You might be struggling right now, not having the life you want and caring about things that don't matter. In today's episode, Mark Manson explains the four steps to stop giving a [ __ ] and finally start living the life of your dreams. So, get your pen and paper, sit down, and get ready to take notes. So, Mark, what are the four steps we're going to learn today? So, we'll talk about how to stop giving a [ __ ] about all the things you don't want to give a [ __ ] about. We'll talk about how to stop caring what other people think. That's a huge one. Comes up all the time. We're going to talk about personal responsibility. And then I think it's really important to talk about emotional management. Great. Well, let's start with what to give a [ __ ] about. Now, I showed you a few videos of people that won't follow their dreams. Someone that wants to sing that won't sing. Even though her dream is to sing. Excuse me. Do you guys have a dream? Well, she has a dream. I do have a dream. What is it? I want to be a singer. Okay, sing. Oh, no. I'm shy. That's why my dream hasn't become reality. 9.4 million people follow me online. Last video got 65 million views. This is your chance to get noticed, get followers, and your dream to begin. So, see, I'm shy. Me, too. I'm even more shy now that you're putting me on spot. But if you have, but it's just us. 4.5 million followers. 9.4. But I'm known on social media as well. Melissa Sandival. So, hopefully that works. Yeah. Yeah. But everyone wants to hear it. That's how they're going to like now. Why not? I'm not the best person for this. I'm so sorry. You're so good at this. You're a singer. I desperately want to hear you sing as well. personality. You're really good at this. But I know that's your destiny, so why not just do it? So, you know what what what what what is it that people should give a [ __ ] about and what they shouldn't? How can they determine if they're listening now like what what is important and what isn't? So, ultimately, like the question of what to give a [ __ ] about it, it it's really a question of prioritization, right? Like it's there are multiple things that we all care about in our lives and many of those things are competing things. And the question is is like are you properly prioritizing certain things over others? So let's use the example of the girls who who her dream was to sing, right? Obviously one of her priorities in life is to be a singer. But she has competing priorities. One is she doesn't want to fail. She doesn't want to uh you know want to embarrass herself in front of 9 million people. um she doesn't want to screw up or sing something that she hasn't prepared properly enough or whatever. She potentially has other concerns. You know, it's like maybe she's like worried about all the attention she might get. Maybe she is super anxious and she just wants to relieve the anxiety and get you to go away, which a lot of people do, which a lot of people do. Like the the thing about emotions is when we're overwhelmed by an emotion in the moment, like we don't think rationally beyond that. It's all we know is like get the anxiety to stop. Get it to go away. Get this guy with the microphone out of my face. I would say the issue there is like the problem's not the emotion. The problem is the mis prioritization, right? Is like she's prioritizing whoops, I didn't get rid of the pain. So, she's prioritizing relieving her anxiety over her dream of being a singer. And like that ultimately when we talk about like I wish I didn't give a [ __ ] Like this is what we're talking about. is like this mis prioritization of the things that we want in our life. And this can happen for a lot of reasons, right? Like the the avoid like not wanting to fail or embarrass yourself, not wanting to feel anxious anymore, not not being worried about like everybody paying attention to you and judging you and you know saying mean things about you on the internet. Like these are all very natural human worries that we all have. Uh, but it takes a a certain amount of work or skill to learn how to move them down your prioritization list. Well, this feels like it's in your subconscious. It's an instinct to not have get rid of fear as quickly as you can, right? So, stop that. Stop the fear. It's not this is a rational thing, isn't it? This is a this is a frontal lobe thing almost like I want to be a singer. I know I do. I can sing, but this is a subconscious like I'm breathing now without even realizing it kind of thing. It's an instant reaction, isn't it? Absolutely. So, it's controlling your subconscious, is it? Yeah. And it's it's some of this too is like there really is I use the word skill very intentionally because there is very much a skill component to all of this and I think that doesn't really get discussed enough. Um if you think like if we take let's let's let's bracket aside the example of the girl who wants to be a singer. Let's make let's take a really extreme example of something that like might make you scared or anxious or whatever. Let's say you're you're you're like a lion tamer in a circus, right? And the first time you get into a cage with a lion, your heart's going to be absolutely pounding. You're going to be freaking out. Your palms are going to be sweaty. You're going to be like everything's going to everything you've learned or studied or thought about or listened to is going to be out of your mind. You're just going to be freaking out in that moment. What happens though is as you gain exposure to that, as you get into the cage with the lion more and more and more and you start interacting with the lion and you like learn the lion and you gain confidence around the lion, that that sense of that overwhelming sense of fear or anxiety diminishes in your brain. And as it diminishes, it hijacks you less. And so you're able to prioritize kind of the prefrontal cortex, the frontal lobe stuff more than the lyic system stuff, right? And so the question for that girl is where has she gotten her reps in to get over that fear, right? Has she sung in front of a small audience? Has she sung in front of, I don't know, at like a school event? Has she like gotten up at an open mic night? Has she done karaoke every weekend? Right? Like it's it's probably something you see in business all the time, too. It was like people say like, "Oh, I I have this idea. I want to start a business." Yet, they don't do anything. They like sit and sit and sit and sit and then, you know, when somebody like you shows up and like, "Hey, let me help you with that." They've put zero reps in. They've done no preparation. And they haven't done the skill work. They haven't developed the skill of like overcoming that fear and anxiety and struggle, right? Uh, and so in her case, it's if she had done all those reps, I mean, we don't know if she did or not, but like let's let's assume she had done all those reps and she was working towards something, then suddenly you show up. Now she's got a song ready to go. She just sang a song the other night, you know? She's like, "Oh, she's got this song she's done karaoke a million times on. She can whip it out on her phone and do it again for you." Like it's this is going to sound so cliche and pedantic, but like the way you do something is by doing it, right? If your dream is to do a certain thing, you should just start doing that thing. Like that's the best way. Again, this singer analogy is really good. By the way, she's now singing good and she's doing really well. Great. Uh but I think um it's like most artists like Ed Sheeran's very big artist. He went to lots of little clubs first. He got booed. people threw stuff at him, you know, and he's like, "Oh," you