Life Advice that Doesn’t Suck: Happiness, Identity & Success | Mark Manson

0:00What in your perspective is the biggest fault of the self-help industry? Where should we start? There's a lot of advice that is optimized for making you feel very good in the short term. You run into a little bit of a paradox. The spiritual goal is the universal acceptance of what is. But if you're universally accepting what is at every moment, how do you ever get anything done? When does self-acceptance just become complacency? Are you in a place where the pain of inaction feels worse than the pain of action? Does the struggle of not doing something feel worse than the struggle of doing it? The advice that works to actually apply

0:34something into your life is so brain dead simple that I feel like an idiot. Like even saying it out loud, simple part is it's easy to give up something that's not working. The hardest thing is giving up something that is working, but it's not fulfilling you. And then ironically, I think it's that willingness to risk it all is like ultimately what a like helps you make something great and then b like attracts people to it. That fear is there because

1:00it is valuable. [Music] Mark Manson, welcome back my friend. It's good to be here. Who you are is defined by what you're willing to struggle for. elaborate. Well, we all have to struggle with something. Um, you know, that's Buddhist precept number one, literally. But we have a choice. We have a choice of what we get to struggle with. You know, we have a freedom of choice. And so, I think to put it in practical terms, it's like trying to be something great is a struggle. Not trying is a struggle. Um, Being with people is a struggle. Being alone is a struggle. Um, being successful, making a lot of money

1:54is a struggle. Living frugally is a struggle. So, pick your struggle. And we all pick different struggles. And I think that that is ultimately how we come to know who we are. That's what differentiates us. Yeah. If who we are is defined by what essentially is worth struggling for, you know, um and the inevitable challenges that come up after, you know, endeavoring after anything in life and what we're worth struggling for is defined essentially by our values directly. I loved your new endeavor with solved the podcast diving deep into these different topics. The first one you did around uh human values and and knowing yourself. I think it's a

2:39good fit for this podcast. Um but uh but but how do you differentiate and how how would you support people and in kind of delineating between what values and needs are and sort of discovering what is really worth kind of positioning themselves towards in life? Sure. So needs are universal. They're very basic. They're almost like you know a physical need is like food

3:04and sleep. Something everybody needs. It's it's uh there's no discussion or debate around it. And there's certain psychological needs as well, right? Like we all we have a need for belonging. We have a need to feel connected to other people. Um we have a need for personal autonomy. Um we have a certain need for a certain amount of certainty

3:25or predictability in our life. Otherwise, we become very anxious and scared. And what you notice with these needs is that when people don't when their needs are not being met, they their mental health suffers uh pretty consistently across the board. But what's interesting is that different people develop different strategies to meet their needs, right? So my strategy for meeting my need or belongingness may

3:52be to um I don't know, join a church. And your strategy for meeting your need of belongingness might be starting a church. Starting a church. There you go. Uh, you know, and it it could be anything every anything and everything, you know, from the the pickle ball group you're in to um the run club that you join to um staying in touch with family, you know, back home and calling your mom every day. Like these are all different strategies that we develop and employ to like meet our needs. And what's interesting is that those strategies are very diverse and they're different. And um generally speaking, those strategies

4:29kind of fall into different categories um different ways of approaching meeting our needs. And you could say that there's like different prioritizations. Like if you're a very extroverted person, you probably meet your need of belongingess by surrounding yourself by a lot of people and interacting with a lot of people. If you're very introverted, then you probably meet your need for belongingess with only a few people, but you spend a lot of time with them or you're like very deeply connected with them. And these different strategies, they result in

5:00prioritizations. And those prioritizations um are ultimately what we value, right? It's like I don't value the pickle ball club because that's not how I meet my need for belongingness. I value something else because that is how I meet my need for belongingness. It seems like our behaviors in life directly reveal what our values are, right? Because it's easy to get super psychological with it and thinking about it, but ultimately like we move through the world motivated, inspired by what our our values are. If somebody's thinking right now to themselves, what are my values? as it's an important thing to reflect on because it's going to inform so much of the subsequent

5:42actions that are derived from it. What are the first steps that you like to look at? Well, you already named it, which is look at your actions. Because a funny thing happens with all of us is that we wish we valued things that we don't or feel socially pressured into it or bought into a narrative at some point of like, oh, this is something I should value. My friends value this, so maybe I should value that. Yet, we struggle to actually follow through on it. You know, I'll use a really basic example that comes up all the time. So, um I hear from a lot of young people,

6:19right, who they grew up, they went to a great a great school, got a great degree, you know, maybe became a lawyer or a doctor or, um, and then one day they wake up when they're 30 and they're like, I don't want to do this, and I don't know why I don't want to I I don't know why I don't want to do this. And likely what happened along the way is that they adopt they convinced themselves that they valued something that they actually didn't. They thought they wanted to do law, but really what they wanted was maybe the approval of their parents or maybe all of their friends were going to law

6:52school and they didn't want to feel left out, right? That is actually what they valued. And so there's this kind of like game of honesty that you have to play with yourself when you look at your own actions. like really ask why are you doing that or why are you not doing something and be uncomfortably honest with with the answers that you allow to come up because

7:16ultimately your actions never lie. Uh our our minds and our mouths lie all the time often without without even us knowing it. It seems like as we grow and evolve as human beings, so too our values. And I've heard you just speak to how in many ways values are an effort to fulfill our needs in some different ways. And of course that's going to change throughout the different stages of our life. What's something that used to be a value for you that isn't? And like what are some of your primary values now? Oh yeah. I mean when I was young what's interesting is that there's there

7:55are patterns around this too. Like it's generally young people really value exploration. You know, it's it's when you're a young adult, like everything's new, everything's exciting. You want to learn everything. You want to try everything. You want to date every everybody. Uh, and then slowly you start learning what you really like and what you don't and what works and what doesn't and what's worth it and what's not. And then you you eventually kind of as you age and mature, um, you become pickier. So, I'm I'm I'm in middle age now. And so I I've just become a lot pickier about the things that I'm willing to put my time and

8:34effort into. So when I was young, I wanted to go to every party. I wanted to talk to every cute girl I saw. I wanted to visit every cool place. I wanted to read every book, you know, it there was a there was like a genuine kind of young excitement about it. And um and sometimes I get very nostalgic for that because I I I don't feel that a whole lot anymore. But I think what I have now that I didn't have then is is a a deep sense of peace of I know what I value. I know what I care about. And I've been fortunate enough to successfully

9:10build a life around those things that I care about. So I I have the privilege of spending most of my waking hours doing things that I like with people I like. And um and so while I may not have all the fun and excitement and crazy whacked out stories that my 20-year-old self did, uh

