrote a number of books, one that you guys often have heard about the Subtle art of not giving a fuck, and the second popular book, Everything is fucked, a book about hope, which I just think are both phenomenal titles and I've personally read the Subtle art of not giving a fuck a number of times got a lot from it, so I super appreciate you putting this together, but often it's misunderstood at face value. You know, the subtle art of not giving a fuck isn't a book about not caring, rather, it's a book about caring about the right things, and I guess that's the subtle art. So Mark, what I'm curious about is, when it comes to happiness, it's all about the art of caring about the right things. How did you come up with this and can you tell us more about what that means?
Mark: [00:02:07] Sure. So the title is a little is kind of a Trojan horse, it's like, people see it at the airport, they see it on Amazon and they're like, oh, man, I wish I didn't give a fuck. And, you know, because we're all stressed and exhausted all the time, and then you get into the book, you need to discover, like, Oh, wait, hold on, you have to care about something, and actually, the quality of your life is determined by the quality of the things that you choose to care about. And that's where it starts to get very philosophical and personal, and for me, I started to notice over the years, both in my own life, but also in the lives of my readers who contacted me all the time. You know, with social media and the internet and all the information that's available to us, as amazing as it is, it makes it confusing to know what is worth putting a lot of investment into, putting a lot of our time and energy and emotion into when there's all these opportunities and potential things that you could be doing with your life, or all these silly things on Instagram with people in front of beaches, and all these amazing locations, and whatever. It becomes more complicated to know what is actually worth pursuing and what is actually worth a little bit of time we have in this world. So I wanted to write a book about that, about the kind of -- to me the most fundamental question of our day and age, which is, okay, you have access to everything now, what are you going to use it for?
Steven: [00:03:48] Yeah. It's so important to be asking ourselves this question about how do we have fulfilment because we're in a world where everything is better by nearly every measure for society, especially for us to live in developed nations. But even those who don't live in developed nations often live better than any society or generation previous, but it doesn't always feel like that. So how do we navigate this into a place where we can find true happiness and enjoyment in a world that is full of all these things pulling us in the direction of not feeling that way?
Mark: [00:04:23] I think it's incumbent on all of us individually to understand the information environment that we live in. So the nature of the internet is that we are always going to be exposed to the top 0001% of whatever is happening in the world, and in some ways it's great. It's great to have access to the excellent and extraordinary and every different way but if that's all that you're paying attention to, if that's all that you're spending your time on, that starts to have psychological repercussions [00:05:00 Unintelligible], you start to get this kind of skewed or distorted version of reality and you start to believe that the world is that way when it's not. And so for me, I've got this concept that I talk about in my second book called The attention diet, which is basically the same way that at some point we had to learn to be very conscious and aware of the food that we're putting into our bodies. I think that we need to develop a consciousness and awareness around the information that we're putting into our minds. That if you overindulge on many things, it can make you mentally lethargic and obese.
Steven: [00:05:41] Yeah. So you really have to be able to be intentional about what you're consuming, what information is coming at you otherwise, you're going to be in this spiral of comparison land, where you're not going to be happy. And so what I'm curious is, how do you apply or identify the best balance of caring versus not caring? Of focusing on the right information? How do you end up balancing, saying no; that doesn't matter, I'm just going to push that out, I'm totally fine with that versus obviously, being a crazy person and not caring about anything?
Mark: [00:06:19] Well I think there are a few vectors to evaluate it on, one is just truth or evidence, you want to listen to people who are qualified and know what they're talking about, and just that alone is difficult to find these days. But I think we have to be realistic and that life is short, and generally, we all only have enough time to become exceptional at one, maybe two things if we're very hardworking and very fortunate. And so I think it's very important to get clear on what those handful of things are in our lives, whether the one or two things in our business professional career that we can be exceptional at [00:07:10 Unintelligible]. Double down on those, focus on those and shut out the things that distract us from those, but also apply it to our personal lives as well. It's [00:07:22 Unintelligible] the handful of people that you're going to have the most meaningful relationships with and double down on those relationships, find the hobbies that bring you the most joy and double down on those. Don't get distracted by all the other stuff that's out there, and so I just feel like that's the name of the game, in every area of life right now, is people who are best able to focus on their strengths, and not get caught up in the whirlwind of nonsense that goes on online and on social media and in the world. You know, those are the people that are going to get ahead?
Steven: [00:8:01] It's so hard though. I mean, it's so hard to not get pulled into it. I noticed for myself, I'm a person who doesn't watch the news nearly at all, but it's really easy when you kind of get a little hit of one of those stories, and you get sucked in, and then all of a sudden, you realize what why am I not feeling good? Why am I thinking negatively? Why am I in this state? And thinking negatively is normal. Right? It happens to all of us, even if we're kind of pushed these positive beliefs. What's your take on that?
