Life Advice That Doesn't Suck from Best Selling Author Mark Manson

Life Advice That Doesn't Suck  aka "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck" flips the self-help script. Instead of telling you to think positive and chase happiness, Mark Manson argues that life is full of problems and always will be. The goal isn't to avoid struggle. It's to pick the struggles worth having. What you choose to care about defines who you are.

Manson builds his case around a simple idea: you have a limited amount of attention, and most of us waste it on things that don't matter. Social approval, comfort, status. He pushes you to get honest about your values, because bad values produce bad problems. Choose better values, and your problems become more meaningful. It's not a feel-good read. It's a reality check.

Transcript

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I generally find when I talk to entrepreneurs and founders and uh people in the business world, I find that they underestimate or don't even consider the emotional component of what they're doing when actually like emotion is extremely practical. Like if you are if your work is fun or you're excited about it or you believe very deeply in it, it it's an accelerant for everything. You're gonna be able to work longer, you're gonna be able, you're gonna be more resilient when problems show up, you're gonna problem solve better, you're gonna recruit talent easier, you know, all all of everything is gonna get 10, 20, 30% easier if you're emotionally aligned with what you're doing. And I just find that so many people don't they just try to bury it. They they they try not to think about it. My name is Mark Manson. I am an author, podcaster, and YouTuber, and I'm on Behind the Brand with Brian Elliott. Everyone, welcome to another episode of the show. Mark, welcome. Thank you. It's good to be here. I usually ask my guests, how did you get this job? Uh on accident, it you know, just kind of like I I sometimes say I force gump my way into it. Um super relatable. Yeah. I say more about that. Yeah, yeah. It's a as most good careers, I think. It it sort of happens. You stumble into it. Um, I in 2007, 2008, I just gotten out of school, worst job market in a hundred years, and I read Tim Ferris's four-hour work week. And my immediate thought was that sounds easy. I'll make it, I'll make an e-commerce website. How how hard can it be? Um, jump ahead two to three years. It turns out that I was a pretty mediocre uh e-commerce entrepreneur. But at the time, the way you got traffic to your e-commerce website was by blogging. And so I started blogs for all my different websites to try to accumulate traffic. And what I discovered is that I was actually pretty good at the blogging part and pretty mediocre at the e-commerce part. So uh I eventually, around 2010, I decided to kind of go all in on the blogging and the writing and the rest of this history. What sort of signals did you get? I mean, you you're sort of inferring that the e-commerce wasn't doing great, the blogging, well, like so. What were the signals? It's like more traffic, more comment, more, more engagement, less sales? Like, how did you know? And I asked that with context because a lot of people who watch and listen to the show, um, I think there's let's put them in two buckets. There's a bucket of folks that are maybe just coming out of school and they're trying to figure out what they should do. Should they pursue what they're good at or you know, what they think is a good idea? Then there's a whole other bucket of people, maybe let's say, you know, mid-career, and they went to law school, they're miserable, and they just want to hit the reset button. Yeah. Uh, and so I'm sort of asking, in a way, like, how do you find that thing that you should be doing, your true calling? I think the first step is experimentation. You know, you you have to try things, and you you don't really know if this is it until you've actually tried it a little bit. Um The analogy or the metaphor that I always use with people is that some when you put more effort into some things, it feels like pushing a rock up a hill. Like the more you push, the harder it gets. Whereas there are other things that it's like pushing a rock down a hill. Like the more you push, the easier it gets. And you want to look for the things that get easier the more you push on them. And so, what I personally experienced is that sales and marketing doesn't come naturally to me. It was a pretty steep learning curve, and I don't think I have a knack for it. So I I'm okay at it, but it was like pushing a rock up a hill. Yeah. It was like for every extra ounce of effort, uh, there was marginal gain. Whereas the writing, it felt like the more I invested in it, the more time I spent on putting together articles, the more time I spent researching, the easier it got, and the better, the more exponential result I got from it. And so I just realized over time that that's probably what I should be putting all my effort into. I like that advice a lot. I think. Yeah, the other thing I would say is I think you've got to try a lot of things on that don't fit. Yes. It's a process of elimination, and that you shouldn't feel bad if something you try it on, you think that's gonna look great at me, and then it's like, oh, the crotch is too tight. Yeah. You know, like this is not it. Yeah, you know, I think it's not only true, is it you know, cross profession or cross-career choice, but it's also I I believe true within a profession or a business. So um, you know, if you are running, I don't know, uh a restaurant or something, right? Like there's gonna be some things that you try that it feels like a rock going down a hill. Yeah. And there's gonna be some things that you try that it's gonna feel like a rock going up a hill. And so you even within the business itself, even within like from product to product or vertical to vertical or marketing strategy to marketing strategy, some things are just gonna have very little resistance and give you exponential results, and some are gonna generate a lot of resistance. And I think the trap that people fall into is that the more resistance they experience, their ego gets involved and they start thinking they're like, oh, I'm not gonna give up. I'm gonna be the one who powers through it. And it's like, it's actually like, no, that's that's actually the wrong move. You wanna find, you wanna find where your natural advantages lie and where where your special talents and and abilities lie. And and the thing that has less resistance is actually going to be