9:33I definitely I'm um very satisfied. Yeah. In like seeing how there's a hierarchy of values, I'm curious what your thoughts are in in your own personal life of like a couple things that you value. There's probably one that you value more than the other, right? which you know maybe there's still there's still some some part in you that does value networking and connecting with people or maybe that's completely abolished at this point. Um but there's a there's another value that you know there are many more that just um feel way stronger you know more present in in this age in life. Yeah. So yeah, as it's

10:07evolved in in your life now, I'm just curious your thoughts on um allowing that to shift and and because it's it gets really easy to kind of get calcified and how everybody has responded to what we think our values are, how we've been rewarded for um living in accordance with old values that aren't, you know, exciting for us

10:27anymore. Sure. Or or fail us, right? like it that that's another way, you know, there's kind of the lack of excitement, but you know, often value change happens due to some terrible event in our lives, right? You know, a breakup, um you lose a job, you lose a loved one, right? And it and it and it shakes up your values, what you care about. It makes you question a lot of things like, "Wow, I used to think this was so important and now I realize that I was I was misguided or I I didn't see the full picture." Right? But what you were saying about the VA value

11:02hierarchy, like ultimately, and this is one of the things I talk about in my books, is like everybody ultimately wants the same things. Like we're we're all humans, so like we all we all like the same stuff in the abstract. We all like attention and validation and we all want to be loved and we all want to be admired and we all want to enjoy nice things and experience a sense of status and and it it's all like it's all actually very unoriginal and and this is why I find the struggles that people choose is actually a much better indicator because it's just like when you look at the the dreams and the

11:40fantasies and the pleasures that people have um they're very similar. They're very almost monotonous sometimes and and and how identical they are. Uh so it's it's not that like I have certain values and you don't have them at all. It's just what changes from person to person is like the the place on the ladder that we put them. Right? So for one person, their highest value in life might be family. And it's and if you walked up to that person and you said, um, you have to be willing to give up your career to to to make your family more stable and successful. That person would in a

12:24heartbeat say, "Absolutely, I'll do it." But then there's probably other people whose top value is their career. And if you offer them the same proposition, they would go the other way. Right? And so again, that's the differentiation is like which one are you willing to sacrifice for? And that determines where on your hierarchy the value is and kind of what the order of those those values are. And then when life comes and and you know kicks you in the ass, which it does all of us, um it shuffles that order a little bit. You know, it's like maybe you valued your career for 10 or 20 years and suddenly

13:04you you wake up in your 40s and you're like just profoundly lonely and you feel isolated and you look at all of your friends and co-workers and they all have loving families that they spend time with and you're just like, "Oh my god, I can't believe I messed this up." Right? Like that shifting like moving one value down a peg and one value up a peg. it it's like an inherently uncomfortable experience because you're you're literally like rearranging who you are in that moment. And so there's a lot of it comes with a lot of emotion. It comes a lot with a lot of psychological tension. Um it comes with a lot of like

13:44confusion and and sometimes like guilt or embarrassment. You know, it's like you you go out with friends who used to know you for being one way, but you're not that way anymore. And so you feel out of place and and they're confused by your behavior and and so there's like all these awkward kind of moments of like you're trying to figure out who you're supposed to be and they're trying to figure out who who you're supposed to be. And so it is like a very inherently deeply uncomfortable process. And um this is why I I I've I've just said forever that like change is is inherently difficult. like there's no

14:22nobody's gonna throw you a parade for, you know, discovering who you are. It's it's probably, you know, it's it's probably more like crawling through barb wire is probably more equivalent. I think we do have that a really idealized notion of transformation. Yes. You know, and the reality of of growth is is movement and expansion, which is often rarely comfortable like hardly

14:48ever. Yeah. Yeah, I do think like I do think there are moments on the other side where you feel profoundly like deeply grateful and proud and and joyous, you know, of like, oh my god, I just I overcame that or I I worked through that. But in my experience, that's usually it's usually an experience that happens after the fact when you're looking back and when you're in it, you're like, "This sucks. like

15:18get me out of this as soon as possible. Um there's a quote I love from Freud. He said uh he said in in retrospect uh your your greatest struggles will strike you as the most beautiful and I I've always loved that. That's so good. I think there is a shift where when you orient yourself to be more processoriented than goal oriented, you can actually find the joy throughout in pockets of joy throughout the the process of of the struggle, you know, and I think it's it's more easily uh accessed when it's kind of slow habitual changes in your life and you can, you know, experience the pleasure of

16:00exercising your body even though it feels difficult at many times and and re it can be a it can be enjoyable process for sure. Um but nonetheless, usually the mo I feel like the most painful uh aspects of expanding ourselves is the transformation of identity. Um because we hold it so close to us as us, you know, and and becomes the most hard to let go. And as it relates to transforming our values and identity in life, it's nearly impossible to get someone to understand something or to change when their entire self-worth depends on them not understanding it or not changing, you know, right? And we

16:39can get caught in this cycle of being rewarded for an outdated version of oursel. Yes. So, as you've grown on grown on your journey both in the world and as a creator and an author and content creator um but then also as um as a partner in your romantic relationships and friendships, I would just love to get your perspective on this evolving identity and uh how alluring it is and painful it can be to to hold on to these past versions of ourel. It's natural like you should evolve like even without getting into all the stuff that you and I are into, right? like it's it's

17:13just being a human. You should your preferences should change, your values should change, your lifestyle should change as as you go through life. That's just a natural a natural part of being human. But it it is um I I guess the most the thing that's coming up for me listening to you ask that is I think one mental shift that that just helps me a lot when I'm kind of in the middle of the confusion and and the dissonance is reminding myself that like this is part of it. You know, like there's I think there's a tendency when we're struggling or when we're confused about who we are or what

17:46we should be doing somehow like work off the assumption that like this isn't supposed to happen. Like I'm supposed to have it figured out. Like, you know, Jim's got it figured out. Mary's got it figured out. I should have it figured out. And really, it's like Jim and Mary don't know what the hell they're doing either. And like this is part of it. It's like everybody is completely confused for a large percentage of the time. And um I think it's just finding like reminding myself of that consistently is like very comforting. And um removing the expectation to like feel like I have all the answers. Um to the social point, you

18:24know, I think it's I have found that it's like both in my personal life and then also, you know, in my professional life with my audience and fans and everything, it's it's I think when you build relationships authentically, like when you're transparent and very clear about who you are and what you care about, um the door is then always open to have those conversations of like, hey, I'm I I'm kind of changing like I don't really this thing I used to like I don't really like this anymore. So I'm going to go in this other direction and because like you know with my wife we have this long history of transparent

