Mark Manson: Money, Dating, & The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck

Andrew Tate is what men with no self-esteem think high self-esteem looks like. Unpack that a little bit. So it's funny like watching the rise of Tate because he's like a copy and paste of 20 million plus copies sold. The champion, the no fucks champion, official title, I think. Mark Manson, welcome, welcome to the pot. When subtle art came out. And it blew up and it was like at the top all the bestseller lists and stuff. Like everybody in the publishing industry were like, Oh, you're like the new Venom debut author, overnight success. I'm like, overnight success. I've been grinding on a blog for 10 years. Like what do you mean overnight success? Were you good at the beginning or did you suck? No dude, I was a fucking disaster. I was a total disaster. You obviously became a great writer. But I wanna talk about what you're doing now. Which is the YouTube V or the YouTube channel and like the main thing. When I saw Mr. Beast a light bulb went off. I was like I love Mr. Beast and like I've been watching his shit for a long time, but one of my frustrations with him is that it's all very

Feel like I can rule the world, I know I can be what I want to I put my doll in it like my days off on the roadless travel never looking back. Intro to the camera here. We got Free time New York Times bestseller, I believe. Yeah. We have uh twenty million plus copies sold.

The champion, the no fucks champion. Official title, I think. Uh Mark Manson, welcome. Welcome to the pot. Good to be here. Uh, been a fan for a while. Um, although I gotta admit, I read like a ton of your blogs and I didn't read the book until Like and I still haven't actually finished the book, but I until we booked this interview, I was like, I should probably go away, read the actual book that he's most famous for. Yeah. But there's something to like the fun of like

Oh I liked his He's old shit. Yeah, like the cool band thing. I was a fan before he was cool. Yeah, that that whole thing. Yeah. I actually was gonna ask so When I was writing that intro, I was like, This is pretty great, pretty impressive. Yeah. But I always wonder this, like W when you were y younger.

Like let's say Let's say a researcher was watching you and you were like, I don't know. Between the ages of ten and twenty. Mm-hmm. Would it have been noticeable? That you approached things a little different.

Even when you were younger? I was definitely different. When I was young. For sure. I don't think it would have been obvious that I w I would I was gonna end up an author or

in the personal development industry or whatever, but Uh you know, my whole life my teachers were like Mark's different, he's special. We wish he would do his homework. Uh we wish he would stay awake in class. Uh

But he could do great things one day. Like that was kind of the constant refrain throughout my job. Because you just weren't interested in school or what was the situation? Yeah, I was Board and and I would I would just Whatever I was into, that's just kinda what I like I used to bring poker books to class and read them in the middle of like physics class and my teachers would get mad at me and like, Well, I'm just like studying poker, you know. Were you big into like

During like the Chris Moneymaker phase, basically. Yeah. That's cool. Um Did you ever like Go all in on it. I tried, so it's funny. Um early on in college I I decided to sit down and take it really seriously. I made a few thousand bucks, which when you're like nineteen or twenty

Massive, right? I'm like, Oh my God, I can pay rent all summer on my poker winnings. And then uh I hit you were in college. Yeah. So you're paying like you know twenty grand for school, but ignoring school to make three hundred dollars in a sit and go. Exactly. Like I've stayed up till five a.m. Like I made two hundred bucks last night. Right. Um and and then I hit my first big downswing. and lost like half my bank roll and like Maybe three days, four days. Right.

And I was like, Oh shit, I don't think I can pay rent this month, you know? I'm like This kinda sucks, actually. Yeah. It's like a very very unhealthy uh un unhealthy life. I love the game, but the lifestyle that it requires, like the grinding, the the patience, like the The emotional fortitude to like handle the ups and downs. It's

Yeah, after about six months I was like, I don't think I'm built for this. Right. And you uh there's a lot of like degenerates you end up hanging around around like uh doing it. So you kinda look around you're like, this isn't healthy. It's like it's like they're not smoking, but there's like a secondhand smoke of their like life that's like I don't want to be inhaling right now. For sure. For sure. So I think we had kind of a similar um set of interest. Maybe it's like very common for

I don't know. Guys that are going through some rites of passage. It's like yeah. You think you can play poker or like count cards in blackjack. And then you sort it on to like the next phase. Yeah, exactly. Um where Yeah, there's a I think two thousand and five. Mm-hmm.

A book comes out that I know influenced you, it influenced me. Yep. Uh, do you know what I'm talking about? Of course, the game. The game Neil Strauss. Yep. Ironically, my girlfriend at my girlfriend in high school before I went to college, we were like, Yeah, let's break up, we're going to college in two different places. We were pretty mature about it. But she was like Here's a book. And I was like, That's the best backhanded compliment gift I've ever received was like your girlfriend giving you a book called The Game and it's like you need this for college. Yeah, yeah. Um

Describe how did you find it and what was like the Next twenty four hours after you started reading it. You know, it's funny. It it it hit me at Depending on your perspective. The exact best or worst moment possible. Um

So my first girlfriend in high school Had just cheated on me and left me for another dude and I was completely heartbroken just Gutted. You know, weepy, whiny.

And sucks even more in high school'cause like leaving you is like she's still there. Yeah, we're still in the hallway. Yeah. Well, I would by this time I was in college. we had gotten together in high school. Anyway, it was we didn't we didn't You made the right move. So we didn't split up. We were we were like, Oh, we're in love. We're gonna make it work. I'm gonna drive back every other week and all this shit and it's like No, that's a horrible idea. And so of course she found another guy. You should actually look in the camera and be like to the person who do that. Don't do that. It's not gonna work. The long distance girlfriend when you both go to college. Dude, just Don't do it.

And uh so anyway, I I was absolutely heartbroken and distraught and just had like very angry and confused. And I remember being in a bookstore and seeing seeing that book like on the table. And I remember my first reaction was disgust. I was like It's like What is this? Like who would read this, right? And then I'm like Uh yeah, maybe I'll read a few pages and

And I mean Neil's such a good writer, like it talk about somebody who knows how to like hook your attention and kind of suck you into a world. Um Yeah, I just I think I sat down and read probably the first fifty, hundred pages there in the bookstore. Uh, and then I think I I read the entire thing in just a couple of days, and and that was pretty much it. Like I was like, all right, like

You know, the one girl who ever liked me. completely fucked me over, broke my heart. And every other girl I've ever met seems to have no interest. So clearly I'm not doing something right. You know, like I'm willing to give anything a go at this point. And uh so yeah, I I I kinda got sucked into that world for Um

Well Yes. Four years, five years? Uh and then it eventually kind of stumbled into my first business was in that world as well. Yeah. And I want to talk about that because I think it's again like I it was like a formative phase of my life too. And

So today I think a bunch of people rightfully so, you know, like Like you, admire you, follow you and you Like add a lot of value to people's lives, right? Like Even though self help kind of like sometimes gets a bad rep. Like

Your by almost by definition. Helping people with themselves. But I would say like It's probably a rabbit hole you're you went down now and content you create now, but that previous rabbit hole you went down and content you created was around

Oh, there it is. There it is. Uh Oh yeah. This is your first book, right? Yep. uh models attract women through honesty. Yep. Um at least that subtitle is is like, you know Well, we can get to this in a second, but before that That was a very, very intentional Yeah, that that's jumping ahead a couple of years. But yeah, it keeps it. So let's start with okay, so you read the game, you get, you know, kind of a

Uh Like I always say this about Tim Ferris' book, The Four Hour Work Week, is like after you read that book You have the four hour fever. Yep. It's like for the next four hours you reconsider your entire life in like a fever dream. Yeah. And I just tell people that when I give them the book, I'm like, you're gonna have the schedule some time. You're gonna need this weekend to have the four hour fever. Um Same kind of thing happens with the game and you become

