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

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Andrew 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

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Twenty million plus copies sold. The champion, the no fucks champion official title, I think. Mark Mans have welcome. Thanks, man. It's the pot. When subtle art came out and it blew up and it was, like, at the top, all the best seller lists and stuff. Like, everybody in the publishing industry. We're like, oh, you're like the new phenom debut author overnight success and all of that. I'm like, overnight success. I've been

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grinding on a blog

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ten years. Like, what do you mean overnight success? Were you good at the beginning, or did you suck?

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Oh, dude. That was a fucking disaster.

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I was a total disaster.

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You obviously became a great writer, but I wanna talk about what you're doing now, which is the YouTube video or the YouTube channel and 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

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intro to the camera here. We got

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three time New York Times bestseller, I believe. Yep. We have

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twenty million plus copies sold.

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The champion, the no fucks champion.

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Official title, I think.

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Mark Manson. Welcome. Thanks, man.

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Good to be here.

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Been a fan for a while.

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Although I gotta admit, I read, like, a ton of your blogs, and I didn't read the book until,

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like, and I saw I've actually finished the book, but I until we booked this interview, I was like, I should probably go ahead and read actual book that he's most famous for. Yeah. Yeah. But there's something to, like, the fun of, like, oh, I liked his his old shit. You know, like, cool band thing. I was a fan before he was cool. Yeah. That's that whole thing. Yeah. I just was gonna ask him. So when I was writing that intro, I was like, let's pretty great. Pretty impressive. Yeah. But I know it was wonder this. Like,

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when you were younger, like, let's say let's say a researcher was watching you when you were like, I don't know, between the ages of ten and twenty. Mhmm. Would it have been noticeable

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that you approached things a little different?

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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 I would I was gonna end up an author or

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in the personal development industry or whatever, but,

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you know, my whole life, my teachers were, like,

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Mark's different. He's special. We wish he would do his homework.

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We wish he would stay awake in class.

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But he could do great things one day. Like, that was kind of the constant refrain throughout my childhood. Because you just weren't interested in school or what was the situation? Yeah. I was board and and

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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, like, physics class, and my teachers would get mad at me. I'm like, well, I'm just, like, studying poker, you know. Were you beginning to, like,

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during, like, the Chris Moneymaker phase, basically. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

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That's cool.

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Did you ever, like, go all in on it? I tried. So it's funny, early on in college. I I decided to sit down and take it really seriously. I made a few thousand bucks,

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which when you're, like, nineteen or twenty.

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It's massive. Right? I'm, like, oh my god. I can pay rent all summer off my poker winnings. And then, I hit you were in college? Yeah. This is 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 AM, like, like, I made two hundred bucks last night. Right?

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And and then I hit my first big downswing

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and lost, like, half my bankroll in, 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.

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Yeah. It's like a very very unhealthy

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unhealthy. I love the game, but the lifestyle that it requires, like, the grinding, the the patience, like, the the

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emotional

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fortitude to, like, handle the ups and downs. It's

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yeah. After about six months, I was like, I don't think I'm billed for this. Right. And you've there's a lot of, like, degenerates you end up paying it around, like,

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doing it. So you kinda look around. You're like, this isn't healthy. It's like Yeah. Yeah. 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,

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set of interests. Maybe it's, like, very common for

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I don't know, guys that are going through some rites of passage. It's like, yep. You think you can play poker or, like, count cards in Blackjack. And then you sort of move on to, like, The next phase. Yeah. Exactly.

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Where, you know, there's a, I think, two thousand and five. Mhmm. A book comes out that I know influenced you. It influenced me. Yep. Do you know what I'm talking about? The game. The game. Neil stress. 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. 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.

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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 would depend on your perspective, the exact

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best or worst moment possible.

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So my first girlfriend in high school

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had just

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cheated on me and left me for another dude. And I was completely heartbroken. Right. Just

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gutted.

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You know, weepy, whiny. And sucks even more in high school because, like, leaving you is, like, she's still there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're still in the hallway.

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I would by this time, I was in college, but, like, we'd 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 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. Right. You should actually look in the camera, but, like, to the person who's eighteen right now. Don't do that. It's not gonna work. A long distance girlfriend when you both go to college? You just don't do it.

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And, so anyway, I I was absolutely

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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.

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And I remember my first reaction was discussed. I was like it's like

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What is this? Like, who would read this? Right? And then I'm like, Yeah.

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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 kinda suck you into a world. Right.

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Yeah. I just I think I sat down and read probably the

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first fifty hundred pages there in the bookstore.

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And then I think I I read the entire thing in just a couple days, and and that was pretty much it. Like, I was like, alright. Like,

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you know, the one girl who ever liked me

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completely fucked me over, broke my heart, and every other girl I've ever 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.

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And, so, yeah, I I kinda got sucked into that world for,

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well,

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I guess four years, five years.

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And then it eventually kinda stumbled into my first business was in that world as well. Yeah. And I wanna 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,

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like, add a lot of value to people's lives. Right? Like,

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Even though self help kind of, like, sometimes gets a bad rap, like, you're by almost by definition

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helping people with the self. Right? The most important thing. But I would say, like,

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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

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Oh, there it is. There it is.

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Oh, yeah. Mod this is your first book. Right? Yep.

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Models attract women through honesty. Yep.

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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

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Yeah. That that's jumping ahead a couple years. But, yeah, it keeps going. So let's start with okay. So you read the game, you get, you know, kind of the,

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I always say this about Tim Farce's 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. And like a fever dream. Yeah. And I just tell people that when I give them the book, I'm like, you're gonna have that's just a schedule some time. You're gonna need this weekend to have the four hour fever.

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Same kind of thing happens with the game, and you become

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you start, I guess, you describe it. You start practicing it. So let's start start with, like, you start actually practicing it for people who haven't read the game.

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And don't know

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the core principles of it. Like, what stood out to you at that time of, like, oh, I used to do things this way.