19:04communication around this stuff she can then be adaptable to that and I think it's the same you know with with my audience that it's I'm very fortunate that I chose at a very early stage in my career to just be very authentic and open with my audience of like I'm not going to pretend to be anything I'm not. So when these moments do come where I want to take a left turn or pivot out of something or you know stop making a certain type of content like I don't think I would hope like I I I I I think most of my audience is like they understand

19:38they get it like they're they're not they don't feel cheated out of anything. Eventually it's you'll realize it's better to be disliked for who you are than liked for who you aren't. Yes. Yes. Um I think I posted that pretty recently. Um because even when you're disliked for who you are, there's a certain honesty. It's interesting. And so like I a good friend of mine grew up in a really dysfunctional household like very dysfunctional parents and their father was

20:14abusive and and then the mother was not. But it's interesting cuz his friend like has all of this resentment for their mother and not the father. And I was talking to him once and I was like why is that? Like your dad used to beat the [ __ ] out of you. Like, but you're always pissed at your mom. Like, what is And they told me something really interesting. They

20:38said, "You know, my dad is an asshole." But he never pretended to not be. I always knew who he was, and I always knew where I stood with him to this day. My mom thinks she's a saint and like is completely delusional, and I have there's like no way to for her to touch reality. And that drives me crazy because I never know where I am with her. And so there's like I think there's kind of like a a broader meta conversation happening here of like this assumption that struggle is bad or pain is bad. Um you know if if your pain and struggle is what defines you like that does that

21:26means it's not necessarily a bad thing. And I think similarly in relationships like having animosity or dislike or disapproval between two people, it's not always necessarily a bad thing if it's coming from a very authentic and transparent place. Um, you might not like the person, but you respect them and you trust them, which is a weird thing. Um, whereas if everybody's just nice and kissing each other's asses all the time, like, sure, it's pleasant, but it like doesn't mean

21:58anything. It's so fascinating to see in more social dynamics. This can often be a subconscious process like when we resonate towards people who are authentically themselves for better, for worse, whether they're genuinely a kind human being or they're an [ __ ] If they're if they are them, there is a certain level of respect, I guess, because you're able to there's a porousness there. Yeah. you know, and uh it can be easy when we compare our lives and to other people's highlight reel to to uh kind of forge a version of ourselves that is not actually authentic to us and thus people might love us for

22:38a version of ourselves that that we're not. Yeah. Um so how do you help people break free from that? I think it's very seductive. like there's there's kind of like a shallow level of approval that is easily transmitted and easily like visible to others, right? You know, if you just think about like I don't know, buying a fancy car or um you know, having like amazing photos on Instagram or whatever, like it's it's like the cheap candy version of belongingness and there's like almost no sust sustenance there, but it's very

23:15it's very easy to make that appealing. like that's very visible and obviously desirable on like a very superficial level. Um whereas I think the deep meaningful sense of belongingness that sense of like I get I can be who I am completely authentic warts and all like there's a there's a certain level of discomfort and unpleasantness that is inherent in that that is like doesn't is not easily transmitted on Instagram or um in a YouTube video like it's not you can't really advertise it like there's no magazine ad in in in vogue saying like 15 awkward conversations to help you be yourself with your partner on a random Tuesday

24:02night. Like that's just it's not a sexy promotion. Like nobody's like clicking the buy button for that in a way. Like our our our our needs get hijacked relatively easily by like the exposure, the amount that we're just purely exposed to. And I think there's a lot to be said of um cutting a certain amount out of your life. I'm a big proponent of there's different names for it, but I call it a

24:30information diet or an attention diet. So, like being very mindful and thoughtful of like what content and information you're consuming and being careful like the same way I I like the metaphor of a diet because I think it maps really well to kind of the information age that we we live in. Like it's fine to have some of that content, you know, that like sexy social media content. Like it's fine to have a little bit of that just like it's fine to have, you know, a little bit of dessert here and there or like, you know, a candy bar every once in a while. But like if that

25:01is your primary diet day in and day out, then your mental health is going to deteriorate. The same way if you just ate candy bars all day every day, your physical health just like completely deteriorates. So I think it's useful to think about like what is like the the the vegetables of an information diet and making sure that you have like a strong sturdy portion of that in your life. And then like anything that is candy for you, like just being very conscious of how much of it you're consuming and when you're consuming it and like and put guard rails on yourself because ideally we would all have perfect self-control

25:38and we would like be able to manage our but it's we're we're [ __ ] animals, dude. Like it's just put guard rails on yourself, make certain things off limits, delete apps, block certain pages at certain times, leave your phone out of the bedroom. Like, you know, it's like all this like basic mental hygiene stuff. Yeah. Um that is is it's becoming commonplace, but it's becoming common place for a reason cuz it's just like it's it's becoming like the the nuts and bolts. It's becoming like the brush your

26:11teeth and floss of the 21st century. It's just like put your [ __ ] phone away, you know, like stop following accounts that make you feel bad. Yeah, there's a interesting tinge when it comes to I suppose more of the self-help industry as as it relates to this. Um, but another quote of yours, I'm just pulling pulling these Mark Madison writings. What a good author

26:33that guy. Uh but that you only envy the life of people whose sacrifices you don't see. Yes. And it's an alluring and persistent delusion, you know, to idealize people's lives that we see whether it's through social media or in in different spaces. And it's one thing to be have something that's admirable and have it be uh inspiring for you to take action in life. It's another thing to think that people didn't work and have to forego many things that you don't want to to get there. Yeah. It's because nobody shows the sacrifices. Again, it's like there's no Instagram account of like all the sacrifices in somebody's life. Like

27:17nobody wants to share that with anybody. Nobody wants to see it. But it's it is it's inherent and and like anything that's good. it it's whether it's, you know, developing a skill or being respected or or being loved. Like it's it's I don't want to say you have to earn it cuz I I think that's like a bad model like you it's not you're not earning things, but it it is it's just that like the the the sacrifice is like component of it. It's like the it's the the part of the iceberg that's

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29:10you enjoy. I I I imagine you're not a sports fan. You don't strike me as a sports fan. I I watch like the NBA finals and like kind of the postseason I say I pay more attention to. Yeah. Other than that, no. Okay. I watch chess sometimes. Oh, nice. Um or a chess guy. Nice. There's a there's a story about Kobe Bryant that I love. So like I think it was the 2008 Olympics. Kobe Bryant was like the best player in the world. And uh the US team was in Las Vegas practicing. And uh all the guys on the team like worshiped Kobe and thought he

29:48was like a god. And so they're like practicing with him every day and he's just he's just kicking everybody's ass. And uh and of course all the other players like it's Vegas. So they go out, they're at the club, they're drinking, they're partying, they're doing all this stuff. And one night they're out to like 5:00 in the morning. And they leave the club, they're like absolutely hammered, and they start like heading back to the to their hotel rooms. And they hit the elevator and the doors open and it's Kobe there with his gym bag. And the guys are like, "Whoa, Kobe, what are you doing here?" And Kobe's like, "I'm going