You start I guess you describe it, you start practicing it. So let's start start with like you start actually like practicing it. For people who haven't read the game. And don't know. the core principles of it. Like

What stood out to you at that time of like, Oh, I used to do things this way. But this is like this kind of thing I'm learning, this new skill I'm learning. Well so the there's a funny thing about the game which is and it's it's funny too,'cause I would put the four hour work week in this category as well, and that Those are If I was to make a list of like the five most impactful books that I've ever read in my life, those two would be

On the list for sure. Right. That said. I don't actually like m the majority of advice in both of those books, I don't think actually was applicable to me or actually worked for me. Right. It was more just showing what was possible, right? So

Um And m definitely more so in in the game's case than for you know, four hour work week it w it it It's primarily principles and mindsets. You know, my my issue with the four hour work week was that it just it made it sound way easier than it was. It's it's You know, the the tr the real four hour work week is uh You know, work sixteen hours a day so you can make money while you sleep. Um

But Th with the game I think the the really powerful concept that was very life changing was that social skills and dating are

skills that you can practice and get better at. Like that never occurred to me. It just occurred like U up to that point in my uh my life. Like most young people, I just kind of assumed like, well either girls are into you or they're not. And if they're not, you're kind of You're kinda

Fucked right. Or not fucked in that case. But like it it So reading that book and being like, Oh, you can actually go out and practice and get better social skills and get better at being sexual and flirting and and connecting with women and doing all these things like that, those are all skills that you can practice. Like that was very revelatory for me. That said, when I actually went out and tried to do the stuff in the game, which was a bunch of cheesy pickup lines and

they called them routines, like where like stories magic routines. Stories you would memorize and all this stuff. It was a fucking disaster. Like it was just it It was completely corny and and I felt very Inauthentic and out of place.

What was impactful is that it got me out of the house and like talking to women. on a regular basis. And I realized like Hey, if I actually just Get myself in front of

A bunch of cute girls. I'm actually I'm not that bad. Like I can talk, I can make a joke. Like I can use my own personality as a starting point and just build from there. Right. And so that's kind of what I started doing through up throughout college. And by the end of college, I kind of had developed a reputation as the big party guy, the player, you know, the guy who had

four different girlfriends or whatever. For me, I had the same experience you had, except for uh the lamest moment, the rock bottom moment, is when you hear another guy Saying the same thing'cause you read the same book and you're like, Oh shit, there's like a hundred of us running around Yeah. It's like This thing I was gonna say

By itself was actually a little bit cringe. Yeah. Maximally cringe if she heard this from another guy. And I was like, Oh, okay. I can't just like there's no memorizing your way to success here. But the principles I thought were good, and you're right, the forcing function of like Getting you to like kind of Uh

believe uh the self confidence to believe that this might actually work, that you can actually approach somebody and have a good conversation and that that could lead to something was pretty powerful. Yeah, I even do this with podcasts. Like I have Like a note of like What's the first thing I'm gonna talk about with you? Like I kinda know that the next ninety minutes will be great either way. Sure. But that first minute is like the social anxiety, which is like the same thing with

With Most people just aren't even approaching anyone. Yeah. with anything that's a of interest that might lead to a conversation. Um so for me that was like the

bigger thing. Do you uh still have that kind of like Did you think about that moment of social anxiety, that first um That first moment and like What the game helpful in like

Getting those reps. For sure. I mean I I I had a lot of social anxiety when I was young and And it's funny because it took me a long time to appreciate that that You know'cause when you're Kind of naive and

A newbie you look at all the pickup lines and you think it's the pickup line that's working. Right. And it's like No, it's actually the pickup line is just the excuse to kind of Get you through your anxiety. give give you the courage to actually go say something, it doesn't really matter what you're saying. Right. And

Uh, I actually had a very fort you know, kinda like you hearing overhearing an another guy say a word. I actually got very lucky early on because I was trying to use some of the stuff I read in the game. I started I tried to do like some fucking coin magic tricks and stuff like just total disaster. And uh I remember I I I I was having no luck whatsoever and I actually got very fortunate in that I was in a bar or something

I was talking to these three girls and I was like trying to do a magic trick and they were like really into it and really excited and I kept fucking it up. And then like it kinda got awkward and at a certain point they realized they're like, Wait. Like you're just doing a thing like kinda hit on us. And I like tried to make a joke and it was super lame or something and they kinda rolled their eyes and they started to walk away. And I was like, Wait, I have another magic trick. And and I remember one of the girls turned around and she looked at me and she was like, You know, you were kind of cute.

Like you should just Be yourself. I was like Right. You know, like head explode and almost and and that was kind of one of those those first moments where I'm like, you know what, like Why don't I just start

Like use my personality as the baseline and then iterate on stuff that already feels natural and trying to instead of trying to be like some fucking weird dude in a book. Right. I can't believe I spent $10,000 in two years of my life studying all this shit, I could have just like walked up and been like

Hi, where are you from? And it would have gotten me the exact same results. There's a book that's like uh Food, diet book. I haven't even read the book, but the last page of the book is like a summary. Uh you might know the book because you're you're You're an author? Um It's like

Here's the like after all the studies and all the diets,'cause like, you know, there's like a trillion diets out there and like they're like super some are super complicated. You're like, you know, peeing on a strip to see if you're like in ketosis or not. You can do all you can take it to a the nth degree and it was like Yeah, so it seems like the rules are um You know, eat real food, like not like Package process food. Like eat real food. Not too much.

Yeah. And it was like that was like basically the the the core of the advice. Yeah. And it's like Oh. Yeah. And like, but if you actually intensely followed that, you get all the results you want, but like there's this thing where we sort of search for this like other answer, the secret answer. Yes. It can't possibly be just that. There there's a weird thing that happens at a lot of these industries, which is

the concepts and frame frameworks that sell well are often counterproductive, right. And you see this in diet nutrition, you see this in exercise for sure. You see this in social skills, personal development, self help. You see it in the pickup world. Like

It's really sexy. Like when a guy stands up and he says, I have a three step model that works every time and you're gonna get laid like tile and you're gonna lose a hundred pounds and you know. It's really sexy and you really want to buy it and you like want to believe it and it works and it makes people millions of dollars, but then it doesn't actually it's not actually good advice. Right. Whereas The good advice This is the other hard thing about these industries is that the good advice is boring. And so And

the things that work, and again, this is true in personal development, it's true with social skills, true with diet, nutrition, everything. The stuff that works is boring. It's It's not the information that's hard. It's Simply doing it. It's implementing right. consistently over a long period of time. That's the hard part.

And There's no easy way to sell a solution to that. So The easy thing to sell a solution for is, you know. My three steps that work every time.

Yeah, and I see this everywhere, like'cause I'm mostly in the Kind of start up business world. Um and like, you know, Warren Buffett, uh they're like, you know, Warren, you're pretty open about your strategies. Yeah um And they're not like that complicated. Um, why do you think that more people don't do this? And it was either Hammer Charlie Munger that were like 'Cause nobody wants to get rich slow. Yeah.