know, but he builds up that I call it the risk muscle. Yes. It's like you build up that that barrier to risk where it's like it's no big deal. People throw this is a small room of 20 people. They don't like me. It doesn't matter. I practiced in front of So that that's what people need to do, isn't it? They they need to basically put themselves out there and and I would but all of those things I would say they're like slightly different, but they're like related skills. I would say it's like a bucket of skill which is like the ability to endure failure, the ability to endure rejection, the ability to endure embarrassment. Skills. Yeah. I like I like position them as skills actually. They are skills. They are skills and you you practice them, you work them and you have to be intentional about it. If you try to get through life like without ever failing or embarrassing yourself, then when it eventually does happen, it's going to absolutely demoralize you. I was waiting for you to draw a line. I felt that's what we were all excited about drawing a lion. I'll give you I'll give you my lion. Yeah. And then a man in cage eating the lion. The irony is the irony is people listen be like well what happens when the the lion you get used to it and you get so comfortable and then one day the lion eats you sick and freedom. Didn't that happen to them? Well, there is such a thing as overconfidence, right? Yeah. You get eaten by lions. There's my lion for you. Ra. Well, that's pretty good. Here we go. I think you undervalued yourself as a an illustrator to be to be fair. Yeah. This is I see there's a cover of your next book to be honest that's got that's got something about it. Maybe this is my dream. You discovered this in you and me. All right. So at this stage is other we're going to go into this more depth but is there anything else here where people need to understand that you know practical ways that people can can live this way. I think the the most important takeaway here is that these things are a skill. You have emotional skill sets like there is an emotional skill set existing inside your brain. And if you have not practiced that, if you've gone through life just suppressing and ignoring your emotions, then you haven't practiced those skills. And those skills are absolutely crucial for whatever your big goal or dream is going to be, you're going to have to deal with failure. You're you're going to have to be anxious at some point. Um, and so you want to start practicing those those skills. Get those reps in early when the stakes are low so that when you do end up in a moment where the stakes are high, you're prepared and you're ready to go. I think people can relate to the fact like during co where everyone was stuck indoors people be had more anxiety then when they weren't out in the real world. So actually being out in the real world reduces the anxiety. So if you don't do something for long enough it will become a problem where you give you you're scared about it you know as opposed to like if you lean in I think that's true with like social media now which I think is a huge opportunity for people. You know you can get millions of views on a video if you're promoting a product or starting a company. It's like it's free marketing. People's biggest fear is they just don't do it. Yeah. And and and and I think if you do it once, you you know, you you learn to build up resistance to the haters, you know, the negative comments. It's like they become part of like actually I kind of crave them now. I'm like unfortunately I don't have enough haters anymore. So my videos Oh, we can fix that. We can fix that. I'm sure we can fix it. Give me an hour. I'll I'll get there. We'll get there. But I think when by the way, you know, it's interesting, isn't it? Cuz it's like in part there's a lot of noise out there about like mental health and you know, give people room and, you know, um um mental health anxiety. I mean, I actually got someone in my DMs this morning talking about how she can't go to work anymore because she has so in much stress going to work and you have to be empathetic to that and and totally understand that is affecting that person. But there is also a part of me that says, you know, you've got to learn to build up that otherwise what you're not going to go out in the real world anymore. You know, that that's the conclusion if you give in to that that instinct you have of like this is hurting my mental health, right? Uh so I got a great diagram for this. Um better than that. Can't be better than that. Sorry, lion. We're gonna have to Goodbye line. Yeah. Yeah. Goodbye line. You are immortalized on camera. So if you imagine So we're gonna do like a little chart here and it basically it's like kind of like a bell curve like that. So on this axis we'll call it stress and then on this axis we'll call it growth. There's kind of like a Goldilock zone of human pain, right? If you don't have enough pain in your life or enough stress or enough struggle or enough challenge, you don't grow. You're stuck over here. You're in stasis. And in many cases, actually, I mean, you in many cases, you actually get more fragile. You get weaker, not stronger. It's like a muscle that you never exercise, right? And here, if you get way too much stress and pain and struggle, over here is the trauma zone. You're just it's overwhelming. It's fight or flight. Can't think straight. It just breaks something inside you. You have a panic attack. You like totally lose it, right? But this Goldilock zone in here of stress and struggle, this is where the growth happens. And basically kind of the magic formula to hit this zone is it needs to be challenging plus doable. M that's the magic formula. So you need to find things. So again, we'll take the singer, right? Let's say let's say she is just so terrified to sing in front of anybody that she can't like she can't even fathom it. She can't she can't even sing in front of her parents, right? So step one is start as small as possible. That's it feels both challenging but also doable. So maybe step one is just sing in front of my mom. Mhm. And then you do that until that feels comfortable. And then it's like, okay, well, now I'm going to sing in front of my best friend. And you do that till it feels comfortable. And then it's you do it until it stops feeling challenging and it's only doable. And so then you go find the next thing that's both challenging and doable, right? And so now it's like, okay, I'm going to sing in front of my classmates or I'm going to sing um in front of a group of 10 people at a at the pub, you know, next weekend. And then you do that until it stops feeling challenging, but it's only doable. And then you you just keep scaling up in that way. And the problem is when you showed up, you showed up as challenging, not doable, right? Cuz in her mind, she's like, "Oh my god, 9 million people are going to see this. I need to be perfect. I need to have my song ready. I need to be in key. I need to have like all my notes figured out. I need to practice. I can't do this. It's not doable. So, it's a no-go." And if and potentially if she like tried to force herself to do it and she was absolutely awful and I don't know everybody on the internet are like making fun of her or whatever, she has not built up that muscle to handle it. So she's going to be in the trauma zone, right? Yeah, good point. But this is this is the this is like the mechanism inside of all of us. And my sense from you, it's interesting what you just said. It it's funny because it's it's like this happens a lot with people. I my sense is you have built up this muscle so much throughout your life throughout your