30:22to go practice. what are you doing here? Like all the guys were just like, "Oh shit." Like, "We need to get our act together." So, I just I love I love like little anecdotes like that cuz it's just that's [ __ ] you don't see. You don't you don't see the guy in the gym at 5 in the morning every, you know, every day. Like

30:42you you see the highlight reel, right? Yeah. Yeah. Blackmamba. Black mamba. Mamba mentality. Yeah. It's so true that what what you do in the dark shines in the light and you don't see what other people are doing in the dark. It's like not only do people not post it, it would be hard to really show that because there's so many nuances to it and there's so many internal dialogues and conversations and things that lead up to the next iteration and you know development of of what of what you're doing. Yeah. How have you found that personally in your path? Like uh as it pertains to evolving

31:19your own style of content, the formats that you want to, you know, express yourself in. Like have you struggled with any of that? Honestly, like I think probably like half the reason I'm here at all is like for whatever reason I seem to be able to do that. You know, one of the things I I I point out to people is that and and the subtle art of not giving a [ __ ] there are four stories in that book about myself and they are literally the four most painful experiences of my life and I I've like talked to fans and pointed out and and people don't realize like I

31:57don't think it registers consciously that it's and I and I did that very intentionally when I wrote it. I was like, I want I want people to know that this stuff is normal and it's okay and you're not like a freak show or a weirdo if like something like this happens to you. And and I think people really identify with that, but like it we don't we miss the fact that like okay, yeah, the person sitting across the room is like going through something right now or that insecurity that we feel so deeply, you know, our friend is experiencing a similar thing, but they're just not talking about it. like

32:30there's just there's this like delusion that we all develop that like we are the only person in the world who understands the suffering that we're going through. And I I would say that one of the things that's been very therapeutic for me is like being on the other side of this, you know, for years and years and years. I I I've received thousands of emails from readers and fans, you know, telling me about their life problems. And it's it's almost comical how consistently people will start an email with, "I bet you've never heard this one before." And then they go on to describe a situation that I have literally heard

33:08every single day for years and years and years. It's just like it's really like human the human struggles are just they're they're like so typical and consistent, but there's something about being in our own heads that we convince ourselves that that they're not that there's something like cosmically unique about your suffering and nobody will ever understand it. So yeah. Yeah. It helps build significance in our own perception of these things. I think it in seeing how they actually aren't that incredibly unique, it helps dissolve the uh the weight we give to them. Yeah. Um, and at the same time going through struggle, going through pain, going

33:48through experience from the first person perspective sucks oftentimes. And uh, yeah. And so, and so, yeah, I think it's it's an interesting interesting balance. But I think when it relates to kind of blossoming as a human being and wanting to develop oursel and our skill sets and our capacities in life, there's both the perspective of improving the things we can improve and then also accepting the parts of ourselves which are I think conflated quite often like we think they require the same things. And uh I would love to just kind of even though we did a bit in our last conversation which was a couple years now and it's been read by

34:29millions of people in your book um but like the backwards law and and kind of diving a little bit deeper into that as an understanding of of relating to our internal process uh because uh I think that positioning helps reframe what we would normally think of as oh I just got to keep improving all these aspects of

34:48myself. Yes. So yeah, which at a certain point becomes part of the problem, right? Um so yeah, the backwards law, it comes from Alan Watts. Um it's very simple. So the way I phrased it is the desire for a positive experience is itself a negative experience. And the acceptance of a negative experience is itself a positive experience. And so you get you get a little bit of this like yin and yang type thing going where the more you just kind of embrace your struggles, uh, the more meaningful they become and the more they empower you and and the more you like chase the shiny object and the success, the

35:31skill, the admiration, whatever. Um, just happiness in general. the more you remind yourself of how unhappy you are, the more you you drive yourself into unhappiness. And and so you end up with this kind of tricky thing. You run into a little bit of a paradox that you run into, I think, a lot in spiritual practices, which is that, you know, the the spiritual goal is kind of a universal acceptance of what is in in any given moment. Like that's kind of what you're driving towards. But if you're universally accepting what is at every moment, how do you ever get anything done? Like, how do you ever improve? How do you ever

36:12strive? You know, who's going to make build a bridge or, you know, cook dinner tonight? like it's just you can't be like so there's I think sometimes there's a there's a little bit of a tension of like you know when does when does a constant drive to improve yourself become toxic like when are when are you actually is it just like a thinly veiled form of self flagagillation and then similarly when when does uh self-acceptance just become complacency in in in action And I'm curious if if you've like dived into that at all or like what your thoughts

36:54are of that. Yeah, I I I feel like I kind of go back and forth this tension internally also like there I forgot who said the quote but there is like um I no longer am accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept. M you know so there there is that tension and balance of accepting what is and around you but then also realizing you're a human being who has the power to influence reality in a powerful way. Yeah. And so yeah I feel like for me in my own internal process it's like how does one come into right relationship? It's changing the

37:30the things that I can and and and moving in that direction and then accepting the things that are outside of my control or require a confluence of different external factors that may or may not happen, you know, but is not upon my own self-pointed will that is going to only happen, you know, it's hard to know what's worth like changing and what's worth not, you know, like that's I think that's where we most people get tripped up is like cuz it's unclear. You know, my first Zen master once said on on a retreat, how many have you had? Well, not that many. Just just a few. But um

38:12but this was like my I think it was probably my first retreat my Zen master just casually threw out there while everybody was sitting. He threw out u he said, "You are already perfect as you are and you can always be better." And I think I'm still trying to sort that one out. Like it just that's always stuck with me. Yeah. My good friend Peter Cron says uh you're a masterpiece and a work

38:34in progress. Yeah, totally same thing. I'm curious what you think about the tension between uh this notion of freedom in our life. A lot of us think that it comes that like freedom means having as many choices and the optionality to do whatever we want in life which which is a sort and a sort of perception of of freedom. But uh there's also a profound depth of freedom through commitment and choice. And so yeah, this also just goes handin-hand with the backwards law too. And so I'm curious how you think about freedom in that context. Yeah, I love this topic because this was personally huge for me. I I

39:12personally think American culture or western culture maybe I think we often conflate freedom with optionality. Um I think it was Isaiah Berlin had this concept he called it negative freedom and positive freedom. So he said I might be getting these backwards but I think he said negative freedom is the freedom from constraint is that there's nobody's imposing anything on you and then positive freedom is being a being able to do and accomplish whatever you set out to do. And he argued that these are actually very different forms of freedom. And I think the negative freedom tends to be the the Americanized one, which is like, you know, I'll do