S. Yeah, we just did this in public and he's like, You know, I made most of my wealth like from the ages of six seventy to ninety. And like Uh But nobody wants that. Nobody wants to hear that. They want to hear that guy who's not done this, tell them that they can do XYZ faster or di in a different way, in a complicated way. You you know, you just didn't have the info. Now that you got the info

Now it's all gonna work. Same thing like uh you know, Y Combinator, which is the most successful Like Yeah, startup. Uh investor and and and Uh

Excelator. Their number one advice is just make something people want. Mm-hmm. And they're like, what's the greatest startup advice? Like then but the the the way it helps is like if you just tell someone that they don't know how to use it. Yeah. The question like the audit when you're like

So do you think that people want this? They're like, of course. And it's like cool. So what tells you that what what evidence is showing you that people want this? And they're like, Well we don't have any. It's it's it's like that bell curve meme where it's like genius and the Yeah, the the meme scroll like just make something people want. And then in the middle of the bell curve it's like, Well, you've got to have these twelve steps and figure out these strategy you know, and then the the Jedi is like just make something people want. I love that meme. That's why I told Bad That's the meme of the true true across so many domains. It's amazing. Yeah. And I catch myself all the time and I'm like, I need what would the Jedi oh the Jedi would just say like Yeah. Do it because it's fun. Instead of like

Yeah. Yeah, all these other things. Yeah. Um When you look back,'cause Ben's been flashing a bunch of your like I did I notice Ben Ben he flashes a bunch of your things that are like This is the cringe section of the don't worry, th it gets. Uh

But you have like a bunch of these things that I'm like They're like just amazing headlines. We're gonna talk we're gonna talk titles later because you're like a title master. Sure. But When you look back. Do you how what's the meaning you put or like what's the label you put on these things? I think we're both of the mindset that like

Life is not really about what happens, it's kinda like what you What you make of it and also what you tell yourself, the story you tell yourself about what happened. Yeah. Um, so like when you look back on that phase. Is it just like um cringe and I don't wanna ever think about like I I hope uh my I forget about that? Is it like

No, that was actually really useful for me in these ways. Is it just funny now? Like what's your reaction now? It's a really good question. I w I would say it's probably like one third cringe, one third I think it was actually really important informative in a lot of ways. And then One third just kind of funny and just like Can you believe that happened?

Uh I actually when I moved out here to LA Um I met up with Neil for the first time. And we spent a day together and we spent like half the day just kind of being like, Can you believe that happened? Right. Can you believe we actually did that? I

I look back though, especially now that a little bit more time has gone by. I really do think there there was kind of an underrated factor. And I think this is very relevant because this is starting to happen again with Gen Z. With I think the pickup artist industry is underrated as A

Cultural. or social phenomenon, particularly for young men trying to find identity or find themselves in like a very confusing world with a lot of information. Uh Because it's when I look back at that time, like, yeah. Like we

in the industry w co our the coaches, we used to joke with each other. It was like yeah, we all came For the women, but we stayed for the for the other dudes. Yeah. Like it's it's most of the guys who really got into that, it wasn't about the girls. It was they needed to feel accepted and And And validated by

Other men. And And just I guess I don't know. their masculinity, right?

There's like a very there was like this yearning for like a masculine role model. And I always found that I was very aware of that at the time, but I didn't really know what to make of it. Uh, but as the years have gone on, I look back and I think like I think it blew up to the extent it did because because of that. I don't think it was really about the the dating or the girls. I think it was just it was a generation of Kind of

Post feminism. A generation of like men who had Fewer father figures, fewer role models. lot more confusion about like who they're supposed to be in the world. And I think we're

That's that cycle's coming back. today and you're seeing a lot of that happen again with A different set of role models and uh a different industry. Well let's talk about one of them. Uh so I think Andrew Tate is like the uh you know

Poster boy right now that uh Becky pull up that tweet he has. You have a great tweet. About energy I wanna ask you. Yeah, yeah. Andrew Tate is what men with no self esteem think high self esteem looks like. As a rule, narcissism is all is always mistaken for confidence. By those who have no confidence.

From there, it doesn't take much. For the dynamic to turn abusive slash Exploded. Yeah, so it's funny like watching Tate the rise of Tate because it He just

He's like a copy and paste of half the guys that were in that industry. Right. You know, it's like all the shit he says. I'm like, Oh yeah, I remember, you know. This guy used to say that. Oh yeah. That guy used to say that too. Oh yeah, that guy made a lot of money that you know, like it's all the same shit, just recycled. in a new package. I I do think Tate is uniquely charismatic and I think he is an interesting backstory that a lot of got young men re respect. And so that It's given him a lot more

Amplification. It's also just a different era with social media and everything. Uh but And he like layered on an MLM. Yeah, right. So he just combined like three of the most powerful forces in the world. Seriously pretty insane charisma with like this like cocktail of like words that cast a spell on young men. Yeah. And then an MLM distribution model where he's like look cut up clips of me and post them everywhere and like that's how you rise in the ranks and you get like you're gonna make money by promoting me. It's which is insane. It it's honestly somebody really needs to do

Uh I mean it probably we probably need some time. But like ten years from now, I wanna see somebody do like a really good book about him. Right. And like a A fair book, not like Trying to smear up like

Take an honest look of like, who was this guy? Why did he blow up? Why did this work? Right? Like Because I it's I think it's easy. Obviously you can take the worst things that he said. It's no secret.

Some of the bad things he said. And you can just hammer on those all day, but like I think that's way less interesting than just trying to understand like Why is there such a demand for this guy again? Right? Like I thought we kinda got over this. And this kinda ties back into my first book, Models. So like

the pickup industry by like two thousand nine, two thousand ten. I had really, really become burnt out on on just the toxicity of it. I I really felt that there were kind of two strains of dating relationship advice for men. One was Basically promoting narcissism.

Selfishness, power dynamics. Right. And sure, that stuff can get you laid a lot. But It's It's at the expense of preventing any sort of

happy or joyous long term relationship or intimacy with any female ever, right? So You're like giving up that potential. To just like put notches on your bedpost and brag to your buddies. And that

is a very bad trade off. Like if if you look at just the In the terms of a man's overall lifespan, that's a very bad trade off. Um And then so I was I was kind of like okay, how do we like detoxify this this advice? What does that look like? Um how do we and it's not just about

treating women with respect, but it's treating yourself with respect too, because like what a lot of guys don't realize is that Yeah, obviously if you objectify women, it's bad for the women. But it's bad for you too, because you're objectifying yourself. You're start you're basically just measuring yourself by how wet your dick gets. And like that's a very demeaning way to view yourself and view your own self esteem.

And so I was kind of fed up with the whole thing. I knew I wanted to get out. I wanted to pivot out of the industry. And I was like, well, if I'm getting out of the industry, I might as well just write the book that everybody needs to hear and nobody wants to hear. Which is that this is all toxic and fucked up and stop doing it. Were you good at the beginning or did you suck? No dude, I was a fucking disaster. I was a total disaster. Um

You do you want me to talk about the content side or the marketing side? Uh whatever's more interesting. You you tell me. Well, I'll I'll I'll st start with the content side. It's less interesting, but I'll start with it'cause it's quicker, which is just like Most of my content was bad at first and I think that's true of anybody and you just get those reps in. You know, I I you back in the day, back when blogs

We're still a thing. Nice to get. asked all the time like how do I start a blog? How do I Grow blog. Make

make a living as a blogger. I mean my answer was always the same, which is like write a hundred blog posts, come ask me again. Right. And uh Have you seen by the way Mr. Beast has like almost the exact verbatim answer. Yes. And I love it because Yeah, it's the exact same thing I used to tell people. And it's a combination of like it's actually the right advice because you need a bunch of reps and you need to suck for a little bit and get better just try to make each of the next video better and nobody's but it's also it's a filter. It's like Are you serious or you're not serious? I will help you if you're serious. Yes. But 99% of you are not serious. This is the easy test. Exactly. Exactly. And the funny thing is, too, is that it's like most people if they go write a hundred blog posts and try to make each one better. By the hundredth one, they don't need the advice anymore. They know what they're doing wrong. They know what they need to get better at. So Was there anything that got you better? What did you read something or follow some or uh you know model your stuff after someone? Like, do you remember how you got good?