the thing that points towards that. Yeah, let me ask a follow-up, which is okay, so you go down this path, let's say you're staying let's stay in restaurants for a second. Your restaurant's going great, then all of a sudden, you know, the the foot traffic isn't what it used to be. Yeah. I mean, sometimes there's little life cycles within businesses that are doing great, and you have to sort of reinvent yourself. Um and, you know, Seth Godin might call it the dip. Like some of us start something and then there's this dip, and then you gotta know. So, how do you know whether to weather that storm, you know, push through and keep making that pasta dish that, well, we used to sell the heck out of that and now it doesn't sell anymore. Why aren't people eating that anymore? Uh, versus like, okay, we need to reset the menu. Right. Or maybe it's the uh we need to reapholster the chairs. Like, how do you know how long to give that great idea? I think the dip is a great point to bring up because I think sometimes what happens is those things flip. I'll give an example for my career. You know, blogging was from 2007 to blogging's kind of dead today, right? Like it's it's there are niche substacks and and people who are still doing it at a modest level, but like the days of massive blogs that generate millions and millions of page views, yeah, they're kind of long gone. And but they used to be what started the whole influencer movement. I mean, absolutely. If you were blogging back in, you know, 2003 or four, I mean, you could amass a following. Yeah. I mean, my my blog from 2012 to 2015 was doing five to ten million page views per month, right? And like that's a really good living. It's yeah, it's not really possible anymore, though. So what happened is probably around 2015-2016, the social media platforms decided to start limiting reach and limiting uh your exposure essentially for free. Um, so you it it started to become more of a pay-for-play model. Yeah. And that just killed blog traffic. And suddenly this thing that had felt like pushing a boulder down a hill for five years suddenly started to feel like pushing a boulder up a hill. Things change. It absolutely. The the the market environment changes. Yeah. In fact, expect it to change. Yes. The landscape literally, to keep this metaphor going, the landscape changes. And so what used to be downhill is now uphill. And generally, if you've been going downhill for a while, it's like it takes it takes a few years to realize now you're going uphill for that resistance to start to kick in. Right. And and so I realized probably four or five years ago, like I need to pivot. This is this is a dead end. And and I need to start thinking of other ways to distribute content or produce content. Yeah. You're right. There's some denial that takes place, some bargaining. Yeah. Well, it's probably this or that. Yeah. But then, you know, you just know I just had a bad year. It's gonna be fine. Right. Yeah. And then it keeps repeating. Right. Then maybe you know it's time to pivot. Or but I think a lot of that comes down to being able to zoom out honestly and have perspective on just the world and the market circumstances. And, you know, I it it eventually became undeniable of like people don't want to leave TikTok. They don't want to leave Instagram. Like nobody wants to click a link anymore, right? And if and it takes so much effort to get them the click that um it doesn't make sense to send them to like a blog post. Yeah, people live in live in the ecosystems where they're comfortable. Yes. Okay, so then where did that take you? So you you made a pivot, you decided that wasn't working. This is 2010. Um, I mean, just for context for people who maybe don't remember that era. I mean, we're you're at iPhone three. Yeah. IPhone number three. Yes. Uh YouTube is about five years old. The internet is barely a decade. I mean, it's a decade plus some change. Uh how what did you what did you do from there? I think so I realized that writing was my advantage. And I think I made another observation around the same time that was pretty crucial, which was that Facebook had just launched its newsfeed. And when I looked at that, I thought really hard about it. And I realized that Facebook basically wanted to become the homepage for everyone in the world, right? It wanted you to get your news there, get your celebrity gossip there, to get your family updates there. Um, any publication you might read or be interested in, Facebook wanted to be the place that you went for that. And I'll be all. So they were juicing, and a lot most mainstream publishing had not recognized this. And a lot of mainstream publications weren't even on Facebook yet. So I looked at that and I realized that Facebook is really juicing the algorithm for like a good piece of viral written content. And if I could just get really good at coming up with a clickable title and a clever image under it, and then also deliver on like a really high value article that people liked a lot, it's game over. And so I started executing on that in 2012, and basically my audience went from maybe 10 or 20,000 to two to three million people within a couple years. On Facebook. Primarily Facebook, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And what was that article? What what was it the was it something close to the subtle art or what was it? So it's funny, I actually had a series, I probably had 10 or 15 viral articles over that period. And subtle art was actually one of the last ones. Um the first one was actually, it was uh I was living abroad at the time, so I wrote an article called 10 Things Most Americans Don't Know About America. And it was kind of writing about American culture from an like an outsider's point of view. And that one went absolutely bananas. I got invited on all sorts of like political talk radio show. I'm like, I don't give a shit about politics. I just wanted to write about, you know, culture. Um were you in South America, Central America? Where were you? I was in Colombia at the time. Okay. Yeah. Uh and but then most of them, you know, I had uh I had a relationships article called Um The Law of Fuck, Yes or No. I had um I had one who was like seven strange questions to find your life purpose. There's a whole series of them, probably about 10 or 12 of them. Yeah, and then the subtle art of not giving a fuck was one of the last ones. I think maybe the second to last one before Facebook turned off the spigot. And um, and that was act, that was the most successful one. Put a timestamp on that. Like what age were you when that first you had that