39:59whatever the hell I want when I want. You know, I'll shoot whatever gun I want. Like, it's I'll do all the things. I'm I'm free, god damn it. I've got 20 different types of cereal. I can I can eat and and and 50 pairs of Nike shoes in my closet. And uh you know, that's what freedom is. And it's just this like just this lack of constraint. But the problem is like without constraint like the the value prioritization we were talking about earlier like to value something that demands that you constrain yourself. It demands that you

40:32give things up to prioritize one thing. And so there's this there's an inherent tension between I guess negative freedom or optionality and then actually like valuing something finding something meaningful in your life. And so positive freedom, which is I think probably more typical in Eastern cultures and um and also I think was the understanding of freedom in the ancient world with the Greeks and Romans is is actually kind of a constraint-based freedom. It's like

41:03having the discipline to do something. Um, so like, uh, from a positive freedom point of view, if you you want to get in shape and I don't know, lose 20 lbs, but you can't bring yourself to go to the gym. Uh, from a positive freedom point of view, a person would say you're not free. You're you are essentially being oppressed by your own lack of self-control or lack of discipline. And um I think there's a lot more that freedom is like where where the meaning and I guess self- definitionf is found, right? It's like because that that's the form of freedom where you are. It's almost like the

41:51freedom to choose what you're giving up. It's the freedom to choose what you're not going to do. Um like that's that is actually where I think the power is. Yeah, I think I mean you've spoken to this many times. The more you run on that hydonic treadmill and just follow the whims and uh dopamineergic, you know, urges throughout your life, your experience of life will not be free. Yes. You know, um you'll have you'll have if you really value the sense of agency and be able and and choice in that way, it's like your experience will be one of lethargy essentially, you know, and so I think

42:27the etmology of the word decide means to cut or to cut off. And so like by by becoming single kind of pointed focus in our decisions and our commitment and devotion, it's interesting how those things build like those latent faculties and um those those attributes of self that feel actually free. Yes. Which is like open adapt like having an an adaptable mind, having a flexible and strong body like all these things that

42:56require effort in many cases, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's tricky too, right? Because you don't you don't want to constrain people's ability to choose or decide, but at the same time, they need to be capable of choosing and deciding for themselves. And and I think we've probably in the name of getting rid of the the former, we've like ended up in the latter, which is by trying to remove anything that could be potentially oppress oppressive or uh constricting, we've ended up with like largely population of people who like are

43:32incapable of decisiveness. In the spirit of counterintuitive insights, which I feel like you are a proponent of stewarding, it's my bread and butter. Success never feels as good as you had hoped. Failure never feels as bad as you had feared. Things are rarely as good or bad as they seem. Yes, it's so again alluring to put our uh to project our ideal state of being in the future and also the worst case

44:06scenario. And so I feel like this is an insight earned through experience also through living life, right? Yeah. What uh what inspired that? And that it's funny cuz that's a fimile of like something that I told I think my dad early in my career because like early in my career I really struggled and to the point where like I was living on

44:34a friend's couch. I was in debt. Like it was my girlfriend was at the time was supporting me. Like it was it was a mess. And it was kind of like when I started when I quit my job and like decided I was going to do this internet thing. I was basically kind of living the worst case scenario. And I remember talking to my dad who was like obviously very concerned. Um I remember like telling him I was like, "Well, if this is I'm already at the worst case scenario, so and like this isn't that bad. So, I think I'm okay. And he thought I was

45:08absolutely out of my mind. But I think I noticed that on the other side, too, which is when my career took off and I hit all my goals. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was it was great. Like, not complaining, but like it it never plays out the way you think it's going to. Like, it never feels as good or satisfying as you thought it was going to feel. Um and and when it does feel as satisfying, it's like it doesn't last very long. You know, you're always there's something else you want pretty soon after and there's no there there. Yeah. It's it's um and so yeah, I just think it's it's

45:48the conclusion I've come to, I guess, is that our our minds are very dramatic. And so when we invent the stories of our imagined future, you know, we add a little Hollywood into it. We we we make it, you know, we make it very emotional and very like, oh, this would be incredible. Everybody will know how badass I am if this happens. And it's like, no, no, life's complicated. People have different things going on. Some people aren't going to notice. Some people are going to really notice. It's like everything is a little bit messy in in reality. And and I think I think one thing too just understanding

46:32the psychological literature is just like understanding just how bad we are at predicting how we're going to feel. Not only are we bad at predicting how we're going to feel in the future, we're also bad at remembering how we felt in the past. Like it's just there's a there's a certain amount of I think distrust of those assumptions that is that is healthy. I'm I'm sorry. I have to throw this back at you. Have you found the same to be true? Because you've had that you've had a roller coaster of a a young career. I'm like I wonder if if there have been moments where you're like I

47:03thought this was going to feel better than this or I don't know. I feel like I'm I'm really just enjoying the like laying brick by bricks day by day. I don't I don't feel like um I don't feel by any means I've like completed what I've set out to do even though I in many ways have accomplished things that I probably still have yet to acknowledge you know fully um I think as it relates to both sides whether it's an idealized future that you know we hope for or the negative Mark Twain has something along the lines of uh like the worst tragedies in my life ever occurred or something

47:45like we live in this matrix of mind where totally and and often the worst case scenarios are the ones that our mind has made up that then it's spending its energy trying to prevent and it's all like made up within itself. It's so so trippy when we realize how we're living in this sort of mental reflection of our own creations. Yeah. It's funny too because it's like because we lose Yeah. like we lose that perspective. And sometimes I have to remind myself that my biggest problem today is something that

48:21I would have killed for 10 years ago. Yet, it's still my biggest problem today. You know, like it just you forget like how what the whole trajectory is and and you know, how far you've come or or even that you chose this, right? It's it's like Yeah. because growth happens like gradually and so like you don't notice the differences daytoday of course you can look back years after and be like oh there's a big change there but almost I feel like for success or like our goals to become materialized there's a part of us that has to expect it and see it as possible and so then

48:57when it comes it's like it the yeah I guess how enchanting we we thought it would be at one point it just becomes normalized and like yeah like I'm worthy of that makes sense that I of it in a sense. Yeah. Yeah. I I think I think you make a really good point there that like there's almost a certain I don't want to say delusional level of optimism, but like a heightened level of optimism that is very advantageous for for achieving goals and uh and I think it maybe that same heightened op optimism is what causes you know once you do achieve the goal

49:35you're like oh okay well that was cool. like what's next? Yeah, it's so great that we're we're both part of an ind industry that really gets to support people by often times just, you know, sharing our own journeys. Mhm. And yet, man, it's a trip being in in what you might call a personal growth growth or self-help journey in different contexts and different slightly different avenues. Uh but what in your perspective is like the biggest fault of the self-help industry? Oh, where should