Mark: [00:08:31] I think part of the problem is that all the information is getting very good at being addictive, so not just the entertainment industry, but the news media industry and a lot of the tech companies. It's like a lot of these big companies have figured out how to make things addictive, make products addictive, make services addictive. And so if you're not careful, it's one of those like, well let me just click on this one site and see what they have to say or whatever and you can end up in this spiral where the next thing you know is you've spent three hours or you've been upset the last three weeks and you can't stop reading stuff or you know, it's like a lot of the news media right now is very similar to a Netflix series where it's very much designed and packaged in such a way that you just keep watching and you never stop. So for me, the skill set is kind of paradoxically it's self-limitation. You know, the people who are most free right now are those who know how to set boundaries and limit themselves, the people who know to leave their phone out of the bedroom at night or don't bring it into a meeting with a client or whatever, it's the people who are able to delete the apps that they waste time on from their phones and not reinstall them. I'm pushing this new idea of freedom out into the world and my argument is that true freedom right now comes from self-limitation, it comes from drawing those lines in your life and saying this is what I care about everything else stays out.
Steven: [00:10:24] Yeah. Well it's such an idea, right? Because boundaries sound like a bad thing when you're talking but what it really does is that limitation gives you a structure to work within, because when you have unlimited possibilities and limited options, things get pretty tough. I can imagine for somebody like you, you went from being a relationship blogger, writing some engaging content there and then you transitioned and started writing on your own site about probably very similar topics, but really pushing the paradigm of personal development in a totally different way. But then you wrote this book, and it blew up and before it blew up, you obviously had a very large audience, but how do you yourself go through the process of staying focused on the things that matter and keeping those boundaries in place when you went from success to a whole another level you maybe never could have even imagined?
Mark: [00:11:21] It's a great question. And this is something that I talk about a lot and it's something that is not exciting or sexy, you're not going to see any infomercials with this headline but success can mess you up in that way. Success can bring you too much opportunity that you lose sight of what actually got you there in the first place and so when my first book blew up it became wildly successful. I spent a year to kind of stumble around and trying to figure out like, okay, what do I do next? How do I top that? Do I even try to top it? People start coming at you with opportunities, I found myself talking to my agent about taking meetings about a TV show, and I'm sitting there, we're having a serious discussion about a TV show, and how amazing it would be, and then I realized, I'm like, I wouldn't watch TV in like four years, then why would I create a TV show? This is the last thing I want to be doing with my life. So if you have it's very difficult to say no to those sorts of things. It's very difficult to remember when you've got all these very shiny objects being dangled in front of you to remind yourself of like wait, no, this is the thing I'm exceptional at. This is the one thing that I do better than almost anybody else, and that's what got me here and if I drift too far away from that, I'm going to sabotage myself. And so yeah, I struggled with that for a couple years and it's very hard. One of the things I tell people is I say, success can actually complicate your life in many ways. We like to imagine that success is going to fix everything in our life, it's going to make everything happy and easier but no, at least in my experience, it does the opposite in many ways.
Steven: [00:13:33] Well it's fascinating because it's like, you get to this point, which is the pinnacle. I'm sure I'm going to have the number wrong, but I think Wikipedia mentioned 179 weeks in the top 10 on New York Times bestseller list. That's the pinnacle of success for a writer, to be able to impact that many people sell that many books. And in my own life, when I hit success in real estate, of course, not the same level of success, but also that feels like there's a whole another pressure, there's a whole another level of expectation that things need to stay at, where sometimes that pressure is heavy, and it really can weigh on you to make the right decisions to make sure that you're not stepping in the wrong direction. And so how have you been able to narrow your focus and keep that boundary strong, so that you're focused on your one thing?
Mark: [00:14:29] I think it's very important to have good people around you. People who will be honest with you, who aren't yes men. You know, people who are like, hey Mark, are you sure you want to do that? You know, having those sorts of people it's unbelievably valuable. The other thing that I've had to kind of learn the last couple years is there's an initial high that comes with a lot of opportunities. So somebody would reach out and say, hey can you come to this event and do this or can you work with this person or whatever? And there's like a status high that comes with that, and like, Oh, I'm going to meet this big celebrity, and we're going to do this thing or that thing. And what I've learned is you have to give it enough time for that high to subside, because no high will last, everything gets old after a while, and so once that high kind of subsides, then I ask myself the question, okay, is this the sort of thing that I would be excited to do every day for the next year? And a lot of cases it's not, it's like, oh, wait, no, actually when I put it that way, it's not nearly as exciting as it was when it was initially offered. And so I think a lot of it has been framing things not in terms of the immediate opportunity, but framing it more in terms of the amount of time I'm going to have to spend over the next one to three years. And when you start putting it that way, you're like, oh, shit, I don't want to spend that much time. You know, and so it becomes much easier to let it go.