In terms of writing and content. My two big inspiration I was a huge Bill Simmons fan back in the day. Wow. We were like very, very aligned. Like uh back in the day, page you know, page two. Yeah. And um It's I remember reading his call. I was like His column each week was like an event in my life. It was like I was so excited to go read it.

And I remember thinking I was like I want my art because Back then the meta In pre newsfeed, pre social media, everything. So it like in the blog sphere. The idea everything all traffic was either SEO or um

The blog roll type thing. Yeah, like link farming. Like you know, you would pr like write something spicy so that A bunch of other bloggers would want to comment on it. So they'd link to you and like all this stuff. And It be it was very much a volume game. So like the the standard advice was always You know, don't write one big blog post a day.

Right. twenty 20 single paragraphs and post those as individual blog posts each day. It just that's what's going to make you grow. And I always hated that. That always felt very Shitty and uninsp uninspiring. And so

And I love Bill Simmons. And I was like, man, I wanna be the Bill Simmons of my industry, right? Right. Like I wanna have these like epic. 10 page posts that that guys just get lost in and like, you know, they like schedule their week around. Right. And you end up feeling like a friend. It's like It's a hang. Yeah. And I think it that probably hurt me in the short run and it helped me in the long run. I tried to meet up with him when uh so we came out here. I was like, I want to schedule and I was like, Who's my dream guest? I was like, I would love to have Bill Simmons on this because I don't he doesn't do a lot of like where he's the guest. I don't I've never really seen any, to be honest. Like Yeah, he's like a he's a big deal at Spotify now. So he's you know, he's Yeah, that's fine. But like whatever. Who cares? But but he was written some if you haven't if people haven't read this, go read uh I think it's called the The Consequences of Caring.

Unbelievable post. So good. Uh anyway. Sorry, continue. So Bill Simmons inspired you to be like, I don't need to like sell out to the algorithm the algorithm of that time, the meta of that time. Yeah. And it's I also think it helped that I w I was in a pretty niche in uh insulated industry. Like everybody kinda knew each other and everybody talked about each other and everything. So it it actually I think it helped me get get my name out even more. Because I was I did have a knack for writing.

It seemed. And I did. eventually start posting some pretty good stuff. And um And so that kinda got talked about and shared. Do you remember what was uh like kind of your first thing that broke out?

I really in that era, I really don't. I really don't. It was so Gradual, then. Like My It's funny because, you know, subtle art is so massive. Like

I it was funny when this is jumping ahead a little bit, but like when Subtle Art came out And it blew up and it was like at the top of all the bestseller lists and stuff. Like everybody in the publishing industry were like, Oh, you're like the new Venom, debut author. Overnight success and all the s I'm like overnight success I've been Fucking grinding on a blog.

Ten years. Like what do you mean overnight success? Right. Yeah. I was doing like yeah, that's like the low status thing in society. It's like I'm a blogger. Yes. Exactly. So you're unemployed? Like what is that? Especially I got stories. I got stories. I remember um Like twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen. And by this time my like my audience was pretty big. Like I had a few hundred thousand readers and uh I remember going home for Christmas one year and Uh

kinda got in a argument with my parents and my my stepmom was just like, When are you gonna get a real job? And and And she was like, You know, I know such and such, like they're hiring Like a web designer. You know, you could go do that. And I was like That'd be a waste of my time. And she's like, Oh, you could probably make a hundred thousand a year. And I was like, I already make a hundred thousand a year. And she just looked at me and she goes, No, you don't.

Like Do you want tax returns? Like Jesus Christ. What do I have to do to get you people to believe in me? But uh anyway. We're jumping around now. Um You know, the con yeah, the content side, I don't know. I just I had this weird confidence of like I saw that Bill Simmons trajectory over the page two days and I'm and he did it differently than everybody else, and I was like

Why can't I do that, right? Uh I'm not gonna post twenty times a day. I'm just gonna do like one epic article that everybody gets excited about. And that was kind of my MO. And it's funny because that eventually became the meta kinda in the more Facebook era. Um

in the early twenty tens. Uh so I was like ahead of the curve, I guess. On the marketing side, I was trash. I was just like Selling does not come natural to me at all. It was very much something that I had to

consciously train myself practice I took a bunch of copywriting courses, um I like went to marketing seminars, pirated marketing seminars. Uh Like that was always the it's funny because it's like the

The psychology side, the personal development side of everything, the social dynamics, the relationship advice, like That all came very easily and naturally to me. Yeah. It was fun. It was like kind of a hobby. So it was like

I never really Had to like Work hard to kinda figure that out. Like Anything I was working on getting better at in my business, it was always the sales and marketing stuff. Right. Like figuring that shit out. So you've done uh so those content reps got in. You obviously became a great writer and we'll talk about the book in a second, but

I want to talk about what you're doing now, which is the YouTube video. Sure. Or the YouTube channel. And it seems like that's I don't know, is that your like Is that like the main thing? Is that like Right now, right now that's the new main thing, yeah. And so uh I think you dropped the First

First like um video maybe a couple days ago. Yeah. And doing super well. Can you pull it up? I wanna actually do a little So one of my favorite little content things is this um This thing that happens in sports and football, uh They like take

quarterbacks that are about to be drafted. And I don't know if you've ever seen the see they sit down and they like Look at game film with them just to see kinda how they think. Sure. And um It's my favorite thing in any podcast is like when you can really like

Not like talking the abstract. Yeah. Talk in the specific, like Like, why did you do this? How did you think about this? Yeah. Um, and we we hung out with Mr. Beast and we we did that with some of his videos and The way he thinks, you're like, Oh, okay, I get it. I get it. Like I learned something tactical, but also just I get you more. Yeah. Um, versus when you ask him general questions. And so I wan kinda wanna play this game. I don't know how, but we'll try it. I wanna know the thought that went into this. Let's watch the first 10 seconds, I wanna hear you talk about it. Okay. What would you do if someone offered you$10,000 to do whatever it takes to overcome your social anxiety? Could you do it? Would you even know where to start?

I decided. to find out. Alright, let's pause right there. Yeah, yeah. All right. Walk me through that. Well a lot was happening there. What what was w how you think about this? Obviously some Mr. Beast inspiration here. He was very inspirational. So Let me zoom out for a second.

Uh More broadly, and then I can kinda come back to this video specifically. So Early in my career I did a lot of coaching. First with the pickup stuff and then just kinda like life advice in general.

I stopped coaching. For a lot of reasons, but one of them is I was consistent I was very frustrated by it, which was That I feel like the incentive like the way the incentives are structured within coaching industries.

uh in the personal development world. Uh Counterproductive. Right. So it's like if you're paying me a bunch, like let's say, I don't know, you have like self esteem issues and you're paying me a bunch of money to like help you out.

It's first of all, my incentive isn't to fix your self esteem issues. Like my my incentive is to make it feel like I'm fixing your self esteem issues even though they're still there. Like a pharmaceutical company. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And then on your side of the equation. Uh It's

What often happens in practice Like or on the customer side is what often that happens in practice is People. Kind of show up. They pay you, say a thousand dollars and they're like, Well, I just paid you a thousand dollars, so

You deal with it. Right. Like I've been dealing with this my whole life. I just paid you a bunch of money, you deal with it now, right? Like that's actually what they're looking for. And so I hated that dynamic. It felt very I mean it works some of the time. But

In a lot of cases it felt very icky and I've kind of found myself in like awkward situations with clients and stuff. Uh so I I just got away with From it. uh entirely and just kinda stuck the books and courses and everything.