first virality? The first virality happened, I was 27. Okay. And I remember this was back when blogs had comments and you actually read the comments. This is it feels like a different era, but um I remember I got 3,000 comments in a single day. And I remember actually because back then I used to actually read my, like try to read all my comments and respond to people. As one does. And I I remember just like it was one of the most emotionally stressful afternoons of my life, like actually trying to go through all those comments. And and I finally, it took it took a few hours, but I finally realized, like, what are you doing? Like you shouldn't even be looking at these things. Um, but it it was virality back then, it wasn't it hadn't really existed before, or or it existed, but it wasn't so quantifiable, you know. Like it it was used to be much more informal. Um, things would go viral, but it was mostly through word of mouth, and then people would just kind of share a URL through an email or something. Yeah. Um videos were picking up traction on YouTube, you know, uh, things were happening in the video space, yeah, but not the written word. No. Yeah. It it was I think it was the first time though like early 2010s was the first time that like as a cultural, like you could look at some like Facebook would show that the share numbers and the like numbers and everything. So it was the first time that there was like a public awareness of oh, that went viral. Yeah, it popped. Yeah, yeah. And I've heard you talk offline about your experience, but share that with the audience who don't know that story. So what what got you to Columbia? What what resulted in you traveling abroad? So that was also part of the the four-hour work week. And in the four-hour work week, Tim Ferris talks about how you you can set up a small business online and then arbitrage. He called it geo-arbitrage. So it's basically a go find a part of the world that the quality of life is close or similar to the United States, but the cost of living is is a fraction, right? So you literally took his advice. Yeah, I lived out the whole book. Yeah. Um had you ever met Tim or Yeah, I have a couple times. Before that, though? Oh, no, no, no. So you're just a guy who bought his book and actually did it. Applied the principles. One of the few actually went and did it. Yeah. Um But I'm like I I'm just thinking, trying to get in your head a little bit. I mean, this is sort of what I assume authors wish would happen. You you've written your book, sure, and it's had enormous success. And you're hoping that people will literally take a page from it and put it into practice, right? Well, and I know how hard that is. Like I I I I joke about it, but it's I've read plenty of books that I like the advice, and I don't do it. I completely ignore it. And it it so it is, it is hard to implement advice, but I think part of it was I was at a point in my life. I mean, one was traveling the world had always been a dream of mine. And prior to that book, it never seemed feasible or practical. So that book opened my eyes to the fact, like, oh, if you can start a website or a business online, you can you can go wherever you want, you can live wherever you want. So, like that was extremely exciting for me as a young person. And then, like I said, you know, it was 2007, 2008. Like, there are no freaking jobs anywhere. So if I'm gonna be broke, I might as well be broke starting a website. Yeah. So you gave it a go for you know a year or two, and then you get inspired by this book, and then you go abroad for another couple of years. Okay, and then then what happened? So I was actually I lived abroad for six years in total, and it eventually hit a point where it was clear for my career to progress, I needed to come back. Like it was it became very clear that by not being in the United States, I was missing out on a lot of uh networking opportunities, sure, publishing deals, things like this, you know. Um so when I when I I started we started pitching publishers, my agent and I in 2015. And when it was clear that that would that that book that was being pitched pitched later became subtle art, when it was clear that that was gonna be a big book deal, um I remember talking, she's now my wife, but at the time she was my girlfriend, and it was like I should be in the US. Mm-hmm. Uh let's go back to you getting an agent. A lot of people dream about having representation and what was the delta between that viral post on Facebook and you getting an agent? It was a few years, but back then it was a relatively new thing. So today it's pretty it's standard practice. It's almost I mean, I'm gonna be very blunt. Uh people don't like hearing this. They people like the idea that you know that if they have a brilliant book idea or a brilliant manuscript, like that's that's gonna get them a book deal. But in this day and age, it's most publishers, and this is true in music, it's becoming true in Hollywood, like they want to see proof of concept. Oh, yeah. They want to see a social following, they want to see that you know you have a hundred thousand followers on Instagram and they actually read your stuff and they like it and it and it travels, it gets shared. Um they're chicken shit. No, totally. I mean, you can't blame them, right? It's like it's free market testing for them and they can just scoop up like whatever wins, they just go scoop it up. Yeah. And and but I mean, on a on the creative side as well, I also think it's a good thing because it it allows you to market test your ideas. Like we all think we have a brilliant book idea, but the fact is, is nine out of 10 or 99 out of a hundred of our ideas are not very good. Right. And so instead of investing years of your life on an idea that is potentially actually not very good, you can actually go online and just find out instantaneously whether it's a good idea or not. Right. You can also hone your craft as well, which I this is another thing that I don't think a lot of writers realize is that you're unless you're just like a prodigious talent, you're not going to come out of the gate a really great writer. You need to hone and refine your voice and your skills over time. And the best way to do that is with a small, engaged audience, you know, a steady stream of people who read your stuff, offer feedback, offer criticism, point out things that you missed, point out things that you haven't thought of. Uh, and then over the course of two, three, four years, you know, really develop a strong voice and uh in a handful of really, really strong ideas. Yeah, I'm just thinking