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But this is, like, this kinda thing I'm learning, this new skill I'm learning. But is so the there's a funny thing about the game, which is And it's it's funny too because 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 in tactful books that I've ever read in my life, those two would be on the list for sure. Right. That said,

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I don't actually, like, 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,

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and definitely more so in in the game's case than four, you know, four hour work week, it it it it's primarily principles and mindsets. So, 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 the real four hour work week is, you know, work sixteen hours a day so you can make money while you sleep.

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with the game, I think the

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the really powerful concept that was very life changing was that Social skills and dating are

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skills that you can practice and get better at. Right. Like, that never occurred to me. It just, like,

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at up to that point in my yep my life.

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Like, most young people, I just kind of assumed like, well,

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either girls are into you or they're not. Right. And if they're not, you're kinda you're kinda

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fucked. Right? Or not fucked in that case. But, like,

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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 it likes

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stories, magic routines. Stories you would memorize and all this stuff. It was a fucking disaster. Like, it was just

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it was

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completely

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corny, and and I felt very

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inauthentic and out of place. But, like, 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,

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I'm actually I'm not that bad. Like, I can talk, I can make a joke.

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Like, I can use my own personality as a starting point and just build from there. Right? And so that's what I started doing through a throughout college.

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And by the end of college, I kind of had developed a reputation as

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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. It except for, the lamest moment, the rock bottom moment is when you hear another guy

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saying the same thing because he 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. Maxim cringe if she heard this from another guy. And I was like, oh, okay. Cat. 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, kinda

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believe, it's not 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 that was, like, pretty powerful.

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I even do this with podcasts. Like, I have,

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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 piece, and which is, like, the same thing with with these pickup artists, which is, like, most people just aren't even approaching anyone. With anything that's, that might lead to a conversation.

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So for me, that was, like, the bigger thing. Do you, still have that kind of, like,

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Did you just think about that moment of social anxiety that first,

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that first moment and, like, was

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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, because when you're

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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 to give give you the courage to actually go say something. It doesn't really matter what you're saying. Right. And

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I actually had a very fort, you know, kinda like you hearing over hearing another 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, I remember I I I was having no luck whatsoever. And

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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.

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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.

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And And I remember one of the girls turned around, and she looked at me and she was like, you know, you were kinda cute.

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Like, you should just

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be yourself.

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I was like,

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Right. You know, like, head explode and almost and and that was kinda one of those first moments where I'm like, you know what? Like, why don't I just start

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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. You know, that I can't believe I spent ten thousand dollars 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? Hi. And it would have gotten me the exact same results.

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There's a book that's, like,

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food diet book. I haven't even read the book, but the last page of the book is, like, a summary. You might know the book because you're you're you're you're an author.

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Is, like, Here's the, like, after all the studies and all the diets, because, like, you know, there's, like, a trillion diets out there. And, like, they're, like, super somewhere super complicated. You're, like, you know, peeing on a strip to see if you're, like, in ketosis or not. Yes. Yep. You could do all you can take it to the nth degree and it was like, yeah. So it seems like the rules are,

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you know, eat real food, like, not, like, package process for you. Like, eat real food. Not too much. Yeah. And, like,

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and it was, like, that was, like, basically the the the core of the advice. Yeah. And it was, like,

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Oh,

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yeah. And, like, but if you actually intensely followed that, you would get all the results you want. But, like, there's this thing where we sort of search for this, like,

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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

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The concepts and frame frameworks that sell well are often counterproductive.

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Right? And you see this in diet, nutrition, you see this in exercise for sure.

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You see this in social skills, personal development, self help, you see it in the pickup world. Like,

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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,

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It's really sexy and you really wanna buy it and you, like, wanna believe it, and it works, and it makes people millions of dollars, but then it doesn't actually it's not actually good advice.

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Right. Whereas the good advice like, this is the other hard thing about these industries is that the good advice is boring. And so

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and this things that work, and again, this is true in personal development. It's true. Social skills, true with diet, nutrition, everything. The stuff that works is boring. It's

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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

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there's no easy way to sell a solution to that. So

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the easy thing to sell solution for is, you know, my three steps at work every time.

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I see this everywhere. Like, because I'm mostly in the kinda startup business world,

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and, like, you know, Warren Buffett, they're like, you know, Warren, you're pretty open about your strategy Yeah.

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And they're not, like, that complicated.

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Why do you think that more people don't do this? And it was either hammer Charlie monger that were, because nobody wants to get rich slow. Yep. It's like, yeah. We just did this in public. And he's like, you know, I made most of my wealth, like, from the ages of seventeen ninety. And, like,

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you know, nobody wants that. Nobody wants to hear that. They they wanna hear that guy who's not done this. Yeah. Tell them that they can do x easy faster or in a different way in a complicated way that, like, you you know, you just didn't have the info. Now that you got the info,

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now it's all gonna work. Yeah. Right. Same thing. Like, know, Y Combinator, which is the most successful,

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like, you know, startup,

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investor and and and,

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accelerator,

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their number one advice is just make something people want. Mhmm. And they're like, yeah, what's the great strategy startup advice? Like, well, and then but then and the the way helps is, like, if you just tell someone that they don't know how to use it. Yeah. But the quest, like, their audit when you're, like, so do you think that people want this?

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Of they're like, of course. I was 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, you know, genius and the the the the the the Just mix up that people want. And then in the middle of the bell curve, it's like, well, you gotta have these steps and figure out these strategies, you know, and then the Jedi is, like, just make something people want. I love that game. That's I I told that. It's like, that's the meme of truth. It's the meme of truth. Across so many domains. It's amazing. Yeah. Can 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, you know, all these other things. Yeah.

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When you look back, has Ben been flashing a bunch of your, like, I know it's been been oh, god. He flashes a bunch of your things and they're like,

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this is the cringe section of that. Don't worry. It gets better. The end of the week, it will get better, but this is the cringe section.

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But you have, like, a bunch of these things that I'm, like, they're, like, just amazing headlines. We're talking. We're gonna talk titles later because you're, like, a title master. Sure. But when you look back,

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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 you make of it and also what you tell yourself the story you tell yourself about what happened. Yeah. So, like, when you look back on that phase,

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is it just, like,

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cringe and I don't wanna ever think about it. Like, I hope 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?