business career and you told me a little bit about you know your being an adolescent being kicked out of like you've been through so much stuff and you've built up like so much like resilience and and and your stress muscle and and dealing with difficult emotions that when you said you're like well yeah it's so easy now you just start posting on social media and it's like free marketing and I'm like that just what you said there is absolutely absolutely mortifying to like 95% of the human population. Like the idea of like posting something on Instagram or Tik Tok and the idea that a thousand people are going to see it and judge it and talk [ __ ] about you and be a hater or whatever, you know, people like you and me who've been doing it for decades, it's like whatever. This is just the job. But like people who have never been exposed to that, it's terrifying. It's absolutely terrifying. Which is why most people don't do it. I think I'm fascinated by the word doable because I mean she's singing to me, right? I put a bit of pressure on me. I'm like, well, if you love it, you doesn't it make you do the impossible? Like if you really love it, that's almost like the test, isn't it? Is this really your dream? Because if this is really your dream, then it's doable, isn't it? Like you have to do it. Otherwise, you live with regret. So, how are you going to fix that later? you can't go back in time to that moment in scene when it's a really interesting question actually. Let me throw this back at you. What's the difference between a dream and a fantasy? Um they have a correlation. I think I think again ironically uh a fantasy is often not doable. Yeah. Whereas a dream most people's dreams I want to open a coffee shop. Um I want to be a singer. I want to launch my own clothing brand. The these are all doable especially now. Like that's why I'm really obsessed with helping people with their dreams cuz I think thanks to the internet and social media everyone seems to hate see as a bad thing. I'm like actually you can compete with Walmart today. Like I couldn't compete with Walmart at 20. I couldn't do it. But you're 20 today you could compete with Walmart. You could set up a Tik Tok shop. You could post a video on Tik Tok. You can be selling more products today than Walmart. Yeah. Fact. It's more doable than ever. Yeah. It's interesting. I agree with that and I would I would add to that too. I think the point of the dream is the dream. The point of the fantasy is comfort in the moment, right? Like if I have a fantasy about I don't know like be careful. Are you going this now? Yeah. It's not that sort of channel. Oh yeah. Bleep. Now we all need to know what your fantasy is. I'll sit back. No, it's like if if my fantasy is I don't know. I have like a a I'm going red for you. I don't know why. It's weird. I don't know. Go on. Go on. Tell me what your fantasy is. to have a a I don't know like a 500 foot yacht or something, right? Like it's totally doable. By the way, you sold a little bit. It is doable. Yeah. Uh no, let me pick something that that is fantasy. My my fantasy is like to go live on a moon on Jupiter or something like right like that's probably not doable. Well, again, but ironically, if you Elon Musk, you'd be doing it. Easy. Just raise some capital. Uh come up with a brand name. Next thing you hire some really smart people. Yeah. It's next week. You'll be on your way. But the or if you think about like reading a like the point of a fantasy is is like it's similar to like reading a fiction book, right? Like it the point is the comfort it gives you in the moment and the the solace it gives you, you know, the the way it kind of eases your fears and pains and it's like therapeutic in a way. Um whereas a dream is I agree with you like if like I I've had this conversation too with a lot of my readers of you know people will come to me and they're like I've wanted to do this for 10 years and I'll be like okay well you know tell me what have you worked on so far and like have you practiced this or have you learned that or have you like taken a course and and it's like nothing they've done nothing and my my intuition is always like well then I don't think you actually want this. I think you want to want this. Yeah, it sounds good. I think you like the idea of wanting this, but you don't actually want it because you actually haven't done anything. And I I do think there is a a very powerful notion in that. I think well again we'll move on to the next bit in a minute, but I I just I think the doable bit if the pain is there, you have to make it doable. So I want to fix the education system. It's actually my end goal. So I had to learn to teach. I need to give people knowledge for free. So I'm not I can't just fix education to offer an alternative to it, right? But it's so important to me that 15-year-old me that didn't have the knowledge to live in the real world. How ridiculous is that after 12 years of education? The pain is so deep. Fixing the education system doesn't sound doable. Yeah. But it's it's something that has to happen. Yeah. It's not even a question of is it doable or not. It will have to change. Are you familiar with the idea of post-traumatic growth? I think I know what it means, but it's like well no I I don't know exactly. So it is it is the lesserk known cousin of post-traumatic stress syndrome. Right? So everybody's heard of PTSD. Yes. Uh what most people don't know is that for every person who has a traumatic event in their life and has PTSD, there is three to four people who have a traumatic event and they experience what's called post-traumatic growth, which is that that traumatic event actually becomes one of the best things that happen to them. It like clarifies what their values. It like shows them what actually matters in their life. It it it makes them gives them purpose. Gives them purpose. It makes them grateful for the things that they have and and they actually go on and and accomplish a lot more over the following years. I almost think and one of if you look at the post traumatic growth research one of the most common things that you see among people who experience post-traumatic growth versus PTSD is that post-traumatic people who experience post-traumatic growth see handling their trauma as doable. They see it as this is something I'm going to overcome and this is something that one day I'm going to look back on and I know I'm going to be a better person for it. They have that belief and that perception at the outset and then it ends up making it a reality. Whereas the PTSD people by and large, it's not everybody, it's not this simple, but like more often the PTSD people see it as insurmountable. They see it as like this is something I'll never come back from that I'll never get over. Mhm. To help fund Dreams and make content like this, we work with great brands who pay us and we use that money to make this content for free for you and fun dreams. I only work with brands I believe in. And one such brand is Vanta. No matter what stage you're building your business at, whether you're a small startup or an elaborate successful big brand, there's one thing that matters above all else. Trust. Today, it's not enough just to say your business is secure. You have to prove it. 