about uh Hemingway, right? He had to go to Spain, he had to go to war. Yeah. Uh he had to experience everything in the field that he was writing about to He was also a journalist for like 15 years before he wrote a novel. And and you know, he probably had an obnoxious editor telling him constantly like this is shit, delete that, you know. He he did, and he also had F. Scott Fitzgerald giving him feedback. Yeah. Saying, hey buddy, you know, yeah, you might consider this versus that. And uh and then mix that with all the drinking and cavorting he did. That's you know, that's how you get the chaos. That's a that's the magic formula. That's apparently. Of course it ended badly, but of course. Um that's not always that's maybe not a good path. Yeah. But I I think there's a tendency in all creative fields that you you see the the public awareness of of somebody only happens uh uh towards the tail end of the work that goes into the thing. And it's you don't see the the years and years and years of like workshopping ideas and honing talent, honing your voice, honing your craft. Yeah. Um and it's it that used to happen, you know, in writers' workshops and weekend retreats, and um now it happens on Substack and Twitter and Instagram. Yeah, that's what that's what they call them the 15-year overnight success, right? Yeah. Sometimes you get lucky, you know, you create a website called thefacebook.com, yeah, and it goes nuts right out of the gate. Uh that's the anomaly, right? Other people just have to work it out, uh, audition it, like you said. So you get the agent, uh, you start talking about this book. I'm also I'm always curious about the naming convention because you know, we live in this YouTube world, we live in this uh world where we want more clicks and engagement, uh, just so people can discover the work that we're making. Yeah. Even have a chance to have it discovered. Uh what was that exercise like thinking about the titles for that book? The it's funny because I actually wrote probably half of that book with different titles in mind. And then it was after I had written about half of the draft, I wrote the article. The subtle art of not giving a fuck. And that just blew up so hard and so aggressively that to me it was just obvious that that should be the title. Of the book. You know, it was a converse. I had a conversation with my agent at the time, and she was like, this should be the title. Like, let's be honest, this should be the title. Yeah. Um, and so maybe try to fit that in, make that chapter one, and then, you know, edit everything else to kind of flow from it. And that's what I did. But in terms of your question about titles, so this actually ties back into the e-commerce thing, which is when I was studying marketing and sales, trying to get these tiny crappy e-commerce businesses to work. I studied a lot of copywriting. And at the time, I was kind of grossed out by it. I'm like, ugh, these headlines, this is so cheesy, you know. Clickbaity. Yeah, very clickbaity. You know, just the BuzzFeed era. It's like the the weird essence that can solve your, you know, hip problems for good. It just your soul kind of dies into the city. Discover the fountain of youth. Yeah. It's, it's you, you, you just want to crawl into a hole. Yeah, when you feel dirty. When you write some of this stuff. But it was those skills that when I started focusing on virality on Facebook, that they kind of came back into use. Cause it's like, okay, I need real like titles really, really matter on this platform. And so I need to just hit a home run as often as possible. And so I started a copywriting practice, which was, you know, in copywriting, they teach you don't just write one headline, write like 20 or 30 headlines, and then take the five best and then iterate on those and then take the one bet, like the one best, you know, because you're your the first headline is never going to be the best one. Yeah. And I started applying that to title. So every article I wrote, I would come up with like 20, 25 different titles. And that turned out to be a really, really good exercise because it just got me very, very good at writing titles and understanding what gets people's attention, what gets people to stop and think for a second. Uh and so by the time you know the subtle art article came out, I've been playing that game at a pretty high level for three or four years. And um and it it just logically translates into the book world as well. What were some of the alternative titles that you considered that were runner up runner up or maybe top five? Um I remember there was one, it was something like happiness is not enough or stop trying to be happy. Uh one was like uh oh, I remember I had one that my editor really liked, but he was like, nobody's gonna buy that. I had one, it was uh the title was just dot dot dot and then you die. You know, there was some there was some some dark dark humor mixed in there. But a lot of originally a lot of the titles revolved around happiness uh because that that was kind of the hot topic back then. It was like every book coming out was, you know, the the happiness equation or the happiness hypothesis or the the key to happiness. And I wanted to do something that kind of went counter to that. It was like, you know, happiness is not enough, or happiness is overrated, or you stop trying to be happy, something like that. Um, so a lot of those ideas are still in the book. Like you get the chapter two, three, four, five, most of it's about how happiness is overrated, but it's all now framed through a not giving a fuck lens. Yeah. Do you see this more as a franchise then? This no. Um there's definitely been a lot of questioning over the years about that. Uh obviously, my publisher very vocally wanted to push me into, you know, subtle, subtle art not giving a fuck for kids, subtle art of not giving a fuck for pregnant women, subtle art not giving a fuck for teachers, you know. Like, let's just spin this out. Let's do chicken soup for the soul for right non-fuck givers. Uh I looked at that and I'm like, okay, that would be, yes, it would be very lucrative. Um I just couldn't really bring myself, it just wasn't creatively interesting. Yeah, it's a sellout to pop out. It's totally a sellout. Yeah, it's it's you're you're turning it into um, yeah, you're just you're turning it into like a corporation at that point, which is fine. Like, I mean, it's like nothing against chicken suit for the soul or other other book franchises that that have done that, but like I just realized that like that wasn't really gonna make me that happy. Yeah. That's