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It's a really good question. I I would say it's probably like one third cringe,

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one third I think it was actually really important informative in a lot of ways. And then

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one third just kinda funny and just, like, can you believe that happened?

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Actually, when I moved out here to LA,

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I met up with Neil for the first time, and we spent a day together. And we spent, like, half the day just kinda being like, Can you believe that happened? Right. Do you believe we actually did that? I

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I look back, though, especially now that a little bit more time has gone by,

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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

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with

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I think the pickup artist industry is underrated as

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cultural

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or social phenomenon, particularly for young men, trying to find identity or find themselves in, like, a very confusing

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world with a lot of information.

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Because it's when I look back at that time, like, yeah.

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Like, we

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in the industry, 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. Like, it's it's

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most of the guys who really got into that. It wasn't about the girls. It was they

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needed to feel

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accepted and

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and and validated by other men and and

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just guess, I don't know, their masculinity.

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Right? There was like a very there was, like, this yearning for, like, a masculine role model. And

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I always found that I was very aware of that at the time, but I didn't really know what to make of it.

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But as the years have gone on, I looked 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,

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a generation of, like, men who had

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fewer father figures, fewer role models,

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lot more confusion about, like, who they're supposed to be in the world. And I think we're

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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,

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a different industry. Well, let's talk about one of them. So I think Andrew Tate is like the for sure. You know, poster boy right now that Ben thank you pull up that tweet he has. You have a great tweet about Energy. I wanna ask. 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 exploitive?

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Yeah. So it's funny, like, watching tate the rise of tape because

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he just

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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 saying that. You know, like, it's all the same shit just recycled

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in a new package. I I do think Tate is

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uniquely charismatic,

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and I think he has an interesting backstory that a lot of got young men re respect. Right. And so that that is geared to the It's given him a lot more amplification.

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It's also just a different era with social media and everything.

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But

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and he, like, layered on an MLM.

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Right. So he just combined, like, three of the most powerful forces in the world. Seriously.

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Pretty insane charisma

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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, kind of 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,

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I mean, it probably we probably need some time, but, like, ten years from now, I wanna see somebody do, like, a really good about him. Right. And, like, a a fair book, not, like,

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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 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.

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And you can just hammer on those all day, but, like, I think that's way less interesting than just trying to understand, like,

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Why is there such a demand for this guy again? Right? Like,

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I thought we kinda got over this. And this kinda ties back into my first book model. So, like,

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The pickup industry by, like, two thousand nine, two thousand ten,

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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

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dating relationship advice for men. One was

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basically promoting narcissism,

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selfishness, power dynamics. Right. And sure that stuff can get you laid a lot, but

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it's

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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

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to just, like, put notches on your bed post and brag to your buddies. And that

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is a very bad trade off. Like, if if you look at just

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in the terms of a man's overall lifespan, that's a very bad trade off.

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And then so I was I was kinda like, okay. How do we, like, detoxify

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this this advice? What does that look like?

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How do we and it's not just about

24:37

treating women with respect, but it's treating yourself with respect too because, like, what a lot of guys don't realize is that

24:44

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 your self by how wet your dick gets. And, like, that's a very

24:57

demeaning way to view yourself and view your own self esteem.

25:02

I was kinda fed up with the whole thing. I knew I wanted to get out. I wanted to pivot out of the industry.

25:07

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

25:18

Oh, dude. I was a fucking disaster.

25:26

You do you want me to talk about the content side or the marketing side? Whatever's more interesting. You you tell me. Well, I'll I'll I'll talk start with the content side. It's less interesting, but I'll start with it because it's quicker, which is just, like,

25:38

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 are you back in the day, back when blogs were still a thing? I used to get asked all the time, like, how do I start a blog? How do I grow blog,

25:51

make

25:52

make a living as a blogger.

25:54

My answer was always the same, which is, like, write a hundred blog posts. Come ask me again. Right. And, have you seen by the mister 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 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 that just try to make each of the next video better. And nobody's also it's a filter. It's like, Are you serious or you're not serious? Yeah. I will help you if you're serious. Yes. But ninety nine percent, you're not serious. This is the easy test. Exactly. Exactly.

26:23

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,

26:29

by the hundredth one, they don't need the advice anymore. Yeah. Doing wrong. They know what they need to get better at. So was there anything that got you better? Would did you read something or follow some or, you know, model your stuff after someone? Like, do you remember how you got good? In terms of writing and content?

26:44

My two big inspiration, I was a huge Bill Simmons fan back in the day. Wow. We were, like, very, very aligned.

26:50

Like, you know, back in the day, page, you know, page two. Page two. Yep. And,

26:56

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

27:08

in this is pre news feed, pre social media, everything. So, like, in the blogosphere,

27:14

the idea, everything all traffic was either SEO or,

27:18

the blog roll type thing. Yeah. Like link farming, like, you know, you would, like, write something

27:23

spicy so that a bunch of other bloggers would wanna comment on it so they'd link to you and, like, all this stuff. And it'd be it was very much a volume game. So, like, the the standard advice was always,

27:34

you know, don't write one big blog post a day, write twenty

27:39

twenty single paragraphs and post those as individual blog posts each day. Just that's what's gonna make you grow. And I always hated that. I always felt very shitty and

27:48

Un ins 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

27:58

ten 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 runs. Yeah. I tried to meet up with him when, so we came out here. I was like, I wanna schedule. And 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. And I've never really seen any be honest, like Yeah. He's like, he's a big deal at Spotify now. So -- Yeah. -- he's, you know, he's Yeah. It is fine, but, like,

28:31

Okay.

28:32

But but he he's written. So if you haven't if people haven't read this, go read. I think it's called, like, the consequences of caring.

28:40

Unbelievable post. So good. I already started. 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 I was in a pretty niche and,

28:53

insulated industry. Like, everybody kinda knew each other and everybody

28:57

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,

29:12

and so that kinda got talked about and shared. Do you remember what was, like, kinda your first thing that broke out.

