This Will Save You 10 Years of Therapy - Mark Manson

0:00 Here's 10 years of therapy summarized in one minute.

0:03 Number one, no one is coming to save you.

0:06 Being a functioning adult means realizing you

0:08 are responsible for everything in your life, even if it wasn't your fault.

0:11 Number two, strong boundaries make for good relationships.

0:14 Weak boundaries make drama.

0:16 Number three, many of your problems don't get fixed.

0:20 You just learn how to live despite them.

0:22 Number four, your mind lies to you all the time.

0:25 It will tell you that the world is ending when it's not.

0:27 That a mistake is fatal when it's not.

0:29 That everyone is thinking about you and laughing about you when they're not.

0:32 Learn how to tell your mind to shut the[ __] up.

0:35 Number five, stop trying to convince people to like you.

0:38 The right people won't need to be convinced,

0:40 and everyone else is just going to get very annoyed.

0:43 Number six, sometimes the best thing you can do is let a dream die.

0:47 No one likes to hear that, but it's true.

0:49 And number seven, only a few people in your life

0:52 are going to matter in the long run.

0:53 when you find them, treat them right,

0:55 make time for them, keep them close, and be grateful.

0:59 You know, is sometimes when I when I put together stuff like

1:02 that, I I I'm like hearing you read that back to me,

1:08 like the the thought that comes to mind is like,

1:10 how is this not taught in schools?

1:11 Like, how how are we just how is this not just discover this at 34, right?

1:17 Like, why why do people have to listen to podcasts

1:20 all day to like hear some of this stuff?

1:22 Um I I it just seems so fundamental, you know, but it it is interesting.

1:30 One of the things one of the things that my perspective has shifted,

1:35 you know, I've been doing this for 17 years.

1:38 Too long.

1:39 Yeah.

1:39 A lot.

1:40 Yeah.

1:40 A long time.

1:41 Um, and when I look at at things that I've I've either changed

1:47 my mind about or changed my perspective on through over the course of my career,

1:50 I think one of the big ones is that, you know, early in my career,

1:53 I I I really thought it was all about just like ideas,

1:56 information, knowledge, right?

1:58 It's like finding there's like a few pieces of key

2:02 knowledge that if you can kind of figure it out,

2:03 if you can dig through enough psych studies and find the application,

2:07 like it's just going to be a key that unlocks all these areas of your life.

2:10 And I think if you are a consumer of personal growth advice,

2:16 like that the experience you have often feels that way.

2:21 But I don't think that's true.

2:22 I think actually what is true is that there are just certain concepts, ideas,

2:28 um, principles that are pretty obvious and we all kind of already know them,

2:35 but we we lose it's it's extremely difficult to keep them in front of our face y

2:42 through day-to-day life.

2:43 And so we need we need rituals and reminders consistently.

2:48 And I actually think that for most of human history,

2:51 I think religion was that mechanism of those reminders to like keep people like,

2:56 hey, nobody's like you're responsible for this.

2:59 Hey, treat people well.

3:00 That person matters, you know, like let go of the the small stuff.

3:06 Um, but I think in in our modern our modern world,

3:08 you know, it's people most people are losing that.

3:12 And so you're you're almost seeing this like

3:15 reinvention of those rituals online through like

3:19 what you and I do through podcasts and Instagram and YouTube and all this stuff

3:25 of and and I do it as well, right?

3:26 It's like I've got my shows and and I've

3:28 got the channels I follow and the people I

3:30 follow and it's like they it's it's not that any

3:34 individual piece of information is like changing my life,

3:38 unlocking this whole area of my life.

3:40 It's just like, oh yeah, it's a good reminder.

3:42 That's so true.

3:43 I think because the modern world is filled with novelty,

3:47 anything that we've seen before, we don't usually want to hear again.

3:50 Yeah.

3:50 You think, "Well, I already know that." Even if you don't,

3:53 even if there's 10 things that you basically

3:55 just need to hear over and over again.

3:58 What you need to do, I think,

4:00 is play the game of novelty whilst just redelivering the same core message.