50:09I start? Yeah. Um,

50:18there are two things that really bother me. I think one is kind of severe. It's like a severe problem. One is not. It's more just me being obnoxious. Um, I'll start with the obnoxious one. Um, it bugs me that there there's it's like we're we have enough scientific basis to like know with a reasonable amount of certainty like certain pieces of of advice are probably better than others in most contexts. And so I just think there's like I feel like we're long past the point of like just bad [ __ ] advice. It shouldn't exist anymore. Like the information's out there. It's all free. Like we have the internet, you

51:02have Google, you have [ __ ] AI. Like it's it's not hard to find. Uh like if you're somebody like us, like it's just like do your research and like know what you're talking about. Um so that drives me a little bit crazy. That's but that's more just me being an [ __ ] Um because the truth is is that everybody needs to hear something different and sometimes even [ __ ] advice works for people. Um, and so who am I to say like what somebody needs to hear and what they they don't? So I'm like that one I'm I'm I'm willing to like just bad

51:37advice. Yeah, that one I'm just like I'm I'm that's that's probably more my issue than um you know than the industry. Um, but I I would like to see I mean I do think the quality of advice has gotten a lot better over the last 10 or 20 years. And I think it helps to see how I forgot the the axiom or what the title of this is, but like uh what we can often attribute to malice can be well accounted for with ignorance, right? You know, so it's like it it helps when you see a lot of it is actually coming just from a place, you

52:11know, the road to heaven or hell is paved with good intention intentions as they say. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, like I I'm that that's fine. Like that's fine. And and like I said, I do think the trajectory is going in a good direction. Like I do think the advice has gotten a lot better over the last, you know, 20 years. Um the one that I do think is a problem is just is um misleading marketing and misleading expectations with people. I think and I do think again I I don't think there are many like consciously bad actors on this but like the thing the thing that I

52:52get deeply concerned about is that ultimately this is a market that a pretty large percentage of the consumers are like people in vulnerable places in their lives like they're they're dealing with depression anxiety a tragedy like trauma a lot of stuff and so there's I definitely feel like a certain moral weight in not promising something or setting expectations of something that is unrealistic or unreasonable. And the sad fact of the matter is that the financial incentive is to make those promises and set those expectations because you're going to sell more [ __ ] if you do. And again, I don't think I don't think most people like consciously do this. I think

53:39a lot of people because I think what happens is there's there's like there's not perfect information. So like let's say somebody has a seminar and they spout their whole spiel and do their thing and it's and it's all kind of made up whatever and like and then one person comes up to him afterwards like it completely changed my life. Oh my god, I'm a new person. And like it's very genuine like it genuinely worked, right? So the person who just put on that seminar, they're like, "Wow, I'm killing it." Right? You know, whereas like what they're not hearing from is the 50 people that were like,

54:16"What is this guy talking about?" And so I think what happens a lot in this industry is that you you don't get there's not a proper feedback mechanism for um the practitioners of like what's actually working and what's not. And and some maybe that's by design. Sometimes that's just due to ego or like an unwillingness to, you know, to hear from people who who got bad results. Um the financial incentives alone I feel

54:43like is enough of an explainer though. Yeah. Or there's also a tendency to like I've seen I've seen coaches and leaders do this too. It's like if somebody's like, "Hey, this is this isn't working for me or it's making me feel worse." The the coach is like, "Well, that's your problem. You're not doing it right." Right. And it's like in this industry you're dealing with a lot of people who are going to believe you if you say that and and you you can hurt them. Um so it just it is it is an I I there should be more kids gloves, you know, like it's like we're we're dealing

55:18with like delicate fragile topics and I I feel like that's not respected enough. And um and again, yeah, the financial incentives, I think, nudge people away from considering those things. And so you do get you do get some bad behavior and you do get some um some horror stories that come out periodically. So yeah, it seems like the best barometer internally for anybody navigating or deciding to like dive deeper into someone's modality or teaching is like your own growth to be able to actually discern what's real, what's BS. Mhm. But I think part of being on the path and in those more vulnerable states is you don't know what

56:03you don't know. And so Totally. Yeah. If you never feel like you've grown before, how do you know what it feels like? And and the thing is is that a lot of there's a lot of advice that is optimized for um making you feel very good in the short term. There are a lot of people who are very good at like getting a group of people in a room and like for 24 hours making them feel amazing and then telling them you just grew. You just had a breakthrough, right? And then you and then those people go home and they sleep in the same bed and they [ __ ]

56:38in the same toilet and they go to the same dead-end job and get ghosted by the same ex and like did anything really change, you know? So it's there's this and this comes back to our point earlier is that like like genuine growth is generally an uncomfortable unpleasant experience like it's and it's generally drawn out as well. And so I I um it bugs me like just the false expectations and the false promises like bug me a lot and it and I think it

57:08enables a lot of a lot of bad behavior. How do you from the individual level relating to this? How do you discern or draw the line of discernment between self-growth and selfobsession? Like a lot of what we might label as a noble pursuit of self-development is actually avoidance kind of masqueraded and re rebranded. Yes. It's like uh spiritual narcissism, right? Yeah. Uh it's a great question. I would say the best thing you can do if you think you're like even potentially this person who's like too in it and doing too much and is just like constantly obsessing over like optimization and improvement

57:47all the time. Just stop for a while. Like I one thing that I found with people like they'll come to me and they'll be like I'm like obsessing over this stuff. I'm feeling worse about myself. I'm just like constantly thinking about all the things I'm not doing instead of actually doing things. And it's it's like the simplest answer, but it's just like

58:08stop. Like just stop trying to grow. Like just hang out on the couch, play some video games, man. Like it's and then ironically that will make you grow, right? Because it's like you're not trying anymore. It's it comes back to the backwards law like you're not you're not chasing this shiny object anymore. You're simply accepting that you're imperfect. And um so yeah, I I almost think it's like, you know, if you if you look at like fitness and workout advice, like there's no fitness plan that's like go to the gym 4 hours a day every day for 10 years. Like nobody tells you that. It's always you

58:42have like six or eight weeks on and then you're supposed to take two 3 weeks off and then you're supposed to do six or eight weeks on and you're supposed to be two or 3 weeks off and like that actually ends up being the optimal way to like grow or develop your body. And I think the mind's the same way. Like you if you're on all the time and you're obsessing about this stuff all the time, you're just going to burn yourself out and you're going to become obsessed with

59:05yourself. You're going to lose track of other people and reality, you know? So, it's just like stop caring for a while. Stop giving a [ __ ] right? Like just be like, "Yeah, you know what? Just like just going to chill for a month." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's difficult on the personal level when you place so much importance on an aspect that needs to change about yourself. And it's like the more attention and weight we give to something, the more it has evidence for