Steven: [00:16:25] What a great question to frame it in your own mind, so that you can think to yourself, well I mean, it feels really good to have other people clamoring to work with me to have them on a show like ours right now. Thank you so much for being here. It's a pleasure to be able to talk with you. But to be able to try to understand, well, hey, well, what is really going to fill me up? And so a question I have for you is, you talked about this idea of knowing what you're really good at that you can only be really good at maybe one or two things, how did you discover that writing was one of those things for you?
Mark: [00:16:58] For me a lot of it is just trial and error. You know the funny thing is I don't even know if I would say writing is even the one thing that I'm exceptional at, I think it's writing about human psychology, I think is the one thing that I for whatever reason, it's like, I've got that nailed. And for me, it was like you said, I started my first internet business in 2008. It was a small ecommerce website, barely made any money. And I started a number of affiliate businesses, then I started trying to start a web design business and then it was eventually through starting like four or five different businesses that I landed on a website that sold promoted relationship advice. And originally, it wasn't even my own, I created a website that would get traffic, and then I would promote match.com or some other things and I'd make a few bucks if somebody signed up and then from there, I discovered that to grow that website, I needed to actually write about relationships. And so I started writing about relationships, and at first it was kind of the typical stuff of like three things never to say on a date, or dumb stuff like that, what to do if she doesn't call you back. But then as I started writing about that stuff, I'm like, man, this is boring, let's actually get into like why are we so insecure around dating and relationships? Why do we feel incomplete if we don't have somebody in our life? And so I just wrote a few of those types of articles and throw them up and next thing you know is I'm getting more traffic and visitors than ever before. And so I think, when you don't know what that one thing is, you have to look at stuff that sounds a little bit crazy, that sounds like off the beaten path and then once you find it one of those situations where you're like wow, I put in half the effort, and I got 10 times the results, you know, let's keep doing that again, let's do that more and more and more. And I think it can work that way in any profession. There are many ways to be successful in real estate, there are many ways to be successful in investing. There are many ways to be successful in writing. It's about finding that particular aspect of yourself that differentiates you and sets you apart from everybody else in your industry like that. That's where your advantage is going to be.
Steven: [00:19:42] I want to let that set in for people because it's huge. It's this idea of just trying things you got to go through that struggle, and that really reminds me of this quote and I hope it's not misattributed but who you are is defined by what you're willing to struggle for, it's something that you mentioned. I feel like -- have we forgotten the importance of that in our society today?
Mark: [00:20:04] Yeah. One of the crusades, I'm always on is that people are too fragile. You know, and I'm not saying that they're not legitimate problems and issues and you know. There are a lot of legitimate problems and issues in the world right now and a lot of people do suffer, but I guess what I'm on a crusade against is our cultural attitude towards suffering. We've lost our tolerance for it, we've lost our tolerance for discomfort and pain. And I see that as a very dangerous thing.
Mark: [00:20:47] Yeah. It's dangerous because everything can't be easy all the time and it's through that struggle that we end up gaining so much strength, and we get to know who we actually are.
Mark: [00:20:55] Yeah. Absolutely. And it makes things worthwhile. You know, if you were just handed a bunch of real estate, you were just handed millions of dollars’ worth of real estate, you'd be bored next month. You'd be like, oh, alright, well, that was fun for a while. You know, it's the working for it, that makes it meaningful, that's where the pride comes from, that's where the value, not financial value, but the emotional value, the internal value, that’s where it comes from.
Steven: [00:21:31] Yeah. It's so true because it's through that journey of actually getting there and feeling that you are the one who caused that to happen. Otherwise, you get the millions of dollars in real estate and you'd be like, well, what's next? What am I going to do now, because you didn't actually get fulfilled, you ended up getting what you wanted, but it just appeared? So I think that's really smart. So I'm curious, shifting gears a little bit, obviously, you've had a lot of success, on your ability to be able to distill these ideas from psychology into a way that really appeals to people outside of the typical personal development space. And I'm very impressed by your website, specifically, because you're one of the first people to bring the subscription model to play online and being able to bring subscriber content to folks in the editorial space. And one of the things I really particularly appreciate is the fact that you're bringing in outside professionals to kind of vet your work and to make sure that the information you're putting out is really making a difference for people. So what I'm curious is, as you've been building this online community of people that you're serving, how or what are some of the biggest lessons that you learned in building that, that you could pass on to other people who are going to be in the same space looking at building community and an audience within their own business whether that be real estate, podcasting or something in between?