29:18

I really in that era, I really don't.

29:20

I really don't. It was so

29:23

gradual, man. Yeah. Like, my

29:26

It's funny because, you know, subtle art is so massive. Like,

29:30

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 all the best seller list and stuff. Like, everybody in the publishing industry were, like, oh, you're, like, the new

29:41

phenom debuted author,

29:43

overnight success. And all of a sudden, like, overnight success. I've been fucking

29:47

grinding on a blog for ten years. Like, what do you mean overnight six

29:52

Right.

29:53

Yeah. I was doing like, you know, that's like the low status thing in society. He's like, I'm a blogger. Yes. Exactly. So you're unemployed. Like, what is that? You know?

30:01

I got stories. I got stories.

30:05

I got stories. I remember,

30:07

like, twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen. And by this time, my, like, my audience pretty big. Like, I had a few hundred thousand readers, and,

30:13

I remember going home for Christmas one year and,

30:17

kinda gotten a argument with 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

30:26

like a web designer,

30:28

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. I was like, I already make a hundred a year, and she just looked at me and she goes, no, you don't.

30:39

It's like, what the fuck? I don't lie.

30:42

I was like, do you want tax returns like Jesus Christ. What do I have to do to get you people to believe in me? But, anyway, we're jumping around now.

30:52

You know, the con yeah. The content side, I don't know. I just I had this weird confidence of, like,

30:58

I saw that

30:59

Bill Simmons trajectory

31:01

over the page two days. And I'm and he did it differently in everybody else. And I was like, why can't I do that? Right? And I not gonna post twenty times a day. I'm just gonna do, like, one epic article that everybody gets excited about, and that was kinda my MO

31:15

it's funny because that eventually became the meta kinda in the more Facebook era,

31:20

in the early twenty tens. So I was, like, ahead of the curve, I guess.

31:25

On the marketing side, I was trash. I was just like

31:28

selling does not come natural to me at all. It was very much something that I had to consciously train myself practice.

31:37

I took a bunch of copywriting courses,

31:41

I, like, went to marketing seminars, pirated marketing seminars.

31:46

Like, that was always the it's funny because it's like the

31:50

the psychology side, the personal development side of everything, the social dynamics, the relationship advice, like,

31:58

That all came very easily and naturally to me, and it was just it was fun. It was, like, kind of a hobby. So it was, like, I never really had to, like,

32:06

Work hard to kind of 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.

32:16

I can't find this client info. Have you heard of HubSpot?

32:20

HubSpot is a CRM platform, so it shares its data every application. Every team can stay aligned. No out of sync spreadsheets or dueling databases.

32:29

HubSpot, grow better.

32:32

So you've done, so those content reps got in. You obviously became a great writer, and we'll talk about the book in a second. But I wanna talk about what you're doing now, which is the YouTube video. 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, this is my new baby? Right now, that's the new main thing. Yeah. And so, I think you dropped the first

32:52

first, like,

32:54

video, maybe a couple days ago, and doing super well, can you pull it up? I wanna actually do a little one of my favorite little content things is this

33:02

this thing that happens in sports and football,

33:04

they, like, take quarterbacks that are about to be drafted. I don't know if you've ever seen this. They sit down. They, like, look at game film with them just to see kinda how they think. Sure. And,

33:13

it's my favorite thing in any podcast is, like, when you can really, like,

33:17

not, like, talking the abstract, but talking the specific. Like, like, why did you do this? Like, how did you think about this? Yeah. And we we hung out with mister Beast and when we did that with some of his videos, And

33:27

the way he thinks, you're like, oh, okay. I get it. I get, like, I learned something tactical, but also just I get you more,

33:33

versus when you ask some general And so I kinda wanna play this game. I don't know how it works, but we'll try. I wanna know the thought that went into this. Let's watch the first ten seconds. I wanna hear you talk about it. Okay. What would you do if someone offered you ten thousand dollars to do whatever it takes to overcome your social anxiety. Could you do it? Would you even know where to start?

33:52

I decided

33:53

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

34:06

More broadly, and then I can kinda come back to this video specifically.

34:10

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

34:18

for a lot of reasons, but one of them was I was consistent. I was very frustrated by it, which was that

34:24

I feel like the insent like, the way the incentives are structured within coaching industries,

34:29

in the personal development world are counterproductive.

34:33

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.

34:40

It's first of all, my incentive

34:42

isn't to fix your self esteem issues. Like, my my incentive is to make it feel like I'm fixing yourself issues, even though they're still Like a pharmaceutical company. Right? Exactly. And then on your side of

34:55

the equation,

34:58

what often happens in practice, like, or on the customer side is what often happens in practice is people

35:05

kinda show up. They pay you, say, a thousand dollars, and they're like, well, I just paid you a thousand dollars. So

35:11

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.

35:20

And so I hated that dynamic. It felt very

35:23

I mean, it works some of the time, but in a lot of cases, it felt very icky, and I've kinda found myself in, like, awkward situations with clients and stuff.

35:31

So I I just got away from it, entirely and just kinda stuck the books and courses and everything.

35:37

When I saw mister Beast,

35:39

a light bulb went off. I was like

35:42

because I love mister 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

35:49

surface level. Like, I'll I'll watch a mister b's video, and I'll get to the end. And I'm like, I wanna know about the guy's new character. Yeah. I'm like, me about the guy who won or tell me, like, you're down to four people. Tell me about their lives. Like, bring their families in. Like, I wanna see let's get some juicy drama going on. Alright. I talked to him about this. Yeah. And I was, like, because I was, like, he was talking about, like, a Netflix or, like, TV shows. And it was, like, oh, like, yeah, what can you learn about TV show? What can you learn from, like, TV shows that have been running for a long time do really well. Mhmm.

36:17

And he he says that he's like,

36:20

also, I think they can learn a lot from us. And he's like, He's, like, I'd love to see their retention curve.