59:34it its own existence. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. it it becomes self-induced at a certain point. And I guess one way to think about it is like coming back to that paradox of like self-improvement, self-acceptance is like, you know, maybe you just kind of like seesaw between them. You know, you you have your self-improvement period where it's like, okay, I'm going to like drive on my goals and try to change things and then you and then you go into your self self-acceptance season of like, okay, I'm just going to like

59:59embrace who I am and like chill out. feels like uh in an ever growing landscape of more personal growth advice and podcasts and books, both of which we're a part of. Yes. Um it's become easier than ever to listen to and watch and read all this great advice oftent times and and and wisdom and not actually implement much into your life. And so this is what we were kind of also just speaking to about how self-improvement can very much so be just self- avoidance. um when we're not

1:00:35integrating these things into our life. Uh and so yeah, I'm just curious what you think about that tension and for like anybody who's listening who has maybe even listened to many of these podcasts or read your books and is on that pursuit which uh you know like watching and feeding and and exposing your subconscious mind to positive content is going to be more beneficial in the long run than reruns of Spongebob, you know. Totally. But uh but yeah, it can also become this trap where it's becomes entertainment and it's not actually Yes. You're not integrating [ __ ] Absolutely. It's sometimes they say that like some people

1:01:14have self-help as a hobby. Like it's it's like their favorite hobby. It's like, "Oh, I'm going to buy the new book and study this thing." But I agree with you. I think that trap is becoming more prevalent because the information is so prevalent and out there, you know, like back in the day, like it used to be so hard to find like just this conversation, right? Like when I was a teenager, like you had to go pay thousands of dollars just to hear anybody talk about the stuff we're talking about, right? And now it's like it's just a million podcasts and Instagram clips and Tik Toks like every

1:01:53day everywhere. So the information is ubiquitous at this point. And so I think it's I feel like that trap is larger than it's ever been because if you just want to binge on on info, you can. It's easy. The implementation piece is um it's frustrating because it's one of those like simple not easy things. Um it is the the the advice that works to actually apply something into your life is so brain dead simple that you like I I feel like an an idiot like even saying it out loud and and when people hear it they're like it can't be that easy. But it it like it really is

1:02:36it's just the hard part is actually just doing it. The simple part is take whatever you want, you know, whether it's change careers, find a partner, lose 20 pounds, whatever. Break it down in the small sub goals. Find the minimum. I call it the minimum viable action which is the uh minimum the smallest step that feels easy to do today. Um, and then you just start there and you do that and you then the next day you take the next minimum viable action and you just slowly work up and you kind of develop a snowball and it's like absolutely maddening how simple it is and yet nobody does it

1:03:26including myself. Yeah, we want those existential solutions to what's a very practical problem. You want the lightning bolt that it's just like, oh, that's it. Eureka. Now I meditate an hour every day with no effort. Yeah, it's it doesn't happen. I was It was funny cuz the the so the way I the minimum viable action thing um actually came from a friend of mine who's a meditation teacher and it was so funny cuz I was living in New York at the time and I was kind of I was kind of complaining to him. I was like, "Man, I've just like really gotten away from my meditation practice. I just can't

1:04:00really bring myself to do it." And he was just like, "Can you do 10 seconds?" And I was like, "Well, yeah, anybody can do 10 seconds." He's like, "So, do 10 seconds." And I was like, "Wait, are you serious?" He's like, "Yeah, sit down and do 10 seconds." So, I sat down and did 10 seconds. He's like, "Yeah, you're meditating again." And I was like, "God

1:04:16damn it, dude. I really don't have an excuse, do I? Do I?" He's like, "Yeah, tomorrow do 20 seconds." I was like, "I still don't meditate.

1:04:33But yeah, it's um sometimes I think there's an emotional piece of this that like cuz again the the information is brain dead simple. The I think what has to align for people is that there needs to be a certain amount of combination of carrot and stick, you know, pain and pleasure that kind of lines up to to to the point where you get fed up and you're just like, I'm sick of this, you know, and and there are like things you can do in your environment. You can kind of control incentives and, you know, find an accountability buddy or like sign up for a gym with a friend or something. Like

1:05:15there's all like little hacks and stuff like that, but like really at the end of the day, it comes down to emotion. It comes down to are you in a place where the pain of inaction feels worse than the pain of action? You know, does the struggle of not doing something feel worse than the struggle of doing it? And there are ways to to kind of manipulate the situation to set it up that way, but I think ultimately at the end of the day, it's an emotional thing. And I think sometimes to come back to your point about like everybody has a different journey like sometime sometimes people need time to

1:05:51get to the point where they're like struggling enough to be like okay I I can't do this anymore. Like I'm like I'm getting this handled now. Yeah. The saying of uh when the pain of staying the when the pain of staying the same outweighs the pain of change then you'll change. And it feels like we all have a different barometer for that. And it's such a it's like a it's it's relating to our lizard brain. Like we we want to have it be more like our frontal brain and have the intellectual reasonings for doing things. But it feels like so much of our like like 90

1:06:26plus% of our behavior is driven by this mamalian Yeah. emotional center. Yeah. It was funny. We did. So our second episode unsolved was procrastination and we did a a nearly 5hour episode on the on the science and philosophy of procrastination. So if anybody wants to procrastinate anything in their life, you can go listen to our 5-hour episode on procrastination. But it was it was actually really funny because it's like I mean we went we dug into all like we went back to procrastination was like a it was a big topic with the ancient Greeks. They called it Acrasia. it was like this philosophical problem of like

1:07:04if you know something's good, how is it possible to not do the good thing? Um, wouldn't that suggest it's not actually good? Um, so there's like there's philosophy on it going back thousands of years, research on it going back hundreds of years, and uh, yeah, at the end of the day, it's just like people do what they feel like doing. That's like really what it comes down to. And uh and so if you want to do something that you're not doing, like you need to find ways to make yourself feel like doing it. And you can do that by you can make it fun. Um you can set up accountability

1:07:39for yourself. You can set up punishments for not doing it. Like that actually works really well. Um it's actually really funny like when you look at the when you look at the research on like what interventions actually get people to like adopt a new habit. Um, you want to guess what like the top intervention

1:07:58is? No. What is it? You pay them. Isn't that disappointing? Like, you just [ __ ] give them money and then they start doing the thing. It's just like, like I said, man, it's it's like this whole area, it's just it's like disappointing how simple it is. It's uh like I wish there was a magic formula. I wish there was a

1:08:24lightning bolt somewhere. It's wild to see how much mental energy we will spend in resistance to not doing something when in reality doing it would like take much less energy. Yes. You know, totally like we'll spend so much time thinking about how we don't want to do something that by by the time we could have just done it, it's like uh Yeah. It's it's it's so fascinating mechanism. Yeah. Yeah. I I think there's just a lot of inertia like there's like mental emotional inertia in our in our lives and it's takes a lot of force to kind of like I will say though for in my