maybe a good segue into this idea that I ask a lot of people about, which you know, this show is called Behind the Brand. Uh we talk a lot about brand, like what it is, why it's important. Um let me ask you what's your definition of a brand is, and then tell me what the Mark Manson brand is. It's a great question. And I'd love to talk about the F-word. Yeah. Because it's this is something that I'm I still struggle with today. Okay. Um can drop bombs here. Um this is it's all good. No, but I mean in terms as it relates to to my brand. Yeah. Um because it can't be polarizing. It is, it is very polarizing in on a lot of different dimensions. But to answer your question, okay, what is a brand? I would say a brand is um how people the associations that people identify you with, both consciously and unconsciously in their mind. Um it's both what they associate with you intellectually, you know, like, oh, Apple makes computers, they have great phones, uh, but also emotionally. Um it's very clean, sleek, professional, you know, sophisticated. Uh and then what is the Mark Manson brand? It's really funny you're asking this because it's we're currently my team and I were currently in in the early stages of a brand pivot. And so we've been asking this question a lot ourselves. Um and I just wrote out I'm not even kidding you, like three days ago, uh, like the core, like the pillars of the Mark Manson brand. So the first one was um relatability. I think it was smart, funny, relatability, and non-judgmental. So it's it's life advice that is intelligent, it's well researched, it's also delivered in a funny, entertaining manner. It's very relatable. It's like a guy in a bar just talking. Um not a professor, I'm not like a billionaire. Uh not a PhD, you don't have your psychology degree. No, no letters after my name. Um and and it's also it's non-judgmental. Like there's a lot of life advice out there that that kind of moralizes um or gets political. Um, and I I I strongly believe that to help the most people, you should kind of zoom out as much as possible and and um be as compassionate as possible. Like understand people come from all different walks of life, and I don't necessarily know what's best for them. Do you uh that resonates with me too? That non-judgmental part though, do you is that come from experience? Like maybe there was a time when you had a lot of judgment, um, you know, religious upbringing or you know, whatever your well, so this ties into the polarization thing. So the first the answer is no. I've always been a very non-judgmental person. And I think that's in my personal life, that's been a very good thing. Um the current media environment, it's gotten very difficult for me because judgment polarizes audiences. It creates very intense engagement and fans on one side, and it creates very intense criticism and engagement on the other side. Right. And so being non-judgmental is actually kind of a suboptimal content strategy in the 2020s. Yeah, you're sort of Switzerland. Exactly. You're neutral, you're neither this nor that. And and who gets excited about Switzerland? Like everybody get, you know, you you get excited about Russia or Israel or or Gaza, like nobody's like, you know, out protesting in the streets over Switzerland um in their neutrality. So that's been a little bit of a a challenge, or it's just raised a lot of questions. The other, the other thing is is is the word fuck. Um it has been such a blessing and such a curse over the years, and I've gone both ways year by year, month by month, day by day, of like being so grateful for it and really owning it, and then other times just wanting to disavow it and just be done with it. Um, it people even today, even after like there's so much fuck content out there, there's so many fuck books, there's so many, like you go, you go on Instagram, there's so many copycats, people saying, you know, here's not how not to give a fuck. You to this day, it just happened last week. We you add fuck to the title or the first line of a piece of content, and it immediately the engagement goes up like 20, 30 percent. Like it just right p the the people who like it love it, and they really, really engage with it. And I'm very fortunate that I was one of the first or the first person in my industry to like really lean into that word. Like I kind of own that word in my industry. And that is it's a it's a cheat code, right? Like it's I should leverage that, and I do. On the other hand, there are costs that come with it. So there's a lot, obviously, a lot of people don't like it and they judge and criticize and send angry emails. Yeah, there's a whole part of America that would probably just say, just tune out, like can't do it. What but there's also some more subtle costs, which I didn't realize until um, you know, maybe a few years ago. For instance, it's I get and I'm this is not complaining. I'm just yeah, this is a function of the decision you made. Yes. This is why branding is so important. It's super important to talk about. Yeah. Yeah. It's insanely important. Things cut both ways. They do. They do. And you have to to have a strong brand, you have to polarize. And and you have to be aware. And I think this is, I guess, if I was to make a complaint, I was not fully aware of the dimensions that I was polarizing on. All the the dimension I was aware of was like when I put fuck in the title of an article, it goes more viral and I get more negative comments. Right. I can live with that because I want the virality, right? What I didn't realize, especially once I had a best-selling book out and you know, I was doing lots of media, there are uh, you know, so corporate speak anything corporate related, like they don't come near me. Right. Right. So I have peers who have books that have sold a tenth of the copies, and they're they are loaded up on the corporate circuit, you know, doing conferences and keynotes, keynotes, and consulting and like making crazy amounts of money. And I just never get those calls. Um another example is uh is media, right? There's some publications that just doesn't matter how popular I am, they just won't talk to me. Yeah. Um, and then there's also there's a certain, I think there's a little bit of uh stereotyping that happens with people who are not familiar with my work when they're first exposed to it, they assume that it's that it's I mean, it is a little bit lowbrow, but I mean they they assume that it's not as thoughtful and researched as it is. I often hear from people who say, When I first saw your book, I thought it was just a bunch of bullshit. Yeah. And