36:25

Right? He's, like, they they just don't know where people are dropping off. He's, like, what we found was, like, if you hit them, hit them, hit them with, like, the more of, like, the action and the stakes and then the the quest and, like, the curiosity open a loop. And, like, that's gonna keep people. He's like, but he's like, but I do think the one thing TV does well characters. Like, we don't do any narrative or character, and I gotta figure out how I'm gonna do that. Yeah. 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

36:51

side statement

36:53

and this gets more into, like, my personal strategy or, like, opportunities I see in the future. But, like,

36:59

It's the current media environment. I think traditional media, they've always had the luxury of

37:05

having that lock in of, like, you're in a theater and it's more it's, like, once you're in a theater, it's more difficult to leave than to sit through a bad movie. So everybody just sits through a bad movie. You know, it and it's in the previous era of television,

37:17

it's,

37:18

you know, you don't wanna sit there and, like, flip around for 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,

37:38

Right? And and create those very emotional moments that we've all had with our favorite movies and TV shows.

37:43

YouTube is kind of the other way around. Like, there's always

37:47

shit fighting for your attention and try and 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

37:58

YouTubers have become masters of retention.

38:01

And the content on YouTube is super hooky. And click through rate. Right? Like, those two two variables. Yes. It's super hooky, very quick baby, like,

38:10

addictive,

38:10

but also kinda empty calories. Like, you can just blow through, like, six videos and just be like, wait, what do I don't remember a single thing I just watched.

38:18

And that's kinda unsatisfying.

38:19

Traditional media is, like, caught on the other side of things of, like, wait, shit. Like, people are watching

38:25

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 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 mister Beast thing and the coaching thing. So I was watching mister Beast videos

38:52

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.

39:00

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, you know, stand in a circle or,

39:14

you know, keep your hand on a car? Like, what if it was built around hung on this Lamborghini?

39:19

Yeah. Like, if it was built around, like, a real personal issue that, like,

39:23

you have to investigate to, like, try to understand. Right. And

39:27

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, say, anxiety or an issue, The problem is never that this comes back to information thing. The problem is never

39:47

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

39:54

and they could pay a coach a thousand bucks, and the coach can say, okay. Well, you pay 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 do 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. That's kinda genius. Yeah. I was, like, fuck. I need to make this.

40:29

So this is our first attempt at it, and it's funny because

40:33

this was shot

40:34

end of April, early May. This is we're recording this end of July.

40:40

There are all like, I'm already aware of, like, fifteen things that are wrong at this video. Right. And, like, they're, like, it's it's actually underperforming

40:47

our our expectations and, like,

40:49

there's so many things that we need to fix. But it's the first rep. Yeah. It's the first rep. It's, like, the first it's, like, the beta test, but

40:57

super, super excited about the format. Makes a ton of sense. And,

41:02

also, like, even just mechanically, like, the things you just said. So if, you know, coaching's getting somebody to, like, transform,

41:09

the way the transform is not information, just 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.

41:17

It's a contract there to, like, do the thing.

41:21

But you also how can you offer ten thousand dollars to why could you pay your quote? That's not a sustainable business, but it is If it's YouTube content Exactly. You have, like, almost the full loop to be able to make something. It creates a it creates a very beautiful flywheel

41:35

41:37

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.

41:44

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. Now millions of people actually watch somebody overcome their character overcomes. Yeah. It's like, oh, that's what it looks like. Oh, that's what

42:07

how people respond in that situation. Right. You know, the difference between watching Rocky

42:11

And then some or somebody sitting at a chair and saying, you should kinda work really hard. 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

42:24

best

42:30

of my entire 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.

42:37

Oh my god. Like, I was not expecting this. This is so powerful. You know, I 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 trying to achieve in those first fifteen seconds of this video?

42:53

So the 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 stick around?

43:00

And One of the challenges that we face with this format is that all of the

43:06

all the stuff that we're having people do it's it's it's super abstract. Like, social social anxiety is super abstract. Like, how do you show social anxiety? It's, like, not very obvious how you show that visually.

43:17

Or, like, low self esteem. How do you show that visually?

43:21

we were thinking about, like, okay. What are, like, kind of, like, hooks or gimmicks that we can, like, implement into the format

43:28

that can get people bought in. Right? And

43:31

the first and most obvious in this in the current mister Beast meta briefcase.

43:35

Of kids. It's 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 was like, okay. Well, what is the Jedi, right? Jedi in the numb school? If you gave him ten thousand dollars? Like,

43:47

what if you gave him ten thousand dollars? But the funny thing is is that it actually this intro did not perform very well. And so And what what is that what tells you that? Like, you're looking at the curve. You're like, the retention chart. Yeah. What should it have been? Yes. For what what do you think it should have been to be, like, good? Well, I think

44:02

the 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

44:13

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 to a mall, and we tell her she has to find somebody from Canada. And, like, she runs away. 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 related 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. Yes. Like, we're just everybody's done it. Like, And then she's like it's like, are you faking a fuck? It's like Yeah.

44:48

Yeah. I am. I just I don't know. It makes me feel more comfortable. Dude, she was so relatable. Such a spaz. Right. Such a spaz. It was really fun. And and, yeah, in hindsight, it's like we should have just opened up with that. And then it explain the format later. Yeah. But, like

45:02

yeah. I mean, we're new we're we're we're paving the road as we drive down it. So Cast. Yes. Which is hard. You don't know what's gonna happen. And, like, this is kind of reality TV. For sure. And there's also, like, how this I would say this is a common theme from the pickup to

45:18

subtle art to now this, which is how do you avoid selling out? So, like, when you've been in the the industry, you kinda know, okay, if I pull this lever, I'm gonna get more juice. Yep.

45:28

Like, maybe maybe this will let's just pretend if this woman's transformation was not that that crazy, but like In the edit, you could kind of like -- Oh, for sure. -- make this video better. Like, do we wanna have our video be better or worse? Obviously, better, but at the same time, we don't wanna sell out. How have you just dealt with that, like, how hard do I wanna turn the knob or pull the lever of, like,

45:49

you know, manipulation to make something work?