1:09:04experience meditation and self inquiry and contemplation on the self and also our the nature of our own thoughts and emotions which I I know sounds like a lot of things I just rattle off but there are kind of you know the the core thing that one awakens to through the practice of a meditative technique. helps dissolve the resistance to existence, the friction that we have in relation to our own self, our own desires, our encounters and experiences with other individuals. Um, and so like uh to me meditation is in many ways, it's a weird way of saying it, but kind of like a great like lubricator of your

1:09:41experience of life. Yeah. Um, and it and it makes making decisions and doing hard things less hard. Yeah. Yeah, it does because there's less of a egocentric perception and the sense of I who needs to do the thing and a sense of I between me and and what I want, you know? It's like it's you're just more with flow I

1:10:04feel like. Yeah, it widens the gap. There's it's interesting because it's in that procrastination episode we we dig in there is some some data on meditation and it's it is meditators procrastinate less and I think it's um the theory behind it is similar like I guess kind of the scientific explanation of what you just said is is um it uh it better allows people like disidentify with the the uncomfortable emotion,

1:10:34right? It's like I got to go to the gym. I'm tired. I don't feel like it. Uh, you know, blah blah blah. When you meditate, you get that that gap between, you know, I guess your experience or who you are and then like the emotion you're feeling in that moment. And in that gap, there's like freedom and liberation to be like, okay, well, you feel this way,

1:10:57but you can still go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's fascinating to see the studies in down reggulating activity in the default mode network. The sense of eye who is the large uh who's the what that area in the brain isn't neuro neuroorate for the vast amount of suffering that that perceived eye experiences in life. And so why aren't

1:11:20you meditating these days though? It's funny man that's a good question. Um I meditated a lot. I I got into it uh probably 18 or 19 and I and I meditated a lot through my 20s and then around 30 I kind of got away from it and then it was like kind of on again off again and then it's just been off for like four or five years at this point and every once in a while I'll go back to the mat and I'm like you know I'm gonna like start this back up you know like pull up Sam Harris's app or something and do a lesson and and it's fine and then I

1:11:57just like I I don't know what it is, but like I guess the kind of where I've landed at this point is that there was there was something I really needed it for when I was younger. Like it was helping me resolve something or make sense of something or um gain awareness about something. And I guess the only the only way way I can kind of put words around it is just like I don't feel like it's showing me anything that I don't already know um recently. And and I and I totally understand that there's like deeper levels and it's like if you commit yourself and go super hard like

1:12:45there are layers to it and and I guess there's just yeah I'm just not like I I haven't like ponyied up for that commitment. I'm like yeah I'm good. I'm pretty happy. Yeah. Also shaming herself or trying to force herself with a militant discipline towards a meditation practice and is almost defeating in and of itself. I was like, where is it coming from? You know,

1:13:07exactly. Yeah. One note to to sort of wrap up on is I feel like through living life, you get to depending upon our own like evolutionary path and how we evolve and and our identity and values and preferences and needs like we spoke to at the beginning of this conversation. to kind of wrap a bow on it. I feel like so much of our self-discovery is coming through our creative acts in the world and uh allowing that to be fluid and flow and change change careers, change formats of of forms of expression. And uh I listened to your first your podcast about like why you stopped your podcast,

1:13:45why you rebranded it, and you're doing a new format, which is like diving deep into one area of topic and getting to the bottom of it. And I really appreciate the the authenticity and and staying true to to to what's exciting for you, you know, instead of being on the rat race of like, well, the podcast circuit works and I can get I have access to all the guests and like it becomes this thing that is uh rewarding financially and the views grow and everything. Uh I think there's this leap that you took with that that a lot of people probably can relate to in their

1:14:15life when they're going from something that maybe even is working really good Sure. to forego that to jump into the unknown of not knowing whether or not the next thing will you know um but what have you found in your experience of what happens when you stay true to what you actually want to do um in your experience of what's bringing you

1:14:34enthusiasm in life? Well, that's the hardest thing, right? It's like it's easy to give up something that's not working, but the hardest thing is giving up something that is working, but it's not fulfilling you. And that's like the scariest part. But it, you know, it's funny like I've noticed this repeatedly throughout my career and and I think it's true just in life in general is like it's almost like the scarier something is, the bigger like the more important it

1:15:04is, like the bigger the opportunity is. Like if it wasn't so scary, like if it wasn't such a big it didn't have so much potential, it wouldn't scare you that way. And um that feels like a lesson I have to learn over and over again. And I was telling you before we went live like with the with the new podcast like it really was a leap of faith. It really was. I sat down with my producer and we kind of hashed out like this is the format we want to make. We just want to get super nerdy and like go ultra ultra deep on a

1:15:38single topic. and maybe half the audience leaves and thinks we're annoying and like never comes back, but are we okay with that? And um and we kind of wrestled with that and agonized over it, but eventually decided that we were. And and then ironically, I think it's that willingness to uh to risk it all is like ultimately what a like helps you make something great and then b like attracts people to it, right? cuz they see they're like, "Oh, that's bold." Like there's like a stronger resonance and connection with people who it's meant for. Totally. And I just think that's true in life in general, you know? Like it's

1:16:19going out on a limb. It it it seems scary before you do it, but then it's like once you're out there, you're like, "Oh, this is like the most obvious thing in the world." And um so it's it is that is something that like I have to like remind myself or I guess relearn that lesson repeatedly throughout throughout my life. Um but it's I guess for anybody out there who's like has a leap that they're afraid to take. It's um that fear is there because it is because it is valuable, not because it's, you know, it's not about what you're potentially losing. And it's it's like what you potentially stand to gain

1:16:59is is probably what's so scary. Yeah. It feels like so much of the fear is wrapped up in the anticipation of it too. I'm sure I'm curious like when you first sat down to do your first one and then like you get in the motion of it. It's like okay. Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean like when the first cut came in I was like terrified to open it. I was just like please for the love of God be good. Like don't be bad you know. And then you get like 20 minutes in, you're like, "Okay, I think

1:17:28we're okay." Epic. Well, for people that want to find that, we'll leave it linked down below. And any last words, man, this was fun. Thank you, dude. No, dude. It's uh always a pleasure, you know, always thrilled to be barefoot. Barefoot and cross-legged. The only I, like I said, the only podcast I can come in and rub my feet on the carpet. Good coffee,

1:17:51dude. So yeah, always a pleasure, man. Thanks for having me. Of course. Everybody, thanks for tuning to this episode. And let us know in what ways something in this episode ignited a perspective and insight for your own personal journey. And until next time, be well. [Music]