4:05 And that's going to be anti-imetic and wholly unimpressive to people.

4:09 This is the[ __] clean your room thing again.

4:12 This is the tell the truth thing again.

4:14 Oh, neediness is it?

4:15 And you go, okay, well,

4:17 I can lie to you and create this sort of fugazi

4:21 gaslight thing where I say this new thing is the big unlock, right?

4:26 Or I can just try to repackage stuff that is the existing concept.

4:32 So it satisfies your desire for novelty and my own

4:35 desire for novelty whilst reinforcing the principle that is most accurate.

4:39 And that's really I think what a lot of the game is now.

4:43 And you we were talking before we got started.

4:44 I think that very very dense information like consumption

4:50 and overoptimization is kind of dead in the water.

4:53 And the alternative is reminding people stuff that they already know in a manner

5:02 that just you know how the Ebing

5:03 house forgetting curve works like it's space repetition.

5:06 It's why flash cards and stuff work like that.

5:11 Um

5:10 basically you need that but with novelty added

5:13 in so that people are just regularly reminded.

5:17 Oh yeah I I just need to like go for a walk and sleep more.

5:23 Yeah.

5:22 Oh right.

5:22 Yeah.

5:22 I just I probably need to say how I feel to my partner when something upsets me.

5:30 I I've started one way I think about it sometimes is that a lot

5:34 of this advice it's almost like having a fire extinguisher in the room,

5:38 you know, like it's it's you've probably had the experience where, you know,

5:41 maybe you read something five years ago and you're like, "Yeah, it's obvious.

5:46 I I I know that." And then something happens in your life, right?

5:50 It's like you get dumped or like somebody dies or you

5:54 move across the world and you're like suddenly you're like,

5:56 "Oh my god, I need this so badly that I did that."

5:59 Well, one of the most embarrassing things is to realize that the problem

6:02 you're facing was solved by something that you learned long ago.

6:06 Yes.

6:06 But didn't appreciate.

6:07 And Yeah.

6:08 And then and then have to now go and relearn.

6:10 Yeah.

6:10 You're like, "Fuck." or that you're now facing

6:13 a problem that you faced in the past

6:15 and that you not only learn something but a specific

6:18 type of pain that both me and you do.

6:19 You go, "Oh, I wrote about this.

6:22 I[ __] wrote this thing, dude.

6:24 Tell me about it.

6:25 Tell me about it." Yeah.

6:28 Yeah.

6:27 So, I I had uh speaking of like, you know,

6:30 ascending the mountain and struggling to deal with fame,

6:33 you know, when my book took took off,

6:35 um you know, I went into a real identity crisis.

6:38 I think I've talked to you about this before on the show, but you know,

6:41 I had that that first year or two when my book was number one everywhere.

6:45 It was like just all these crazy things happening.

6:49 Um, I felt super disoriented and like very lost

6:52 and kind of went through a little bit of a depression.

6:55 Became like I got everything I ever wanted and it made me depressed.

6:58 Yeah, pretty much.

6:59 And like massive imposttor syndrome for for a period of time and started started

7:05 saying yes to a bunch of things I didn't want to say yes to.

7:07 Right.

7:07 And so then I ended up in this situation where I'm like,

7:10 I feel trapped in my own career.

7:13 I'm like obligated to do all these things

7:15 for these people that I don't really want to be doing.

7:17 Um I'm like stressed all the time.

7:19 I'm anxious.

7:20 My health's going to[ __] And and it it's I'm fat.

7:23 And I'm fat on top of everything else.

7:26 Uh just to add insult to injury.

7:31 __] fat.

7:32 And uh and it's so funny cuz I I remember um when I was doing

7:41 my film um you know it was that we were doing a film on the subtle

7:46 not giving a[ __] and I hadn't really read the book since I wrote it

7:48 and um so I went back I'm like well I should probably read my book again.

7:52 So, I went back and I read, this was like 2018, 2019.

7:55 I went back and it was like all the[ __]

7:57 I just I've been spending the last two years dealing with.

8:00 It was like in my own book and I'm like, I'm I'm[ __] all of this up.