45:52

The few that we've shot,

45:54

all of them have been very successful so far, but I've told the team that I wanna be

45:59

eventually, we're gonna hit one that's not successful. Like,

46:02

we don't help the person. It doesn't work. Right. Or maybe we help them a little, but

46:07

they don't get there. Right?

46:10

I think it's very, very important to be honest about that and to actually make a video, like, have the video kind of explore why that is. Right? You know?

46:19

Because it's

46:21

yeah. There's a credibility and authenticity that it's just so, so important, especially and that's

46:28

it's been one of my criticisms of my own industry for

46:32

ten, fifteen years of just, like, the lack of trustworthiness, the lack of credibility,

46:37

because 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 have to do that anymore.

46:52

I guess how's that changed? Well, I'm very fortunate in that the book did, 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.

47:05

But, like,

47:07

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

47:17

47:18

therapies, like, what modality of therapy is the most effective. Right?

47:22

You start looking at the research, and it's

47:25

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

47:51

What works for you could completely fail for me and vice versa because everybody's so individual. So to your point about casting,

47:59

a huge part of our casting process is

48:02

doing pre shoot interviews, me doing pre shoot

48:06

pre shoot conversations and interviews with the person to really gauge of, like, is this a person I can help? Because

48:13

for every video we shot, we talked to probably two or three people

48:18

and half of those people, I'm like, you know,

48:21

I'm 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. Right. No. I could give me a week with her. I'm like, I could get I can get something out of it. You know?

48:35

Did you, 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 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, it's, like, one of those, like, cool shows where it's like, you know, we're not gonna, like, be 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 doesn't there's, like, a episode in the second season. It'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. You you know, it's so so satisfying.

49:12

But they're,

49:13

but we talk so we reached out to one of the writers and we were like, hey, you know, it was respect and,

49:18

just we like to learn from people like that. Like, how do you do this? How do you do this character thing?

49:23

Have you learned anything in the process of, like, doing these videos of, like,

49:27

because 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. One of the reasons I wanted to do this too, I should specify is, like,

49:40

you know, I came out of this period. The post subtle art period of my career

49:44

I did three books,

49:45

back to back to back. I did a movie, like, a bunch of traditional media success, like, everything was

49:51

wildly successful,

49:52

very busy, lots of money.

49:55

I moved to LA. I took took a few months off, and I was just like, man, I missed, like, the

50:00

grindy

50:01

grassroots

50:02

Internet stuff. Right? And

50:04

but what I also realized is, like, I miss being bad at something. Like, I miss

50:10

I missed just, like, throwing shit at a wall and being like, did that work? Like, no. Alright. 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

50:23

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

50:30

so I I missed the internet days of, like, alright. Let's try ten things and just know that, like, six are gonna fail. And, Like, that's just exciting to me. And so

50:38

part of this project was, like,

50:41

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,

50:50

storytelling, visual storytelling, and 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,

51:03

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 is, like, the intro. Right? It's like, that's a great intro on paper.

51:16

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. This

51:24

woman spaz running around the mall, like, asking people who are from Canada. Like, that's super weird. And you're like, what? What's going And then it's, like, you slowly, like, drip context

51:33

over the course of, like, ten minutes. Whereas when you're writing

51:37

a book or or an article. Like, you have

51:41

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's still kinda default to that. And I'm having, like, untrained myself in a lot of ways.

51:56

The funny thing is is, like and, again, one of the reasons I'm doing this is

52:01

I think my natural strength is story

52:05

and character and narrative. Like, that

52:08

That's where I shine naturally. What I'm weaker at is

52:12

the retention, the hooks, the, like,

52:16

gen z shit. The gen z shit. Yeah.

52:18

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. There's something I have you ever heard this term like the millennial pause

52:24

It's so funny. It's like, if you were to it's like, what's the point of your pause? It's basically

52:29

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 -- Oh, yeah. -- as the video starts, whereas every millennials, like,

52:38

they click record, like,

52:40

Hey, everybody. As I, like, 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 I was, like, that's so fucking true. That's funny. That's so true. So funny, man. You so you're doing this this 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.

53:09

It because it's you can do a lot of fear based stuff. I mean, you can take somebody up in a plane and throw them out, you know, make them sky dive 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

53:21

we have a challenge in another video where

53:24

I printed out flat earth flyers saying, like, you know, do you Do you know the truth about the planet? You know, it's a picture of a flat earth.

53:32

And I made her

53:34

go into a a public place and hand them out to people. Right. And, like, try to convince them to be flat earthers. And she was, like, absolutely mortified. Like, just

53:43

horrified. And,

53:44

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 in probably

53:59

six or seven years.

54:01

Which is a dope lesson because, you know, you wrote a book with Will Smith, and 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,

54:14

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 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 satisfying

54:31

than,

54:32

For me, at least it is, you know, I'm sure there are people out there who prefer, like, kind of traditional media environment, but one of the things I learned is that

54:41

I can do traditional media projects, and I can do very well at them. But, like,

54:47

I don't feel that same passion

54:49

with them as I as I do with stuff like this. Like, I like owning my own stuff. I like

54:55

experimenting.

54:56

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

55:05

Also, part of I mean, we can talk about this too, but,

55:10

it's it's funny. Like, so when my movie came out and I did all the press for the movie,

55:15

every single journalist I talked to was like, so are you gonna do another movie? And, like, in my head, I'm like, fuck no. Absolutely not. I'm gonna go make a YouTube channel because it's, like, that was actually my lesson from making a movie. It was like, I should -- I'm saying it. -- I should just have a YouTube channel. Like, this because

55:32

The economics of the creator economy are fundamentally better. The distribution is

55:38

miles better.

55:41

You have, like, complete

55:42

ownership. There's complete creative freedom. Like, I I just don't see how this

55:48

doesn't end up ahead.

55:50

In ten years.