When I saw Mr. Beast A light bulb went off. I was like Because I love Mr. Beast and like I've been watching his shit for a long time, but one of my frustrations with him is that it's all very surface level. Like I'll I'll watch a Mr. Beast video and I'll get

to the end and I'm like, I want to know about the guy who won't character. Yeah. I'm like, tell me about the guy who won. Or tell me like you're down the four people. Tell me about their lives. Like bring their families in. Like I wanna see, let's get some juicy drama going, right? I I talked to him about this. Yeah. And I was like, uh he was talking about like a Netflix or like T V shows. Yeah and it was like oh like Yeah, what can you learn about TV shows what can you what do you learn from like TV shows that have been running for a long time, do really well. Mm-hmm. And he he says he's like Uh also I think they can learn a lot from us. And he's like yeah, he's like I'd love to see their retention curve. Um right. They they just don't know where people are dropping off. He's like what we found was like if you hit him, hit him, hit him with like

the more of like the action and the stakes and then the the quest and like the curiosity you open the loop. And like That's gonna keep people he's like, but he's like, but I do think the one thing T V does well is character. He's like, We don't do any narrative or character. And I gotta figure out how I'm gonna do that. Yeah. But he's like, I don't know, he's like, I don't know how to do that yet. But like we should probably learn that. Yeah. So this is this is kind of another

Side statement. And this gets more into like my personal strategy or like opportunities I see in the future. But like It's uh The current media environment. I think traditional media

They've always had the luxury of having that lock in of like you're in a theater and it's more it's a like once you're in a theater, it's more difficult to leave than to sit through a bad movie. So everybody just sit through a bad movie. You know, it and it's in the previous era of television It's You know. You don't want to sit there and like flip around for

Ten minutes looking for something else. So you sit there and just kinda watch a mediocre show. So it's like Traditional media is coming from a hundred years of a luxury of just having that buy-in and having you like locked in and And so they can take the time it requires to build character, build narrative, build Build drama. Right. And and create those very emotional moments that

We've all had with our favorite movies and T V shows. YouTube is kind of the other way around. Like there's always Shit fighting for your attention and trying to get you to click off. And so YouTube is just retention, retention, retention. Like it's merciless and absolutely brutal. And so I think we're in an interesting media environment where YouTubers have become masters of retention.

And the content on YouTube is super hooky. And click the ring. Right. Yeah. Those two two variables. Yes. Super hooky, very clickbaity, like addictive But also kind of empty calories. Like you can just blow through like six videos and just be like, Wait, what I don't remember a single thing I just watched. And that's kinda unsatisfying. Traditional media is like caught in the other side of things of like, Wait, shit, like

People are s watching our shows now with like their phones in front of them and they're like They've now got five different streaming services they can pick from and they can switch it easily switch to another movie like mid movie, right? And so They're trying to catch up on the retention side of things and I think YouTube is is trying to catch up on the the character development and drama side of things. And I think whoever figures it out first is gonna like

Win really big. But anyway. Back to the Mr. Beast thing and the coaching thing. So I was watching Mr. Beast videos. for a couple years. And then like last year I was I was kinda taking this break and I was trying to figure out what I was gonna do next in my own career.

And I had felt this about his videos for a long time. And and I started thinking I'm like, Man, like what if you What if you built the challenges in a way that like forced character development? Like what if the challenges weren't built around like s you know, stand in a circle or uh you know, keep your hand on a car? Like what if it was built around on this Lambergini. What if it was built around like a real personal issue that like You have to investigate to like try to understand.

And And that's when the light bulb went off because I'm like Not only does that potentially create like very amazing transformative YouTube content. But it solves that coaching issue as well. Because when you take somebody who's struggled their entire life

With The problem is never that this comes back to information thing. The problem is never I don't have the information to fix my problem. The problem is they're just not doing it. Right. Like they're not fucking going out and doing it. And so And

They could pay a coach a thousand bucks. And the coach can say, Okay, well you paid me a thousand bucks, now go do it. And sometimes that works, but not always. Or you could say. I'll give you a thousand bucks if you go to it.

And fix your own shit. Right. Like what does that look like? Right. Like what is like the most effective layer lever for behavior change is Financial incentive. And so what if you actually create financial incentive for people to actually go deal with their shit?

And like do the things that they've always known that they need to do and they've just never had the guts to do it. And so that's when I was like, holy shit. That's kinda genius. Yeah. I was like, fuck, I need to make this. Uh so This is our first attempt at it. And it's funny because This was shot.

End of April, early May. This is we're recording this end of July. Um There are I I'm already aware of like fifteen things that are wrong with this video. And like there are like it's it's actually underperforming our our expectations and like There's so many things that we need to fix.

But it's the first rep. Yeah. It's the first rep. It's the like the first. It's like the beta test. But Super, super excited about the format. That makes a ton of sense. And uh also like even just mechanically, like The things you just said. So if

Yeah, coaching's getting somebody to like Transform. Uh, the way the transform is not information is doing it. Yeah. Best way to get somebody to do it is if maybe a financial incentive or even like the fact that they agree to be in the content. There's a contract there to like Do the thing.

Um But you also How can you offer ten thousand dollars to why could you pay your cloth? That's not a sustainable business, but it is if it's YouTube content. You have like almost the full loop to be able to make something. It creates a it creates a very beautiful flywheel. Uh You're helping that individual. So in in this video it's a woman named Melinda. So I'm helping Melinda.

And she did get amazing results. Uh you know, she's finally doing the things that she's always known that she should do or has always wanted to do. You get to all the people watching, because I could easily make a video of me sitting at a desk talking about social anxiety for fifteen minutes. Everybody's heard the same shit. They've all like

Everybody knows what I'm gonna say. No. millions of people get to actually watch somebody overcome their character overcome. Yeah. It's like Oh, that's what it looks like. Oh, that's what how people respond in that situation. You know, the difference between watching Rocky

And then some or somebody sitting in a chair and saying, You should gotta work really hard. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a different emotional register. Totally remember twenty years later and still think about when you work out. Yeah. And the other one you don't. Totally. So it's the Qualitative feedback. On this. It's been honestly, it's been some of the best of my entire career. Like we if you look through the comments of this video, there's tons of comments of people saying, I cried, right, this was me. Oh my God, like

I was not expecting this. This is so powerful. You know, it it it's pretty incredible. And so how did you think about those first ten, fifteen seconds. I don't know how how long we went, but like What are you tr trying to achieve in those first fifteen seconds of this video? So th with YouTube content, there's always this question of like what's the hook? Like what's gonna get people to buy in, what's gonna get people to stick around.

And One of the challenges that we face with this format is that All of the All the stuff that we're having people do. It's it's su it's super abstract. Like social anxiety is super abstract. Like how do you show social anxiety? It's like not very obvious how you show that visually.

Uh or like low self esteem. How do you show that visually? So We were thinking about like okay, what are like kind of like hooks or gimmicks that we can like implement into the format.

bought in, right? And the first and most obvious in this in the current Mr. Beast meta is fucking money, right? It's like everybody on YouTube's doing it. It seems to be working for a lot of people. So Kind of the the obvious starting point is like, okay, well what if Jedi, right? Jedi in the numb school. What if you gave them ten thousand dollars? Like What if you gave them$1,000? But the funny thing is is that it actually this intro did not perform very well. And so And what do you what is that what tells you that? Like you're looking at the curve, you're like the retention chart. What should it have been uh for what what do you think it should have been to be like good?