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Let's talk about point two. what other people think cuz during that uh process there must have been a lot of people saying we'll get a real job. Oh yeah. What are you doing? Um so you know you're 23 that's okay. Yeah. Getting to 25 26 you know must be family pressures and people like what are you doing man just writing [ __ ] you know no one's going to make any money out of there. Yeah. Nobody knew. So again this was like the dark ages of the creator economy. So the internet was also not a proven formula for you to get. Nobody knew what this was. I remember I remember sitting down with my dad uh probably like around 2012 2013. This was still pre-book. Um but my my blog was doing really well, but I was making six figures by that point. And uh I remember sitting down with him and he was kind of like asking me about business and like trying to figure out what I was doing. And he asked me if I was paying taxes. I was like I was like, "Dad, do you think I'm like drug running between South America or something like on the internet. Yeah. He like knew he knew I was living in South America and I suddenly had all this money and he like just didn't understand what was happening or what I was doing. And by the way, so blow this podcast up if this is where you do it. You did do a little bit of drug trafficking just to pay the bills. That would be perfect. Breaking news. Breaking news. Bestelling war drug. But so what tell people what other people think is a big deal. So tell people how to get over this. It it's ultimately you have to find the things that are more important to you and more precious to you than what other people think. You're always going to care what other people think. You're always going to care. And that's it. You shouldn't change that because that is what makes you human. That's what makes you a good friend and a good brother or sister or son or daughter or whatever. Like you you should care what people think. The question is is like what are the few things in your life that are so important to you that you believe in so strongly that you're willing to be disliked for? And I don't think most people think about that. I think most people are just so caught up in make people like me, make people like me, make people like me that they don't consider that question. Uh because the irony is that once you do figure out that out, once you do kind of figure out like what you're willing to stand for and what you're willing to be disliked for, people actually start liking you a lot more for it because they know they know who you are. They know where you stand and they they know that you're like they respect you, right? Even if they don't agree with what you're doing or agree with all your views, they're like they see that you're legit and you care and you're willing to suffer for something and like I it's just human nature to respect that. Is there any um framework for like how to stop the instant reaction to having so for example I I'll post on LinkedIn Mhm. I think the property business has got out of control and I believe that uh property is a basic living somewhere is a basic human right and so I I'm quite anti the property industry like the buy to rent thing for example I know a lot of people do it but I think it's actually causing a pain a nurse can't pay rent can't afford to buy we can't afford to pay them more so we're causing a lot of problems um but anyway so I post this and then people that I actually really respect will be like that's a load of rubbish um property is a business that's just good it's a good for the economy don't be a socialist and I find myself like oh No, you're wrong. You know, like this business is causing the problems. You know, monopoly was embedded by a woman to prove that, you know, property shouldn't be a game. There's only one win at the end. And I find myself like getting worked up. Is there a Because I care about that subject of course kind of to the point one, but I do give a [ __ ] about that. Yes. Um but but is there a framework to like not care? What's I mean this whole what other people think is what is the framework? How do I think I'm asking for help really? How do I not care what those people say? You know, you're always going to care. the question. Let me ask you this. Do you regret posting that? No, I I'd post it again if I wasn't going to annoy the algorithm. There. There. There you go. I mean, it's it's worth was it what you're what I hear you saying is it was worth the pain. It was worth the pain. It's worth the dislike. It's worth I like the people that don't like me. It's kind of And well, I say in fairness, they don't they don't agree with that one point I have to say. And I actually like dialogue, you know, and it's no problem. So, here's another way to think about it. No matter what you do in the world, there's always going to be a group of people who don't like you. M. So they might as well not like you for things you care about, right? Yeah. What What do people not like you for? Anything? I say [ __ ] too much. Oh, they don't really. I haven't noticed that. You got books with that word on it. I I can't tell you how many emails I get from, you know, cranky old ladies telling me you don't need to swear. Yeah, I get on the YouTube channel a lot as well cuz I It's But is there anything else in your life that you think, okay, I don't want people to think that about me or You know, it's funny. Sometimes I get attacked by the I I would call it kind of like the political far-left because of we haven't gotten to the responsibility piece yet, but like I mean ultimately like so much of mental health and happiness and and and flourishing is like driven through personal responsibility and the ability to like choose your own life and choose how you see things and like take ownership of the things in your life. And for some reason, I I don't think this is a good thing, but like a lot of people on the left have started associating that view with I guess rightwing politics. And so I get attacked for that, which is weird because I'm not politically right-wing. Uh but yeah, I get I get Well, back saying if we wanted to get hated or canceled, it start talking about like people's mental health, you know? Well, all you have to do is like push through the pain and you'll be fine, you know, like and then people take that the wrong way. And I think that you got you got to be sensitive to it. It's nuanced, right? You know, it's it's the it's the bell curve and and there are legitimately people on the wrong side of the curve and you do have to to pay attention to them and be compassionate for them and everything, but it's like I it's the internet. I mean, it's it's just par for the course that if you're going to post things online, people are going to hate you. And and a lot some of it will be legitimate. Like some of them some of them will legitimately just disagree with you, which is fine. Um but some of them will just project whatever they're going through and their own experiences onto you. And sometimes I found that people can actually educate you in an area you weren't thinking about. Absolutely. So sometimes it's good if people don't like you. Absolutely. And you can learn. I I think what other people think one of the areas I mean I've been with my wife 23 years. Um I really care what she thinks. That's And I can't ever I I wish I couldn't if there's any answer to that one. Yes. Um, you know, it there is there is an answer because the cuz she she she definitely gets inside my head. Um, I would say it's good that you care what your wife thinks. I mean, I'm not Can you get to that level though where you don't? I'm not a marriage counselor, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's good that you care what your wife thinks. But I I I think it's actually it's useful to think about this. I'm glad you brought that up because I think it's useful to think about this in tears. M so one of my most viral social media posts is I said um if you wouldn't ask them for advice then why the [ __ ] do you care about their criticism right which is