55:51

It's like hanging by, like, a prestige thread. It really is. Right. I'm 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, kinda what's happened with, like, newspapers and Twitter

56:06

of, like,

56:07

They're still prestigious newspapers and they still kinda matter a little bit. Like, it's still nice to, like, be in the New York Times or whatever, but

56:15

The real intellectual

56:17

debate and

56:19

substance in, like, the stuff that drives culture happens on Twitter and Substack.

56:24

And has for years now. Right? And it's, like,

56:27

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 already happened with podcasts,

56:36

and it's about to happen with video as well, where it's, like, There's still gonna be, like, Marvel movies and stuff. And Netflix is gonna have its TV shows, and it's gonna be very prestigious to be on those, but, like,

56:46

culture is gonna be driven by, like, it probably within this decade,

56:51

creators,

56:52

they're gonna grow up for one.

56:55

And two, the production value is gonna get better. The storytelling is gonna get better, and it's gonna it's gonna hit an inflection point where it starts driving culture and not

57:04

a traditional medium. If it's not already, I mean, what, we're just gonna do this already. I think if you 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.

57:14

Do you think you're good at titles?

57:16

Apparently, I

57:18

So the so the book I don't feel good at them, but

57:22

The book obviously has a good title and it started with this the book came from a block correct? Yes. It wasn't intended to be like a book. It was like -- Yep. -- 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

57:38

over that period, like, twenty twelve to twenty

57:41

fifteen. Like, I probably had ten or twelve articles go super viral, but that one just hit on, like, a whole another level. Like, it was so I had already written probably half the

57:51

book

57:52

when that article came out, and then when that article hit the way it did, my agent was like, hey,

57:58

think you could change thought of the book. Yeah.

58:01

And you hadn't done a book in

58:04

years, right, before that? No. I just done models. That was it. Right. So you're, you're, you're, but you're already thinking about a book and then it was like, yep. Oh, lean into this one. Yeah. So there's this die a little picture or diagram. That's is that did you make that or, the one of the guy floating away on the balloon? Is that Oh, that was Is that a from something? What is this? That was an old meme back in the day. Oh, okay. So good. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. And that's a that's, like, as good as that Midwitt meme. It's like Yes. This image can become, like, yeah, you know, transformational.

58:32

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 because back then, a big part of packaging an article for, like, Facebook and Twitter, was what image pops up. The minute. The minute. Yeah. That when you share. And so we we used to spend a lot of, you know, kind of similar 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,

59:02

I think the other thing that made that article work was

59:05

I think on Reddit one day, just randomly on Reddit, I saw somebody had photoshopped a picture of a kitten in front of, like, bomb exploding. Kinda like a action thing. That that meme is is huge. Yeah. And so we pulled that and used that as, like, the share, yeah, the share, the share image. And was just kind of this magical combo of content,

59:25

title,

59:26

image, and it just, like, all word. Do you remember how you thought of that title? So the subtle art of not giving Where does that come from? You sit down and you just hammer 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 conversations

59:44

with people and something would pop up and I just pull out my phone added to the list.

59:48

And it came from it came from there's a heavy metal song,

59:52

from band called Lam of God. They had a they had a song called the subtle art of murder and persuasion.

59:59

and at that time, I had just done,

01:00:02

like, two different articles with fucking the tire like, I I had just kinda discovered that if you put fuck in the title, 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 kinda on the lookout of, like, cool titles that you could add add fuck into.

01:00:22

I think I knew I wanted to do an article about not giving a fuck.

01:00:25

Because that was just an obvious topic.

01:00:29

And so when I heard that song, I was like, whoa, subtle, hard not giving. Like, that's pretty damn good. Like, I should use that. Let's pull up some of your other ones. So you have, the most important question of your life. Yep. Good. I like that. That was a huge one. Because you gotta know. I need to know. Yeah. Well, what is this Jackass thing? You know, it's like probably nothing, but let me just check. Yeah. The most important x

01:00:48

Like, it's it's it's always gonna work. You have, life is a video game and here are the cheat codes. That's like a, you know, master path. That that's become,

01:00:57

I feel like that's become a

01:00:59

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

01:01:06

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.

01:01:14

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,

01:01:20

I guess, classic. Yeah. Yeah. Like, it's you just see there's probably ten different brands that use these same titles

01:01:27

all the time. And, like, the life is a video game one is, like, I see that everywhere. I wrote this thread about,

01:01:33

that of the first line of it was everybody everybody seems to think clubhouse is the next big thing. Yep.

01:01:40

But I think it's gonna fail.

01:01:42

And it's like, grab some popcorn. Here's here's how I think it goes down. Yeah. Yeah. And,

01:01:47

that thing went crazy viral. And, like,

01:01:50

And, like, my hear you know, Malcolm Gladwells are following me. Bill Simmons DMs me. It's like, oh, shit. This is, like, this is amazing. I didn't know this could happen. Because, like, today, the Facebook meta doesn't really work, but, like, Twitter threads actually for a period of time last recently could could go viral.

01:02:03

And, and now that same

01:02:05

theme is, like, people just replace. People dot ai is the next big thing, but here's, you know, he grabs the popcorn. Here's how I think it goes down. It's like the copy paste, but obviously, like, loses effectiveness 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

01:02:20

And I I I don't have any moral judgment around this, but it's, you know, ten years ago, it was very much a sense of, like, if you came up with a title that, like, like, a banger,

01:02:30

It was like, that was yours. Right? Yeah. You know, and it's like no and if somebody stole it, it was like, they're a piece of shit and when you call them out and your audience would call them out. Like, I used to get emails from fans being like, this guy copied your article and, like, all this stuff. Like, I never get those emails anymore. Like, it's everybody just rips everybody off now. And so anybody who posts anything that goes viral anywhere. There's, 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, dude, like, that whole day is like,

01:03:00

I made this thing. I made this. Yeah.

01:03:03

Yeah. I don't think people even are are aware of it anymore. Yeah.

01:03:07

Is blogging dead?