Well I think Though the issue with this is that even though it's money, it's still It's still not visual enough. It's still too abstract. And so I think what we've learned from this one is that the new approach needs to be

We just need to start like mid challenge. So like the first challenge in this video is just approach. We yeah, we take her into a mall and we tell her she has to find somebody from Canada. And like she By the way, it's so funny because she it's it's so like relatable, which is why I think you should have started with this. I was actually gonna suggest this. Yeah. It's so relatable because You tell her like Someone in this mall is from Canada. You need to go approach them and ask them and find them. And she's like,

Nervous laugh. And then she starts like faking being on a phone. Like which is everybody's done it. Like and then she's like it's like are you faking a phone? It's like Yeah, I am. I just I don't know, it makes me feel more comfortable. Dude, she was so relatable. Such a spaz. Such a spazz. It was really fun. And and yeah, in hindsight, it's like we should have just opened up with that. And then explain the format later. Yeah. Uh but like Yeah. I mean we're new we're we're we're Paving the road as we drive down it. Cast.

Yes. Which is hard. And you don't know what's gonna happen and like this is kind of reality TV. For sure. You And then it's also like H this I would say this is a common theme from the pickup to uh subtle art to now this, which is

How do you avoid selling out? So like yeah when you've been in the the industry, you kinda know, okay, if I pull this lever, I'm gonna get more juice. Yeah. Like maybe maybe this w let's just pretend if this woman's transformation was not that That Crazy, but like in the edit, you could kind of like make this video better. It's like, do we want to have our video be better or worse? Obviously better, but at the same time

We don't want to sell out. How have you just dealt with that like How hard do I want to Turn the knob or pull the lever of like Yeah, manipulation to make something work.

The few that we've shot. All of them have been very successful so far, but I've told the team that I wanna be Eventually we're gonna hit one that's not successful. Like We don't help the person, it doesn't work. Right. Or

Maybe we help him a little, but They don't get there, right? Uh I think it's very, very important to be honest about that. And that actually

make a video like have the video kind of explore why that is. You know? Um Because it's Yeah, there's a credibility.

an authenticity that it's just so, so important, especially and that's It's been one of my criticisms of my own industry. Firm.

Ten, fifteen years of just like the lack of trustworthiness, the lack of credibility. 'Cause if you promise the magic pill that works in two minutes, you're gonna sell more. Than if you say this takes you two years of Tough work, right? Right. So you've probably dealt with that a bunch and like maybe now, you know. You got fuck you money from the book and you're like, I don't I don't have to do that anymore. You know, I guess how has that changed. I'm very fortunate in that the book did so well, first of all, it is true. The book did so well that I do have fuck you money, so I don't really

care like this is this YouTube project's losing money and it's probably gonna lose money for a year or two and I'm fine with that. Uh but like It's I'm also very fortunate that I made my money being very explicit about that. That like there is no magic pill, there is no cure all. Like It's funny, dude. Like even when you dig into research on Uh

therapies, like what modality of therapy is the most effective, right? You start looking at the research and it's It's startling because There's nothing that has more than a fifty percent hit rate. Nothing. Like not there's no form of therapy that is successful like produces positive outcomes more than fifty percent of the time.

Which is crazy because it's like therapy is like the most tried and true. Like we've had it for two hundred years. Like it's the one thing everybody's like is directed to go to. So there's in in the world of psychology, there's just so much that we don't know what works. Like in What works for you could completely fail for me and vice versa. 'Cause everybody's so individual. So To your point about casting. A huge part of our casting process is

Doing Pre shoot interviews. Me doing pre sho pre shoot conversations and interviews with the person To really gauge of like Is this a person I can help? Because

For every Video we shot. We talk to probably two or three people. And Half of those people I'm like, you know.

Not really confident I can actually like Right. Get them over the line. Whereas like with this with this woman You know, I talked to her and within ten minutes I'm like Yeah. No, I could

Give me a week with her, I'm like I could get I can get something out of it. You know. Did you um do you watch the TV show The Bear? By any chance. I have not everybody says it's amazing, but I've not yet. Yeah, it's actually it's a little bit I would say it's a little bit slow, but it pays off. It's the thing you talked about, which is like the retention curve for me was terrible at the beginning. It's slow. It's like

Cool shows where it's like, no, we're not gonna like B click baby. Yeah. And I'm like, I'm kinda used to that hit. So you know, like if you're really gonna pay this off with character, it's gonna take some time. But man, it does it. There's like a s episode in the second season that's like such a huge payoff on character that like Now I'm like telling everybody, you gotta watch the show, just get to the second season, get to the end of it.

Yeah. It's so so satisfying. But they're um but we talk we so we reached out to one of the writers and we were like, Hey, there's respect and uh Just we like to learn from people like that. Like how do you Do this. How do you do this character thing? Um, have you learned anything in the process of like doing these videos of like

'Cause it's new, it's not writing, it's not books. You now have like casting and characters and stuff that you probably haven't done before, like First of all, I'm learning a million things. W one of the reasons I wanted to do this too, I should Specifies like You know, I came out of this period, the post subtle art period of my career.

I did three books. Back to back to back. I did a movie. Like bunch of traditional media success, like everything was Wildly successful

Very busy, lots of money. I moved to LA, I took s took a few months off and I was just like, Man, I miss like the grindy grassroots internet stuff, right? And But what I also realized is like I miss being bad at something. Like I miss

I miss just like throwing shit at a wall and being like, Did that work? Like No? All right, let's try this. You know, like in in in traditional media, I don't You don't really have the flexibility to do that, like You're you're being

If a studio or a large publisher is bringing you in, it's because like they know you can make a hit and you need to make a fucking hit. And So I I miss the internet days of like all right, let's try ten things and just know that like six are gonna fail. And uh Like that's just exciting to me. And so Part of this. Project was like

I wanna learn I wanna get back on a learning curve and like experience that again. And so yeah, I've been learning a million things about video production about Um storytelling, visual storytelling in in particular. Like one of one of the big lessons from this video is that I still very much just write like a

book writer. Like a lot of the mistakes that were made in this video. It's because it was organized in such a way that would work really well on like an article or a book. Right. But it works terribly on video. What's an example? So an example is for is like the intro, right? It's like That's a great intro on paper.

It's a terrible intro on video because it's abstract. It's not visually interesting. You know, it's like you start with the challenge. Right. woman spaz running around the mall, like ask people that are from Canada. Like that's super weird. And you're like, what? What's going on? And then it's like you slowly like drip context. Over the course of like Ten minutes.

Whereas When you're writing A book. or or an article. Like you have You need to put all the context up front of like this is what we're doing. This is what this is about. You know, it's like the old school essay. It's like you gotta have your thesis in the first paragraph and then you gotta have your three bullets and like all this stuff. So

I still my brain still kind of defaults to that and I'm having to like untrain myself in a lot of ways. The funny thing is is like And again, one of the reasons I'm doing this is I think my natural strength is story. in character and narrative like that.

That's where I shine naturally. What I'm weaker at is The retention, the hooks, the like Um Gen Z shit. The Gen Z shit. Yeah. Yeah. Actually. Exactly. There's something I have you ever heard this term like the millennial pause. No. It's so funny. It's like

If you were to it's like What's the value of pause? It's basically Gen Z people, if you watch the start of their video, starts with them already, they're already talking, so they're like mid-word as the video starts. Whereas every millennial is like, They click record? Hey everybody. That little like that little pause is like you're already swiped on TikTok if you haven't like

You gotta be like mid interesting thing and it's like That's so fucking true. That's funny. That's so true. That's so funny, man. You so you're doing this this uh series, what's like the craziest or most interesting challenge? I I guess you can't give it away too much, but like what what concepts are like, Oh, I can't wait to see how that's gonna turn out or like I really wanna try something like this. A lot of the the social stuff is like the most Interesting it

It'cause it's you can do a lot of fear based stuff. I mean, you can take somebody up in a plane and throw'em out, you know, make'em skydive or whatever, and that's exciting, but like I don't know, it It doesn't feel like there's as much depth as like the social stuff. So Uh we have a challenge in another video where I printed out flat earth. Flyers.