brilliant like people don't consider that so like if you kind of imagine you've got like this pyramid right and these are all the people that you inter interact with in your life and we'll say like um you know we'll say like up here is my wife and Ken may be looking for me but is like family you We've got co-workers, neighbors, community, whatever. And then down here, you get down to strangers. And then down here, you get to people you don't dis you don't respect. Let's just let's call them [ __ ] Yeah. Let's do it. This is this is actually an academic term. Um yeah, I've heard it. Yeah. It's a certain It's a sociologist call them [ __ ] Um, but yeah, it's basically people you don't respect. You don't respect their opinion. You know, it's the trolls, it's the haters, it's the the [ __ ] posters, it's the the bots. Like, and it's interesting cuz it, you know, to the point about social media, right? Like people will they will overindex on these people. Yeah. They're going to be the loudest. That's why. Yes. And then they will underindex on these people. M so it's like if again if you take that girl singing right it's like if she did that all of her friends oh we should got to add friends um go girl well done every single person she's ever known in her whole life would send her a message of encouragement being like good for you go get it it can't believe you're out there oh my god it was amazing I'm so proud of you right but what is she indexing on she's indexing on Yeah. And it's it's it's one of those ways that I think uh you know I I always say that social media is like a funhouse mirror. Um it's it's not that it it's not reflecting it is reflecting reality but it's distorting the proportions of reality. It's making things that actually aren't important look way more important and it's making things that are not important or that are important look less important. I think this is partly because we used to live in tribes. Yes. And of course, yes, we'd have our family and friends and co-workers. But if we lived in tribes on average of 5,000 people, these [ __ ] actually mattered. Yeah, they don't matter now, but it's instinctively in us. You know, it's part of our DNA as humans. We've got this far. You know, what has got us here won't get us there, right? So, I kind of think like we need to reset this bit cuz in the in the tribal scene that mattered. Those [ __ ] mattered cuz you're still living with them. You might not like them. You don't need to do anything, but they're slagging you off to the neighbors and to the other people in the tribe and even your co-workers. can they can infect the rest of the tribe against you. So, and I would say too that it's like the social media platforms in general, they just they amplify these down here, right? It's these are the people you hear from the most. Like you, you know, you get on Twitter, you don't see people posting, you know, look at my new puppy or, you know, oh my god, my my brother. People should do that, by the way. Yeah, they should. There you go. A little idea for you. That probably quite well. Yeah. Post your puppies. Post your puppies. You get on and it's said that it's wrong. It's literally just like all of the 18 ways the world is going to end in the next 6 months. And whose fault is it? And then Elon Musk will retweet it anyway. So you only retweet the negative stuff. I've sent lovely messages to Elon Mus retweet. You say something negative like Elon Musk is a scammer and he'll share it like see people also like to amplify the [ __ ] as well which is the weird thing, isn't it? Okay. Ne next on the list was personal responsibilities. Okay. So tell tell us about personal responsibility. All right. So ultimately, you know, we talked about how you're giving a [ __ ] about something. Ultimately, it's a choice. It's like you're choosing to make something important. You're choosing to give it your attention or um you know, your your emotion. That is a choice that you're making each and every moment. You are deciding what to pay attention to, how to react to something, what to think about it all the time, whether you realize it or not. And this is the funny thing is like when people criticize me for the personal responsibility piece, I don't think they actually read my book because if they did, they they'd realize that it's like this is not like this is not a subjective argument. I'm not like making a this is not a prescriptive like oh people should be responsible. No, this is a philosophical like you are responsible in every single moment because you are making choices in every single moment. Like in this moment we are choosing to talk and listen to each other. We're choosing to sit in front of a camera. We're choosing to, you know, whatever we talk about next, like every single moment we are making choices. And because we are making choices and we have agency, that means we have a responsibility for those choices. So even if I walk outside here and I get hit by a bus and it was not my fault, I had nothing to do with it. I'm purely a victim, it is still my responsibility when I wake up in the hospital to get better. It's still my responsibility to decide what am I going to think about this? What am I going to feel about this? What are my goals from here? How what are my recovery goals? Am I going to go back to work? Am I going to who am I going to call? Am I going to call my parents? Am I going to call my wife? Like those are all I'm responsible for every single one of those choices in those moments. And so just because something is not your fault, every single thing in your life is still your responsibility. I love that. To me, it's reframing. Like good luck and bad luck are both still luck. Yes. Depends on how you frame it, right? So, you know, I made a lot of money selling a company. You could argue that was good luck. Then I didn't have anything to do because I had too much money and I didn't have any purpose for a while, you know, like so the good luck was bad luck cuz I didn't I think framing is really important, right? How people frame their like you say the accident. It can happen to any of us. Hopefully not touchwood, but it can happen to any of us, right? And then yeah, like you say, oh, this this gives me a chance to to reset my life and reset my values and and build myself stronger and better than before, right? kind of like positive attitude towards even the worst situations. I think Yeah, I think that's one of the things that's kind of happened to society now. A lot of this personal responsibility has been taken away from you. The government's letting you down. Yeah. The the government's not paying enough. Um the cost of living are too high, you know. So So it's someone's else's fault. I think I think political parties lean on this too. So because this is us, isn't it? But we're looking for excuse to blame someone else for not taking responsibility for actions. You're a marketer, you know, like what's the easiest way to hook somebody? Tell them they're a victim. totally tell me it's not your fault. Yeah, you've been scammed. Let me show you the way. Like it's it is it Yeah, it's sick. And I think it's the the proliferation of those messages um just has happened so much more with the internet and technology that like we're inundated with it a lot more often. And um and it it I think it raises the stakes for this, for the understanding of this, the realization of it um because it's that much more important. M I tried to stay out of politics, but just lately I'm getting dragged into it a little bit because there's a lot of politicians in England that will blame someone else and people just lap it up. Yeah. So there's two sides of, you know, in England