01:03:09

I think it it depends on how you define dead. So

01:03:13

There was an era in the early twenty tens where

01:03:18

you a blog could gain reach beyond its own specific niche. Like, it you could kind of get mainstream

01:03:26

audience, like, hit hit like a critical mass.

01:03:29

I think today,

01:03:31

You can still make a living off a blog.

01:03:34

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,

01:03:43

low six figures?

01:03:45

Whereas ten years ago, I mean, I think at my peak, I was getting, like, two, two and a half million visitors a month. Right. So

01:03:53

It's it's a it's a different world now. It is still possible, but it's, like, I think it really only

01:03:59

if you're gonna go a blog route instead of podcast or video, like, it it

01:04:05

you have to have a really good reason and it probably has to be a very specific niche, but Did you podcast or do you podcast? I do not. Is there, like, a reason? Or why didn't it? I never started one just because of lack of bandwidth.

01:04:17

Just, like, writing too many books.

01:04:19

And then

01:04:21

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 mean, this is mine. Yeah.

01:04:35

But, I I do think it's I think it I would like to be in this medium in some shape or form. So

01:04:42

you did a book with Will Smith, and presumably we 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 just a real specific question. It's kind of like That's what everybody How are they? Every every every it's like, how are they as a person? Yeah. It's kind of like, You know, like, are they big? Are they awesome? There's, like, that version of it. But to me, I'm sort of, like,

01:05:04

what was this what was something you saw them do or, like, something you witnessed that was, like, just not how the common person would have approached

01:05:12

a given situation.

01:05:14

the quick answer to the the one everybody always asks, which is, like, what's he like in person? He is

01:05:20

exactly like the fresh prince. Like, that is

01:05:23

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. Right? Like, that is that is his personality.

01:05:38

Will will is like there are a few dimensions that I think he is like at the extreme end of the bell curve.

01:05:46

The the most obvious one that's not gonna surprise anybody is just this charisma. Like, he

01:05:52

is by far the most naturally charismatic bird. I mean, it can literally just be, like, me and him sitting in a kitchen

01:06:00

at midnight

01:06:02

talking about

01:06:03

cartoon like, he's so charismatic, just, like,

01:06:07

built into him. And so it's not hard you spend a little bit of time with him and it's not hard to see and understand, like, oh, okay. I see why this guy is so famous.

01:06:16

Right. His mind is is very

01:06:20

almost

01:06:21

delusionally positive.

01:06:23

Like, he kinda has this, like, you know, we all have a little bit of 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

01:06:39

negativity just bounces right off him. Any sort of failure setback. Like, he doesn't

01:06:45

doesn't bum them out. Like, I I've never really been around somebody who is so easily to, like, able to construe

01:06:53

challenges and obstacles in a way that

01:06:57

that is

01:06:58

confident and beneficial. Like, it's actually very impressive, but it's funny because it also gets him 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,

01:07:10

he just rationalizes it in such a positive way so quickly that it it kinda like

01:07:15

it it can cause problems for him. And that's that's actually one thing he and I talked about for the book is that, you know, he came from a very chaotic and,

01:07:25

like, abusive childhood and

01:07:28

He said, he's like, I developed 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.

01:07:41

But, yeah, it's, like, I'm a little bit untethered to reality.

01:07:47

That's like that was very interesting and and remarkable

01:07:51

when you saw the

01:07:53

Chris Rock Slap or whatever.

01:07:55

That's obviously kinda, like,

01:07:57

not, like, you know, mister Positive or whatever in that moment. Were you were you, like yeah. What was your, were you, like, done, like because you know him more than, like, every shot because it's a shocking thing. Yeah. But when you know the person,

01:08:09

you might have, like, either it's even more shocking than than that or it's less because you understood maybe where he's coming from. It was definitely less shocking for me.

01:08:17

He slapped you once or twice. Yeah. You're like, that's common.

01:08:21

Keep her name out of your mouth.

01:08:24

No. I mean, like, one of the things

01:08:26

and we

01:08:27

this is in the book. He'd a very abusive alcoholic father.

01:08:31

He used to beat the shit out of his mom, and he was the oldest he was the oldest child. He was the male. Right? So he felt responsible and very protective. And so

01:08:41

he has a lot of issues around women. He's very protective. He's very

01:08:46

sensitive

01:08:47

Like,

01:08:48

the women in his life are his Achilles heel. Like, that's if you wanna 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. Right. It's like you go after his mom, his daughter, his wife, like,

01:09:03

shit's gonna get real, real fast. And

01:09:06

so I wasn't surprised. It was funny. Actually, I I was watching with my wife live and, like, my wife to me. 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 was like, what?

01:09:21

Send them a text afterwards or you, like, just give them space.

01:09:24

Because Uber famous people, you, like, it's hard to even navigate. So you don't wanna 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

01:09:39

everybody

01:09:40

who I've ever known in my life messaged me that

01:09:44

night.

01:09:46

Asking for, like, my opinion -- Right. -- whatever. And I'm, like, literally people, like, I haven't talked to since high school, you know, are, like, reaching out. I'm, like, wait, this is the thing they you to reach out. Like, all the shit I did. He didn't, like, didn't bother. Like, you know, couldn't be bothered to to to say anything, but, like, this, this got you to to reach out to me. Alright. Alright.

01:10:05

Yeah. That that was just I mean, it, 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 that you, you know, you kinda didn't know what you're gonna do. I hope you enjoyed it. Hope you had a fun time. Yeah. I definitely did because you're somebody I followed for a long time. And

01:10:23

I think the people I respect the most, like, some people respect, like, Elon Musk the most. Some people respect because it's like, oh, he conquers, like, you know, taking us to another planet. Yeah. But I always admire thinkers. Like, I think, 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.

01:10:46

Absolutely, man. So my pleasure. Where do you want people to go? The YouTube channel, I'm assuming is 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,

01:10:58

markmanson.net, got a newsletter there.

01:11:03

And I think that's, you know, buy the books, whatever.

01:11:06

I don't give a fuck. You don't give a fuck. Buy my shit.

01:11:10

Awesome. Cool. That's right.