Saying like you know, do you Do you know the truth about the planet, you know, and it's a picture of a flat earth. And I made her go into a a public place and hand them out to people. Right. And like try to convince them to be flat earthers and choose like Absolutely mortified. Like just

Horrified. And uh But it's super fun because then it's like, Well, why do you care? Like you don't know these people, you're never gonna see them again. Like, why do you care? Why is it so horrifying, right? Like It's just yeah, it's super exciting. For me, this is honestly it's the most fun I'm having in my career and probably Six or seven years. Which is a dope lesson because, you know

You wrote a book with Will Smith, a movie, you know, you got to do a bunch of things that like I would say are like the on paper, like The hashtag goals people think they want. And uh Like actually that's not where the source of joy and and happiness comes from. Yeah. I think you I think you had said something which was like

Happiness is from solving problems. Yep. Is that you is that you? Yeah. Which is When you start at the beginning of a learning curve, you're just gonna suck and solve a bunch of problems to make something good. Yeah. And that's a lot more satisfy than uh For me at least it is, you know, I'm sure there are people out there who prefer like kind of a traditional media environment, but One of the things I learned is that

I can do traditional media projects and I can do very well at them, but like I don't feel that same passion. with them as I as I do with stuff like this. Like I like owning my own stuff. I like

experimenting. I like the creative process like having the Complete creative freedom and then also owning it and then also getting the package it and also like controlling the brand around it. Like it's Also part of I mean, we can talk about this too, but um It's It's funny, like so when my movie came out and I did all the press for the movie

Every single journalist I talked to was like, So are you gonna do another movie? And like in my head I'm like Fucking not. I'm gonna go make a YouTube channel because it's like that was actually my lesson from making a movie was like I should act in it. I should just have a YouTube channel. Like this is because The economics of the creator economy are fundamentally better.

The distribution is Miles better. You have like complete Ownership. There's complete creative freedom. Like I I just

Don't see how This doesn't end up ahead. Right. In ten years. It's like hanging by like a prestige thread. It really is. Like, oh yeah, status. It really is. And it's I'm sure I I don't think like Hollywood's gonna die, but I I imagine it's gonna be very similar to like kind of what's happened with like newspapers and Twitter. Of like

They're still prestigious newspapers and they still kinda matter a little bit. Like p it's still nice to like be in the New York Times or whatever, but The real intellectual Debate. And substance in like the stuff that drives culture happens on Twitter and Substack and has for years now, right? And it's like

I think we're coming up on an inflection point that that's that's also gonna happen in video and audio based media. I think it's probably al already happened with podcasts. And it's about to happen with video as well, where it's like Yeah, there's still gonna be like Marvel movies and stuff and Netflix is gonna have its T V shows and it's gonna be very prestigious to be on those, but like

Culture's gonna be driven by like it probably within this decade. Creators. They're gonna grow up for one. Uh

And two, the production value is gonna get better, the storytelling's gonna get better, and it's gonna it's gonna Hit. an inflection point where it starts driving culture and not Traditional media. If it's not already. I mean, it's already if you're under twenty five it is already. Right. Fair enough.

I wanna talk to you about titles because I think you're a title master. Um, do you think you're good at titles? Apparently I am. Yes. So the book I don't feel good at them, but the book obviously has a good title and it started with The s the book came from a blog post, correct? It wasn't intended to be like a book. It was like Yeah, here's a blog post. Why'd you know to turn that one into a book, by the way? Is it like Did it hit in a different way or Yeah, that that is that one. I mean, I had a lot of articles go viral.

over that period like twenty twelve to twenty fifteen like I probably had Super viral.

But that one just hit on like a whole nother level. Like it was so I had already written probably half the book. When that article came out. And then when that article hit the way it did, my agent was like, Hey, uh Yeah. Think you could uh change title of the book. Yeah. And you hadn't done a book in

Years, right? Before that? No, I just done models. Right. So you're uh you're you're but you were already thinking about a book and then it was like Oh. lean into this one. Yeah. So there's this di uh little picture or diagram. That's is that Did you make that or um the one of the guy floating away on the balloons? Is that uh from something? What is this? That was an old meme. Back in the day.

So good. Yeah, yeah. I love it. That's uh that's like as good as that midwip meme. It's like this image can become like You know, transformational. It's funny, yeah, I haven't seen that that I used that used to be around everywhere back in like twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, and then it's I haven't seen it in a long time. Right. There was also the original article also'cause back then a big part of packaging an article for like Facebook and Twitter was what image pops up when meta the meta when you share.

And so we We used to spend a lot of you know, kind of similar to like thumbnails on YouTube. We used to spend a lot of time like looking for the right image for the share. share image on on Facebook and uh I think the other thing that made that article work was I think on Reddit one day, just randomly on Reddit, I saw somebody had photoshopped a picture of a kitten

In front of like a bomb exploding. Yeah. And so we Pull that and use that as like the share. Yeah, the share, the share image. And it was just kind of this magical combo of Content. Title. Image and it just like all words. Do you remember how you thought of that title? So The Subt Art of Not Giving a Fuck. Where does that

come from. Sitting down and you're just hammering out a bunch of possibilities or I back then I used to keep a list of article ideas. Like just kind of a running list of ideas that I would just add to like I'd have convo conversations with people and something would pop up and I just pull out my phone, add it to the list. Um And it came from it came from there's a heavy metal song. Uh

From a band called Lamb of God. T song called The Subtle Art of Murder and Persuasion. Mm-hmm. And um And at that time I had just done Thank you

two different articles with fuck in the title. Like I I had just kind of discovered that if you put fuck in the title it it would Go further. It would yeah, everything would go further. So I was like adding fuck to all my titles or to a bunch of my my titles at the time. And so I was just kind of on the lookout of like, Cool titles that you could add. I'd fucking too.

Um and I think I knew I wanted to do an article about not giving a fuck. Uh'cause that was just an Obvious topic. Uh

And so when I heard that song, I was like, Well, subtle art document, like that's pretty damn good. Like I should use that. Let's pull up some of your other ones. So you have uh the most important question of your life. Yep. That's good. I like that. 'Cause you gotta know. I need to know. Well what does this jackass think you know? Probably nothing, but let me just check. Yeah, the most important X uh like it's it's it's always gonna work. You have Uh, Life is a video game and here are the cheap codes. That's like a you know Faster path. That that's become um

I feel like that's become a It's so this is the other thing. Like I think a lot of I guess my skill with this just came from cranking out. articles in the Facebook era of like trying to get articles to go viral because it was like so much of it had to do with the title.

And It's been interesting, you know, now that it's been ten years. It's been interesting because some of these have kind of just become I guess class. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's you just see there's probably ten different brands that use these same titles. all the time and like the life is a video game one is like I see that

Everywhere. I wrote this thread about um That uh the first line of it was everybody Everybody seems to think Clubhouse is the next big thing. Yeah.

Um, but I think it's gonna fail. And it's like, uh, grab some popcorn, here's here's how I think it goes down. Yeah, yeah. And um That thing went crazy viral. And like, uh I like my hero, Malcolm Gladwell starts following me. Bill Simmons DMs me and it's like, oh shit, this is like this is amazing. I didn't know this could happen. 'Cause like today the Facebook meta doesn't really work, but like

Twitter threads actually for a period of time last recently could It'd go viral. And uh and now that same theme is like people just replace AI is the next big thing. But here's uh you know, grab some popcorn, here's how I think it goes down. It's like the copy paste. But obviously like Loses effect as as it goes. That's the other interesting thing too that's kind of changed.