anyway. The left will blame the um the rich. Yeah. So it's tax the rich. So somehow it's all the rich people's fault and if you're poor it's their fault. Yeah. Right. And and equally on the other side, the right will kind of like, oh, it's an immigrant's fault. Um they they they took your job. They took your opportunity. You know, we have a similar thing over here. Yeah. And I I just think that if we if we just back up and just say, look, what can you do to change change things? You know, how can you make your life better? That agency thing really is important. And it's getting lost because actually there's no middle ground anymore. This isn't being said as a political party, you know, like so people are hearing all this noise. Are you on this side? It's all the rich people's fault or on this side it's an immigrant's fault. You know, pick a side. Whereas you can just pick the middle, which I think is like, okay, what can I do to make the world a better place first of all? Yeah. 4 minutes. But equally, how can you help yourself, you know, like take control and I really wish we could give that to people. Have you always felt this way? Have you always taken personal responsibility? Yeah. No, no. I was I was very much uh when I was young, I was lazy, entitled, whiny, smoked a lot of pot, you know, it it this this came later for me. What changed? How come this hit you? What did you what happened? Post-traumatic growth. So when I was 19, um a really good friend of mine drowned and died. Um I was with him when it happened and it just sent me into a a a deep depression. I spiraled into this just black hole for three or four months. And one of the outcomes of that by the end of it was I just had this deep feeling that I was wasting my time, that I was wasting my life cuz it part of it part of what was so hard about that experience was realizing like it could have been me. I was just as drunk as he was. I was swimming in the same lake. Like it it literally could have been anybody. and the being exposed I was 19 so being exposed to just the your own mortality in that dramatic of a way. I really came out of it being like I have to stop [ __ ] around. Like I quit smoking pot. I started going to the gym. I started actually studying for class for the first time in my life. Um and I actually let myself start to dream. You know, I never really I had had like one dream up to that point. you know, I wanted to be a musician when I was young. Um, but similar to the to the the girl on the TikTok, like I I I mean, I worked towards it, but I also I wasn't doing everything I could. And uh and coming out of that experience, like I really it re kind of reset that. It was like, look, man, you're you're 19, 20, you're smart, you've never really like applied yourself at anything before. What if you do like what could you become? What can you do in this world? Right? And uh it really set me on a much better trajectory. But it's it's like so much is downstream of this. Like if you don't believe you have any choice in your own life, then it's powerless. You know, it's you know there's a Spider-Man thing. So you remember Uncle Ben tells Spider-Man, he says uh um with great power comes great responsibility. Mhm. So that's wrong. Or maybe it's right. But like he's dead now. He can't even defend. Yeah. He can't even defend himself. Um, he would have a hate right now if he was the truth is it works in re reverse. The more responsibility you take for your life, the more power you have over your life. Because when you take responsibility for your life, essentially what you're saying to yourself is, I can change this. M you can take the worst [ __ ] that's happened to you, the the worst circumstance, and if you decide you're responsible for it, essentially what you're telling your subconscious is I can change this. And I'm not only can I change it, but I am morally obliged to change it. I'm doing myself a disservice by not changing it. I'm doing the people who care about me a disservice by not changing it. And that may feel heavy, but it's actually extremely liberating when you adopt it. I love this so much. I've never heard this before. And I I think it's um if you take responsibility like I I tried to promote the idea that people could start their own business, but a lot of people were working for someone else. Yeah. Ironically, if you take responsibility in your job, you'll get power. Yes. Is it funny how that works? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you if you accept, oh, I could have done this better or I can do this better or I will do this, the power will come your way. Like as a boss, as an employer, like nothing sounds more like music to my ears when somebody on my team comes to me and is like, you know, I just took care of this thing. Yeah. I just did it. Yeah. I'm like, it's like the clouds part, the angels sing. I'm like I'm like, "Thank you for this person." You know, it's it's like as a as an employer, like that's what you dream about. Let's do a comic book. I'm I'm doing a kids book at the moment. I'm doing a book with Penguin for 8 to 12 year olds. I think this is a really interesting thing cuz I want kids to have superpowers but ironically take responsibility for things like my son moment is unloading and loading up the dishwasher even that sounds a bit privileged but he's got a responsibility and I and I kind of see he has power. It's like I'm doing that the other day I tried to do it because I was wanted to quickly go watch a program of him. So he's like no it's mine. They see he has power in that responsibility that silly little responsibility. And um I think there's a lot of studies showing that kids that have uh take on things like they do chores in the house for example, they grow up much more balanced. They they take on things, right? They take on that their responsibility and that empowers them and and gives them freedom. I believe it. Um you definitely see it in research among adults. So in in the psychological literature, it's this is often referred to as self-efficacy, which is basically the belief that you have the ability to influence your own life. And self-efficacy is is I mean it's correlated with like basically every good outcome you could ever want. You know, people with high self-e efficacy. They tend to be happier. They're more resilient when things go wrong. They achieve more success. They're more motivated. They tend to be physically healthier. They live longer. Like, you know, you just go down the line. It's just everything. Ironically, I think a lot of people try to strip this from you. There's nothing you can do unless you vote for me. Yeah. Try not. Unless you buy my [ __ ] Buy my [ __ ] It all gets fixed. Yeah. Yeah. buy my book and it'll be fine. All right. Okay. So, uh finally emotional management. So, what do we need to know about this? I mean, basically it's it's to come back to the skill thing. I think there's two kind of interesting analogies to play with with emotions. We already talked about the skill thing to a certain extent. You know, you can develop skill sets around your emotions. So, first of all, this is the biggest mistake that everybody makes. you know, they feel anxious a lot or they feel angry or they feel sad and their natural instinct is I want to stop being anxious or I want to stop being sad or I want to stop being angry and that never works because ultimately like your emotions they serve a biological and neurological purpose. Your your emotions are feedback. They are telling you that something is off in your life or in your environment and that you need to adapt to it. And so if you try to suppress or pretend like the emotion is not there, you're essentially