then after like six people told me to read it, I read it and wow, it's actually really smart. Like that, it's actually really smart phrase kills me a little bit inside. Yeah. You know, that's uh it's interesting you say that because I sometimes I I hear that from comedians. Yeah. They'll say, like, um, you know, like back in the day, Eddie Murphy, which is like full of profanity. Yeah, hilarious. But like you look at someone like Nate Barghetzi or Bargazzi, uh, I just went to see him at Hollywood Bowl. He's hilarious. Yeah. The guy doesn't swear. Yeah. Uh he's still afraid of his parents. Judgment. Yeah. But that's part of his shtick, right? But it's like, um, no, I get it. Uh it's tougher, tougher to not use the kind of language that would get people juiced up. Yeah. Um, so I can understand that misjudgment. Yeah. Yeah. So it's been. I think I mean, obviously, overall it's net positive, and I'm generally happy to be associated with it. But it's um it's been again, I wasn't aware of some of the costs or drawbacks that would that would emerge later on in my career. Yeah, no, it's it's well said. I think I think a brand is it's gotta be, and I don't think it has to be polarizing, in my opinion. I think it has to be distinct. Okay. Um and a brand is like a shorthand for what you stand for. Yeah. Right. If you if I think about like seeing a James Bond movie, I kind of know what I'm gonna expect. Yep. Um, there's gonna be some uh shaking and not stirred, there's gonna be some uh handguns, nice cars, pretty people, tuxedos, tuxedos, maybe some gambling, yeah, some violence. You kind of know what you're gonna get before you even see, you don't even hear the movie plot. You don't need to see the trailer. Yeah. You've got this image. And so I think when you have a brand versus when you have a product or a commodity, right? Like that's the difference. Yeah. And then I think there's also brands that are um, you know, they'll hang a marquee up, like Marriott hotels, right? Uh that brand is meant to be ubiquitous, like on every street corner, and you've got affordable options and maybe something with a kitchen. And but it's like, you know, when it's not distinct, like I don't think Marriott is distinct, right? You're in danger of the sort by price. Yeah. Right. And it's like, well, if there's a Hilton next door, I'll just go there because it's either, you know, 150 there or 125. 10 bucks cheaper, yeah. And so that's the that's the danger of not being distinct. Right. And so when you once you pick a path, like I'm the subtle art of not giving a fuck, and you say it with confidence, then that is what it is. That's the trail that you're blazing. Yeah. Uh you can always change it, but it's like, you know, a lot of things then become inevitable. Yeah. Yeah. It's been interesting because I think it is when I look at it compared to some of some of my peers or similar brands in my industry. I think what has happened is that I I have I've built a larger, I don't want to call it low quality, but like larger younger, lower price point audience. And I think it probably nets out roughly the same as the alternative. Um you know, the fuck generally appeals to younger people. Um it's but they're not they're not looking for like, you know, a $2,000 consulting seminar or you know, or or to hire you to come in and talk to their executive team. Yeah. Um, but but you're gonna reach a lot of them. Yeah. And I guess it's that um it's that time in their life, right? Where you're trying to figure stuff out. It's anti-establishment, yeah, it's fuck the man, yeah, or you're getting fucked by the man. Yeah. So you so you're like, yeah, I mean, yeah, fuck it all, right? Like you're just on board with all the fucks. Yeah. Yeah. It makes sense. Attracts. Yeah. And but you know, you are maybe seeding a generation uh of of younger people who then come up and if they do consume your product, you know, your the written word or other ideas that you've got, videos, uh then you can keep come, you know, keep them in your community. Yeah. And there's stuff to do with them. It is interesting. I do think it offends less than it did 10 years ago. It like it we've definitely seen that. I mean, we still get complaints here and there, but not nearly to the same degree as we did 10 years ago. Like it it seemed the edge of the word has kind of been blunted a little bit over time. Um, which again kind of brings that polarization in a little bit. Like we're it's not as shocking anymore. So we're we don't see the same kind of reach that we used to, but at the same time, we're not, it's not as distinguishing or distinct as it used to be. Yeah. Can I tell you what I think the Mark Manson brand is? Sure. Because I think one of the other definitions or uh byproducts of when you start a brand is that once you like, hey, I made this for you, or I made this in general, once it leaves your hands and goes into the world, then it belongs to the world. Yeah. And the world gets to make their interpretation of every touch point they have with you. So some people might have a really good experience, some people might not. And then that's what lives in the hearts and minds of the people. And so you might have many hundreds, thousands, millions of interpretations of your brand. The key is to like have it aligned with the walk and the talk, right? Yeah. So I think, you know, I bought your book like everyone else, sure. Um, enjoyed it, uh, totally thought it was something different. Yeah. And I bought it. Yeah. Um, and I think maybe at the time I was mad at the world and or like feeling like the world was unfair and things were bad things were happening to me, and so I bought it like, all right, I'm gonna read this. And then it was something totally different. But um, so I but I think um I think your book is about clarity. It's about like seeing your life and the world for what it really is, and also it's sort of a an an invitation to make it what you want it to be versus having you be let's see, let's let me just pick the right words. So instead of being acted upon, you take action. Yes. Empowerment. Yes, yeah. It's it's interesting you brought uh those things up. So as part of this kind of brand pivot that we're doing, it's really I actually ironic because we were supposed to do this like four months ago, and schedules got mixed like this got delayed forever. So it's it it is quite a coincidence that we're doing this now. Um but we've uh as part of it, we surveyed the team that uh of what they think the Mark Manson brand is, and one of my employees said that as he said it's it's the it's helping people