Mark: [00:22:58] It's a good question, it's a hard question. I think a lot of it comes down to really understanding like how do people respond to you in a way that's different than say, somebody else? You know, what is it? Find that little piece of unique offering that you have, that separates you from others, and just live in that space? You know, I'm sure you've noticed it with this podcast, as people can get investment advice in a million different places, they can get real estate advice in million different places. Ultimately in this day and age, what we're attracted to is the human side of brands and companies and advice. And so the information has become very ubiquitous and cheap in a way but it's the relationship in the community where most of the value is found. And so I think it's just really understanding what's different about yourself and then what's different about the people who come to you what? What makes them stand out and makes them unique? And then just live in that space. That separates everything.
Steven: [00:24:22] Yeah. It's such good advice, because you really have to figure out who are you serving? Who's attracted to you? And for yourself, obviously, you've carved out a very unique niche. I mean, how did you discover that for yourself or how have you seen other people kind of make that discovery of what fits for you or what fits for them?
Mark: [00:24:40] Well with me, I shifted my businesses brand over to kind of straight up self-help advice around 2013 and one thing that I just personally was kind of always frustrated with was that I grew up reading self-help books and watching seminars and stuff in my teens and 20s, and I had a little bit of a bad taste in my mouth, you know, I spent a lot of money, some of the advice was good, but a lot of it wasn't. A lot of it was overhyped and, in my opinion, vastly overpriced. And so I had kind of have a bone to pick with it, and I started asking myself, you know, if I was to do self-help the right way, how would I do it? How would I change it? And a lot of the answers to that question kind of became what has made me stand out over the year. It's giving advice that's backed up by science and evidence and not just pulling a model out of my ass and selling it to people. That's the first one. The second one is being realistic about pain, you're not going to be happy all the time. I don't care who you are, I don't care how awesome your life is, some days are going to suck, and you just got to get used to it. You know, being upfront with that with people, I think a lot of people find that approach, refreshing. And then just also being honest about my own fallibility. I'm not some guy on stage, who has all the answers, I'm a dude with the same problems you have, I have the same insecurities you have. Here's what's helped me but the fight is not over. So instead of me just throwing answers out there, let's have a conversation about it. So that's always been my approach and I think I was fortunate in that; the things that I felt were felt by a lot of people out there in the world and I think that's the case a lot of times and to more specifically answer your question, a question that I have when I get approached by young Bloggers, or YouTubers, or Podcasters, or whatever, a question that I throw at them, as I say, I say, what is something that needs to be said in the world and nobody is saying? Go say it. That's what's going to make you stand out. And I think it's a powerful question too, because we all believe something different, is not being said, what I think is important and not being said, it's going to be different than what you think is important or not being said. So we're going to have different answers to that.
Steven: [00:27:23] Yeah. And that difference is what really kind of creates that authenticity with who you are, because I'm not trying to be Mark Manson. You're not trying to be Steven Pesavento. You're not trying to be some other personal development guru or teacher, trainer or writer, you're being you. And I think it really goes back to what you were saying earlier. Let me know if you disagree but it really goes to trying things, you tried things, you wrote, you saw what really hit, what really made sense, what people liked, and it happened to be something that you also 100%, were ready to go all in on. So it kind of wraps everything together that if you figure out what it is that you care about, and you're willing to put that out into the world, and you keep trying things that at the end of the day, you might end up in a place where you're going to be really satisfied and happy. But it won't always be that way.
Mark: [00:28:14] Yeah. Absolutely.
Steven: [00:28:16] Well this has been amazing. I want to point people to go check out your books, obviously, you've got some phenomenal books, as well as markmanson.net, some great articles, tons of free content, as well as premium content, you guys will get a lot from. Where else would you like people to find out more about you or get in touch.
Mark: [00:28:36] Check out the website and then I've also got a free weekly newsletter called Mindfuck Monday, where I send out three ideas each Monday morning to kind of get people's brains rolling for the week. You can just find that at markmanson.net/newsletter. But yeah, that's it.
Steven: [00:28:52] Wonderful. I'll include all of that in the show notes for all of you guys who've been listening. Mark, thank you so much for being here with us. Thanks for philosophizing and sharing some of your beliefs with us so that we might be able to run with those and make some changes in our own lives.
Mark: [00:29:05] Absolutely. Thanks for having me.
OUTRO: Thank you for listening to The Investor Mindset Podcast. If you like what you heard, make sure to rate, reviews, subscribe and share with a friend. Head over to theinvestormindset.com to join the insider club, where we share tools and strategies from the top investors and entrepreneurs and how to take it to the next level.