removing a feedback mechanism that's designed for your own survival and your own flourishing. So never try to get rid of an emotion. There's no such thing as a bad emotion. There's only bad responses to emotions. So every emotion is immediately okay. There's just it's fine. You can feel whatever you feel. That said, there are better and worse ways to respond to each emotion. And part of those good and bad responses are, we talked about it being a skill, developing the skill set around anger or developing a skill set around your anxiety. Another interesting metaphor is is that there's there are emotional habits, right? Like you can if you look at somebody who, you know, quote unquote has anger issues. Um it's not so much that maybe they're angry a lot. There are a lot of people who get angry a lot. It's just not everybody's punching holes in walls and like wrecking their car and, you know, starting fights, you know, on the street corner every weekend. It's it's some of it is the habits that you've built around the emotion. Like there's a kind of an if then process that happens in your brain of like if angry then do XYZ. And uh if the XYZ are that you've linked to the emotion are just really bad behaviors um then that that emotion is going to be really problematic in your life. And so don't get the point is don't get rid of the emotion, change the associated behaviors. I think um so my seven-year-old I always think he doesn't do what I say, he do does what I do. So he he I think we do our environment is very about this. If I if you see someone get angry quickly, you end up getting angry quickly. who who you associate with can really directly connect to your emotions. If people are listening and they're like, "Okay, so I I do feel emotional. I do react badly." Is it like count for 10 seconds? Is there is there a coping mechanism? You you know, people can reset these things. Generally, the the easiest way to cope, I mean, the most dependable way to cope with any emotion, especially a negative emotion, is time, you know, and that's where the 10-second thing comes from. Um it's also like we tend to so when we get overwhelmed by an emotion we we get triggered um as the term has become very popular. And when you're triggered that means that you're you're essentially out of your executive function and you're just responding like you've you've lost awareness of yourself and your own behaviors and you're just doing the action. And so the the taking 10 seconds, taking a deep breath, removing yourself from a situation, that's very useful for somebody who who either has been triggered or gets triggered very often or easily. It can help you develop that that separation between uh emotion and response. Um I personally I think meditation is actually great for this. Um because what meditation is actually training you to do from a psychological perspective as you observe your own thoughts and feelings in your mind, the more you observe them, the more you disassociate from them. Or dissociates probably not the proper word, but like you disidentify with them. That's the proper word. The more you observe them, the more you disidentify from them. Like the more it there's there's a thing in Zen Buddhism that they always say um or my Zen master used to say which is like he said you're it's don't say you are angry say you have anger because when you say you are angry you are identifying as anger that it is a permanent state or it's a part of you that you can't control whereas if you say I have anger well I have anger I can put it over here or I can put it over there or I can do this I throw it away. I can do all sorts of stuff with it, right? It gives it bringing it back that agency and responsibility. It it brings that agency back. Um so you can say instead of being like I am anxious, you say I have anxiety right now. What am I going to do with it? You know, um but yeah, meditation is a great practice for developing that separation from stimulus and response. And then in that gap between the two, you will slowly develop the ability to like decide where to actually direct the emotion. I tried meditation myself. I can never clear my mind. Just my mind just won't let me clear. Yeah. But I think nobody can. I think I think sleep. Yes. And eating proper food, you know, if you can, you know, so stupid. Simple simple stuff. So true, dude. Sleep. So, okay, this is the obnoxious lesson of the last four years of my life. Um, I used to take pride, so for for people who have read this, like I kind of took pride as like, yeah, I'm the dude staying up till 3:00 a.m. drinking whiskey and pounding Red Bulls and like still building a business and crushing it, doing all this stuff, right? As soon as I got this stuff in order, oh my god, did I feel like an idiot. like this. All three of these things unlocked so much more energy, so much more motivation and drive and also made this stuff easier. Mhm. Like you you become you you feel so much more stable in your emotions. I I'll add alcohol to this because that was a huge one for me. I noticed that when I gave up alcohol, um my anxiety lessened quite a bit. Um I was more even keel even when I wasn't drinking. Like it it was, you know, even days after drinking, I would be kind of emotionally up and down and unstable, you know, really bummed out one day for no reason. And when I stopped drinking, all those things went away. I find I'd have one here, which is people, the right people around you. That's a great one. Um, I mean, I fell out with my mom when I was 15 years old, you know, it's a long story, but since she's not in my life, I feel less angry, you know, and she triggers me and and that's probably my fault as much as hers, but like I think having the right people around you, right, the right partner in life, I think it's probably the number one factor on whether you're going to have a good life or not. Totally. You know, like and if you can get sleep, exercise, eat well, and not have alcohol, you're probably like, you know, really giving yourself a high chance of success. It's It's so ironic, too, because this stuff is like It's so simple. So obvious. It's so obvious. Do a podcast about it. I know. And yet it is like we forget. I know. And I I personally feel stupid. You know, it's funny. So they did last year they did a a massive metaanalysis of all every single intervention that you can have for depression. So like therapy, every form of therapy, every anti-depressant on the market, um even like unconventional stuff, you know, meditation, yoga, uh ESMR therapies, you know, rapid eye movement stuff like you name it, it was in there. And you know what came out on top? Probably sleep and exercise. Exercise. Exercise is more effective than the best therapy and the best anti-depressants on the market for depression. Yeah, I got jetlagged the last few days, so I'm a bit grumpy with the team, you know. It's definitely they're like, "Yeah, guy, get some sleep." Can I just flip it for one second before we come to an end? And emotion, however, can also power you up. So, I I did a talk last week and I was quite emotional about how we got to fix the education system. And in that talk, I was really emotional. And the amount of LinkedIn posts afterwards, people were like, I feel I feel emotional. That emotional transfer of what you care about on the on the flip side, using mo emotion can be a tool, you So, let me ask you this. You you you said that you're very passionate about about education, right? And that that's a big cause for you, a big mission for you. I imagine you often get angry about the the state of the education system. And I try to suppress it, so I don't show it on camera too much, but I do I do get