confront reality and see maybe the things that they didn't really want to see before. And I think that's where the humor comes in, is if you can make them laugh a little bit, you can show them something unpleasant about themselves or the world. Yeah, it's it makes the medicine go down a little easier, yeah. Yeah. And um so yeah, it's interesting that you said that. Um so yeah, it's same ballpark that we're in. Um and yeah, I don't I don't know, like the the fuck word, it's I don't know how much to bang that drum. Like I keep feeling like for years now, I've like, I'm like, this has got to get old at some point. You know, like this is at some point, this is gonna feel like you know, a cliche or um, you know, like a trend that ran its course. Yeah, I don't know. I feel like there's like a mini clap track behind it every time you say it. It's like a little, you know, like Yeah. I don't know. It's uh I I never expect it's it again, going back to that decision with my agent. It was su at the time, it just seemed like such a simple one. And I remember actually we had conversations with the publisher because back then they didn't publish profanity in titles or on covers because there are a lot of stores you couldn't get into. And my books was one of actually might have been the first one with profanity that like Walmart carried and Target carried. And well, it wasn't exactly spelled out, right? You had the splash, yeah, you know, so it was but even that, like I mean, I remember apparently the pup the publisher went back and forth with Walmart for like a year before. Like it was on it was number one in the New York Times for like months before Walmart finally relented and said, Yeah, okay, we'll put it in our stores. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, but it it was interesting. I remember having the conversation with the publisher, and they were like, Look, you know, on the one hand, my agent and I were like, This just won this is winning so hard online that we'd be kind of dumb not to use it. And the publisher was like, Yeah, but in brick and mortar stores. They they're not going to want their brands associated with this, right? It's like you know, mom with her little kids at the checkout aisle, like they don't want to see the C the F word, you know, next to the candy or whatever. How dare you? Exactly. And um, so it was like it the publisher really struggled with it. Yeah. And to their credit, they went with it. Um, but it it's funny because back then it just seemed like such a just a plain decision about reach and audience, and and I I've only appreciated the the depth of the repercussions, the brand repercussions, um, really more recently, like just in the last few years. Yeah, I think that's fair. How many copies have you sold to date? Of that book or all books? Uh that one book. That one book, uh, I think 16 million, 17 million. Can't complain. Like I mean that's pretty incredible. Can't complain. Yeah. Pretty incredible. Yeah. What do you think, if you could sort of net out three main core ideas from that book, what do you think really resonated and still continue to resonate? I mean, because it's it's still in Evergreen. It's not out of stock. It's yeah. And it it to be clear too, these these three ideas that I'm gonna share, like they're not my idea. Like these are thousands of years old. I just repackaged them really well. Um, you and Ryan Holiday have stole from the great philosophers 2,000 years ago. That's fair. Robert Green stole from this whole genre is just stealing. Yeah. I mean, it's I I always tell people, uh I say that like you like, you know what self-help was called before self-help? It's called church. Yeah. It's called philosophy. Well, I mean, and it it's there's so many, right? Yeah, you talk Tony Robbins in the 80s. Um, you know Picasso talked about this for Yeah. I mean it's been around forever. But so okay, the the main three ideas. The first one is that um you in life you never escape struggle. Like our mind plays this game with with us that if I can just have X, then I'll be happy. If I can just get a raise, then I'll be happy. If I can just buy a new house, then I'll be happy. And what we don't realize, we only we tend to only visualize the benefits of whatever we want. We don't envision the costs. And so we don't understand that, okay, yes, getting that new house will make you it'll make you happy for a while. But then there are all sorts of drawbacks and problems of owning a bigger or nicer house that you're not thinking about right now. And then those are gonna drive you crazy. And so then your brain's gonna invent another thing that says, oh, if I can just have that, then I'll be happy. Yeah. Never satiated. Yeah. So that's the first idea. Is that basically like we don't improving your life is not getting rid of problems, it is upgrading and having better problems. And the problems never end. So that's idea number one. Idea number two is that uh you are essentially you are responsible for everything in your life because you are always choosing how to see and how to react to everything in your life. Right. And there's a section called the fault response or the responsibility fault fallacy, which is, you know, most a lot of people have a knee-jerk reaction when they hear that and they say, like, well, you know, uh my dad got cancer, and that's not how how is that my responsibility? Or I was a victim of a senseless crime. Right. Yeah. Not fair. Not not fair. It's not my responsibility, you know, it's like it's not your fault, but it's still your responsibility. Like you still have to choose how to react to the cancer diagnosis. You have to choose how you're going to see it, think about it, yeah, respond to it. This is a stoic idea. Yep, absolutely. Yeah. Um Marcus Aurelius. And so yeah, you were always in every moment you were choosing what to pay attention to and how to react to it. Uminder. Yeah. Uh and then the third one is that uh most of our meaning, most of the meaning and value in our lives comes through suffering and sacrifice. So when you try to, not only is avoiding suffering and sacrifice kind of counter like ultimately impossible, but it's it's counterproductive in that you are robbing yourself of the chance to develop a deep sense of satisfaction and meaning. Like we tend to when you each of us, when we look back over our lives, the the things that most define us tend to be like the hardest things that we've overcome. Right. And so if you try to avoid overcoming hard things, then you never develop that deep sense of identity and satisfaction. And so we should confront hard