8:04 I'm like, I'm saying yes to things that I don't care about.

8:07 I'm like overloading my life with all these distractions.

8:10 I'm like not standing up for myself.

8:12 I've like lost clarity on what I value.

8:14 Like just like chapter by chapter by chapter, I'm choosing the wrong struggles.

8:18 And I I just I It was rough.

8:21 It was really rough.

8:22 I like I had to really have like a a heart-to-heart with myself of like,

8:28 dude, what get it together, man.

8:30 Yeah, it's like it's like personal growth groundhog day where

8:35 uh one thing that I think is is kind of important.

8:39 I I understand how you can say, hey,

8:41 look, there's a small bucket of principles, overoptimization,

8:44 thinking about your life too much,

8:45 all of these things like they you're majoring in the minors, etc., etc.

8:49 Mhm.

8:51 That is true once you've been through it.

8:54 Yes.

8:54 It is not true before you've been through it.

8:58 Breaking the rules of the game before you've

8:59 learned how to play the game is not breaking

9:02 the rules of the game and being an innovator

9:04 or being some essentialized distiller of cool stuff.

9:08 It's playing a different game.

9:10 And this is why I highly recommend that people become totally obsessed

9:14 with personal development and productivity and David

9:17 Allen's Getting Things Done and James

9:19 Clear's Atomic Habits and Morgan's The Psychology of Money and The Subtle Art

9:22 of Not Giving a[ __] for like probably between three and six years.

9:29 And then once you've done that, you can sort of get your black belt,

9:33 put it on, and go, "Okay, yeah, 95% of that was packaging.

9:40 Here are the bits that really matter,

9:42 and I'm now going to spend the rest of time

9:45 trying to just maintain that momentum and not over complicate stuff."

9:50 And maybe once a year there'll be a novel insight which

9:54 is genuinely principled and fundamental that I just didn't know yet.

9:58 But you can't get to that level without having gone through the first bit.

10:02 And maybe it's just the case that the world of everybody

10:07 went through the same holy[ __] like this is novel,

10:12 but talking about like choosing your struggles

10:15 appropriately or even neediness and stuff like that.

10:17 That was novel when it happened,

10:18 but that area of cognitive real estate, that territory's now been,

10:21 you know, when you play a a video game and the map's all fogged out.

10:25 Yeah.

10:25 And then after you've played it for a while, the areas get opened up.

10:29 It's like, well, that area is opened up now.

10:32 So assuming that you've gone through this process.

10:34 Previously, it was kind of like um uh humans

10:38 were moving at the same level that technology developed.

10:41 Yeah.

10:41 But if you start doing personal development now,

10:43 there's so much technology that you can speedrun all the way up to the top.

10:46 Whereas for us, it's like, wow,

10:48 telling the truth is something this is revolutionary.

10:50 Not that I've just discovered it, but it's just been said.

10:55 Yeah.

10:54 Right.

10:54 This is this is groundbreaking research,

10:57 but because there's so much to go through and maybe it's just the case

11:01 that the era that we're in had

11:04 a formative hockey curve like J-shaped thing where wow,

11:10 there's a[ __] ton of insight that's repackaged ancient wisdom

11:13 for a secular world that's distilled down into good language that's memorable.

11:17 I should I'm learning this as it goes and a new

11:19 book and a new book and a new book.

11:20 Now we're at the stage where much

11:23 of that territory that's important has been captured.

11:27 Yes.

11:26 And now because everybody kind of started the race whether you

11:30 were but 18 or 28 or 48 everybody started it kind

11:34 of at the same time and Peterson comes along and you and James

11:37 D and you go oh wow like that's that's now all been done.

11:42 Everybody has a degree of personal development fatigue,

11:46 but that's not true if you're starting your journey.

11:48 If you're like, "Hey, I'm I'm a fat piece of[ __] and I'm 25 and I've never

11:51 done any of this." It's like lock in for the next 6 years.

11:55 Yes, absolutely.

11:55 And then and then it is very much after

11:58 that is it is just about maintaining the practice.

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