quite angry. I imagine you do. So, that to me, that's a perfect example of uh you you have anger and you you have found a way to channel it. Yes. And of course, I wasn't productive. Yeah. That's what I hate about politics again because I think some present the problem and the solution is a done not real solution. So I'd rather build something to fix the education system then I then my anger is contained in a vehicle that is taking action. Exactly. And so and that comes back to the point is like there's no bad emotion. There's there's Yeah, that's a good emotion. I need it getting up in the morning. There's good and bad responses to an emotion. You found a good response for your anger around education. And it's like that's ultimately we have to do that with each of the things um you know each of the quote unquote negative emotions in our life like we just need to find a channel for it in a in a direction that's productive and useful. The one of the things I think people listening criticism when I was younger I used to really hate it. Yeah. Um someone will criticize me like last thing I need is you putting me down. Yeah. As I get older I'm like that the emotion of like oh something I can improve on you know like tell me there's a lot of things I can improve on of course but like you know I like it. I actually I'm like what what can I do better? It's kind of Callum in my team's always asking I like that you know it's like what you know that that trigger me come on you know almost like get me thinking about how I can be stronger you know it's um yeah I think emotion positive emotion is quite quite a unique thing not talked about enough actually sometimes put in a box of like sort your emotions out get sleep exercise nutrition no alcohol good people but there's something in actually taking that emotion making a vehicle out of it it's it's funny because uh I mean especially in in in your world kind of on the more business side of things like it's I I see, you know, whenever I'm I'm kind of a tourist in your world, you know, I'm more personal development, so like the emotional stuff comes up a lot, but like when I kind of venture into your world, it feels like everybody wants the productivity hack. Everybody wants the morning routine. Everybody wants the like, you know, what's your uh what's your time boxing system or like what software are you using or whatever, you know? They want they want the tools and the magics. And I I'll I'll start talking about this stuff. I'm like, "Well, you know, if you're like really aligned on your purpose and you're like feeling really motivated and your relationship's in a good place, you're going to have like 50% more energy at work and you're going to be more creative and you're going to be like take feedback better and you're going to have like you're going to collaborate better and you're going to make sales pitches better." And I feel like nobody wants to hear that. They're like, "Oh, no, no, no emotion stuff." Like, no, no, no. Well, people like this stuff because sleep, exercise, nutrition is is like a structural thing you can change. emotion. Most people I I've invested in over 80 companies and the ones that have done really well, they're like they weren't doing it for the money, which is really cheesy, but they were doing it because there's a problem in the world. They wanted to fix it and it maybe affected them at some point like and then it won't stop until it's done. And I think that that that tapping into that emotion is purpose. Yeah. It gives you purpose. I just saw an advert on the way here for the military. It's like the military gives you purpose. And that's quite a dangerous ad actually. I think that's quite it's quite an appealing ad because I think that's the thing a lot of people don't realize they're missing. And it comes from emotion, I think. Purpose is extremely powerful. Yeah. How did you I mean we talked about earlier your steps but purpose was so in the early days what was your original framing? Okay. You wrote that blog for three people but what was your early framing of that? Why did you write that blog for three people? Uh honestly I mean initially I started just because it was a fun thing to do with my friends right so the the purpose was actually quite small and local. Um, eventually, you know, once it kind of grew a little bit and I I read Tim Ferris's 4-hour work week, you know, the purpose was, like I said, just to sustain a partying lifestyle in Argentina and Brazil. Uh, and I did that for a few years, right? And then the snowball grew a little bit more and I kind of went back to the well and I looked at it again and the purpose got bigger again, which is like, you know, I really actually I think I can have a career as an author and a writer and I would like to. Um, and so I did that and then it's, you know, it's just continued from there. I mean, I would say it's expanded again. Now it's now it's more missiondriven. Um, in that I think my industry is kind of [ __ ] up. You know, self-help, there's a lot of really good information in the self-help space. There's a lot of really trashy information in the self-help space. And I think a lot of vulnerable vulnerable people are taken advantage of in the self-help space. Um, and so I I believe very passionately in just kind of being the antidote in this industry and um, being as authentic and healthy and evidence-based as possible and reaching as many people as possible. So that's what drives me today. You're awesome. Thank you. Just to say I genuinely think you you what you're doing is awesome. It's needed. You're right. There's a a lot of people out there that just need honest real practical advice, you know, common sense in some respects, but help in that way. There is a lot of [ __ ] There's this whole thing at the moment, this guy putting face in ice everywhere. Have you seen that trend? You know, it's like people people kind of like it cuz it's like, is that all I need to do? Yeah. I just need to put my face in ice. Don't forget the banana peel. Banana peel. You know, I I got a banana and I've got a bowl of ice. That's it. Every day will be perfect. Just got to get up at 350 and I'm set. Yeah. jump into my private pool. Um, but I I think I think the world really needs more kind of practical real world advice, but people need to learn knowledge. They need to go deep on things. You got a new podcast doing doing just that, haven't you? Yes, we just launched a new podcast. It's called Solved. And it the idea is that it it goes super deep in a single topic uh for multiple hours. It covers all the bases. It's very comprehensive, all the different schools of thought, all the different competing theories and ideas, and then leaves the listener with clear takeaways on how to implement everything into their life. Speaking, you know, about the frustration with the industry, I feel like the podcast space in personal development, it's it's all the same guests coming on saying the same things. A lot of them contradict each other. A lot of them are will say something crazy or loony and nobody calls them out on it to just get the views as opposed to like giving people what they need. Yeah. And it's just I I think there really needs to be more clarity and and focus on uh a lot of these interventions for people. So that that's the goal with it. What's it called again? It's called Solved. It's on my YouTube channel. So they just go to Markman. We'll put we put the link down below. If you're bored of this podcast, just go listen to that one. So go ahead. Thank you for what you do. Appreciate you. I hope you guys enjoyed this. If you did, let us know. And uh we'll have to have some chicken now. I'll see you later.