In the last ten years, like there was real And I I I don't have any moral judgment around this. But it's, you know, ten years ago was very much a sense of like, if you came up with a title that like Like a banger. It was like that was yours. Yeah. You know, but it's like no and if somebody stole it, it was like they're a piece of shit and you'd call them out and your audience would call'em out. And like I used to get

emays being like, this guy copied your article and like all this stuff. Like I never get those emails. Like it's everybody just rips everybody off now. And so anybody who posts anything that goes viral anywhere, there's a like the next day there's half life. There's twenty more versions on every platform. And it's just like It's the way the game's played today. It's that meme that it's like, you know, I made this thing and then it's like the other guy holding it. I made this thing. I made this. I don't think people even are are are aware of it anymore. Yeah. Um Bla is blogging dead? I think it it depends on how you define dead. So There was an era in the early twenty tens where

A you a blog could gain reach beyond its own specific niche. Like it you could kind of get mainstream audience, like hit hit like a critical mass. I think today You can still make a living off a blog.

It's just you've gotta have your niche figured out. You gotta like really be tuned into them and you're probably never gonna scale an audience. Past like Low six figures. Um whereas ten years ago, I mean

I think at my peak I getting like two, two and a half million visitors a month. Right. So It's it's a It's a different world now. It is still possible, but it's like I think it really only

If you're gonna go a blog route instead of Podcast or video, like it It You have to for really good reason and it probably has to be a very specific niche to do it. Did you podcast? Do you podcast? I do not.

Is there like a reason or why didn't it? I never started one just 'Cause of lack of bandwidth. Uh, just like writing too many books. Um

And then but now that I'm doing the video stuff, like I'm probably gonna do something in the podcasting space. It it won't be something like this, like. Last thing the world needs is another interview podcast. Don't step on my turf. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. I made this. I made this this is mine. But um I w I do think it's I think it I would like to be in this medium in some shape or form. So Uh, you did a book with Will Smith and presumably spent a bunch of time with Will Smith. Yep. You know, when people meet celebrities, I always ask like what are they like? Yeah. It's not like

I don't know it's a real specific question. It's kind of like How are they? Yeah, everybody every it's like how are they as a person? Yeah. It's kind of like Yeah, like Are they big? Are they awesome? There's like that version of it, but to me I'm sort of like What

Was a s what was something you saw them do, or like a something you witnessed that was like Just not how the common person would have approached. Mm a given situation. So the quick answer to the the one everybody always asked, which is like what's he like in person? He is

Exactly like the fresh prints. Like that is I spent the I remember spending one day with him and then I went back to the hotel and and called my wife and I was like He did not act on that show. Like they literally just put him in a room. And then put actors around like that is that is his personality. Will Will is like there are a few dimensions that I think he is like at the extreme end of the bell curve.

the the most obvious one that's not gonna surprise anybody is just this charisma. Like he is by far the most naturally charismatic birth. I mean, it it can literally just be like me and him. sitting in a kitchen At midnight. Talking about

cartoon like he's So charismatic. Just like built into them. And so it's not hard you spend a little bit of time with him and y it's not hard to see and understand like oh okay, I see why this guy's so famous. His mind is is very

Almost delusionally positive. Like he kinda has this like You know, we all have a little bit of a the psychologist Dan Gilbert calls it a psychological immune system, which is like when bad things happen, we kinda like rationalize or explain them in a way that

You know, makes us feel better or helps us. His psychological immune system, like It's just Negativity just bounces right off him. Any sort of failure setback. Like he doesn't

Doesn't bum'em out. Like I I've never really been around somebody who is so easily to like able to construe Challenges and obstacles in a way that That is confident and beneficial.

Like it's actually very impressive, but it's funny because it also gets them in trouble. Like when there actually is a problem that needs to be addressed and you do need to be sad and you do need to like Deal with it. He just rationalizes it in such a positive way so quickly that it it kinda like

it it can cause problems for him. And that's that's actually one thing he and I talked about. You know, he came from a very chaotic and like abusive childhood and

He said he's like I develop that. as like a survival mechanism. Right. And it's helped me so much throughout my life and my career. Like I'm just absolutely relentless. Like anything goes wrong, it never bothers me. Like I just get up and do it again. But yeah, it's like I'm a little bit untethered to reality sometimes. Like uh so that that's like that was very interesting and and remarkable.

When you saw the Chris Rock Slap or whatever. That's obviously kinda like not like, you know, Mr. Positive or whatever in that moment where you where you're like Yeah, what was your kind were you like stunned? Uh like'cause you know'em more than like every shocked,'cause it's a shocking thing.

But when you know the person. You might have like either it's even more shocking than than that or it's less because you understood maybe it was definitely where you're coming from. It was definitely less shocking for me. Um He slapped you once. You're like that's common. Keep her name out of your mouth. Uh No, I mean like one of the things And we

This is in the book. He had a very abusive alcoholic father. He used to beat the shit out of his mom. And he was the oldest uh he was the oldest child. He was the male, right? So he felt

responsible and very protective. And so He has a lot of issues around women. He's very protective. He's very Sensitive. Like

The women in his life are his Achilles heel. Like that's if you want to get to him, like that's the route. Like you can talk shit about him all day, all night, he's gonna sit there and laugh. You find whatever. Like

You go after his mom, his daughter, or his wife, like Shit's gonna get real real fast. And So I wasn't surprised. It was funny, actually. I I was watching it with my wife live and like my wife turned to me and she was like, This is a bit, right? I was like, No, that's not a bit. Like he's actually saying that right now. She's like, What? You send them a text afterwards or you like just give'em space. Uber famous people, you like it's hard to even navigate. It's like you don't want to be one of those people. Yeah. You're also like if I'm your friend, do I just send you something? Like Yeah, it's weird. That's a whole like we could spend an hour just talking about that. That's like super weird. It's funny too, because it's like

Everybody who I've ever known in my life. message me that night. Asking for like my opinion. Literally people like I haven't talked to since high school. You know, like reaching out I'm like, Wait, this is the thing that got you to reach out. Like all the shit I did, you didn't like didn't bother, like, you know, couldn't be bothered to to to say anything. But like

This this got you c to reach out to me. All right, all right. Yeah. Like something can win the internet for the day and like that won the internet for the day. So you know it has like insane reach. It was insane, yeah. Amazing. Thanks for doing this, by the way. I know you uh You know, you kinda didn't what you're gonna do. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you had a fun time. Yeah. I definitely did because

You're somebody I follow for a long time and I think the people I respect the most, like some people respect like Elon Musk the most. Some people respect'cause it's like oh he Conquers like you know. Taking us to another planet. Yeah. Uh, but I always admire thinkers. Like I think uh a great thinker is somebody who's who puts out original thoughts and I don't know, it makes you think about the world a little differently.

Those are my favorite types of people, so I really appreciate you coming on. Thanks, dude. Glad glad we did it. Absolutely, man. My pleasure. Where do you want people to go? The YouTube channel, I'm assuming. Check out the YouTube channel. There's gonna be More of those videos coming out. Mark Manson? What what is the Yeah, if you just search Mark Manson on YouTube, it'll it'll pop up and then uh Mark Manson dot net, got a newsletter there.

Um And I think that's you know, buy the books, whatever. I don't give a fuck. Yeah, I don't give a fuck. Buy my shit. Awesome. Cool. That's right. All right. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I can be what I want to I put my law in it like my day's off On the road less travel never looking back

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