things. Um and not only that, but confront the hard things we want. I've got a phrase that I repeat a lot in the book called choose your struggle. Right. It's like you're gonna have to struggle, so you might as well choose what you're struggling. That kind of combines all three of those concepts. Yeah. You've read Victor Frankel. Yep. So I mean themes from it's very much history and you know, that that that component's very existential, existentialist. You know, the responsibility piece is very stoic, and then the the struggling and and um happiness is very Buddhist. Um, and those are kind of those are like my philosophical roots is stoicism, Buddhism, and existentialism. Yeah, it's ironic, right? How let's talk about that third piece, how we run away from pain or try to avoid it, right? Uh and yet it's so necessary, even if you're in the weight room, you've got to literally tear muscle to build muscle. Yeah. It doesn't happen any other way. And and the brain, the mind functions in such a way that like you will find me, you have to find meaning somewhere, right? So if you remove all the struggle and suffering from your life, then the smallest inconvenience will strike you as extremely meaningful. So when you see people who, you know, just lose their shit in the grocery store over a coupon or are like screaming at their kids over something completely inane, they're doing that not because, you know, they have these massive problems, challenges in their life that they're confronting. It's because they lack massive challenges in their life. Because they have no major challenge in their life, they see a rejected coupon at the grocery store as a massive challenge. And so they you lose pers like when you try to remove, when you surround yourself with comfort, you lose perspective. You lose touch with reality, essentially. Right. So, how should we be looking at adversity when it punches us right in the face? The Mike Tyson quote, I love it. You know, everyone has a plan to get punched in the mouth. Yeah. Like, so what should we do when we get punched? Um say thank you, may have another. Yeah, I mean, not that maybe, not necessarily. I I I think we have to be sober about it, right? And understand that there's no avoiding it. And ultimately the best you can do is look for the punch that you want to have. You know, like uh the difference between a good life and a bad life is a bad life is punching you in the face in a way you didn't choose, and a good life is punching you in the face in the way you did. Yeah, you tried something that was difficult. Maybe you failed, but you also learned. And and you can always look back and say and be proud of that attempt. Yeah. And you were able to get back up and try again. Yes. And again, and again. And that's what builds self-esteem. That's what builds self-worth, that's what builds a sense of identity. Um You've heard some of these stories, I'm sure. People who've read the book and have changed their lives. What what's one of the most surprising things that's come as a result? Like you didn't expect to happen. Oh man. I mean, there's been so many stories that I've heard. Um one of the I I I'll just share a couple of like the more powerful ones that were were pretty incredible. Um you know, when Syria was in the middle of its civil war, um I still don't know how or why that the book caught on there. Um and I started hearing from a lot of Syrian civilians caught in the middle of the war. Um, and just telling me that the book was helping them get by and deal with it. Um heard from a lot of women in from I'll just say parts of the world where women aren't treated very well. Um and a lot of them have said that it's it's inspired them to try to get away or forge a better path for themselves to turn down maybe what their family or their community is pushing them into. Um I remember I was in Australia, I had a guy, it was really funny. I did uh oh wasn't funny, but I mean, I did an event, uh speaking event in like Brisbane or Melbourne or something, and um this old kind of man's man came up afterwards, he was probably in his 60s, you know, just looked like this old rugged, like a truck driver or something. And he just kind of stood there awkwardly, didn't say anything. And finally his wife came over and she was like, he wants to say something to you. And uh he like, I could tell he could barely get the words out. And he said he was like, Two years ago, I got a cancer diagnosis, said, I've never read a book in my life. And the whole time I was on chemo, I just read your book over and over again, and he just started like blubbering. And I was like, holy shit. I remember just giving him this like big burly man hug. Yeah. So there's like there's some incredible stuff that comes out of it. It's um the sort of thing you like as an author, you can't even imagine where where it ends up or whose hands it ends up in. Yeah. I think that's curious too. Like I've noticed you just never know who's paying attention. Yeah. And that's you ever think about this idea of the MVA, like minimum viable audience? Like, how many people really need to like read your book or watch your videos or listen to your podcast for you to keep doing it? Like, what is that minimum viable audience? What is it for you? It's hard because like I my baseline has gotten so scrambled and screwed up from building large audiences for so many years. You know, it's like I've reached the point that if I publish something and it fewer than a hundred thousand people read or watch it, I get upset, which is absurd. I'm a whole hundred percent aware of how absurd that is. Um entitled. Yeah, absolutely. It's it's you know, like it's if we post something and only 90k engage with it, I'm like screaming in my Slack channel at my team is a failure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um but it's silly because it's you know, I I recognize that like that in and of itself is you know, me from 15 years ago would have killed for that opportunity. And um to have 90,000 people read or watch a thing I made. Yeah. And you could more than almost double fill up Dodger Stadium with that many people. Yeah, it's when you put it in context, like it's pretty wild, right? It is, it is wild. I've had, you know, multiple millions of people watch one of my videos and just thinking about that is mind-blowing. Yeah. It's let's shift gears a little bit uh and use that the metrics a little bit. You're you're playing a whole new game now. Like you you're pivoting, you're rebranding, or at least you're leveling up, you're doing something's happening. Sure. Retooling, uh, you're getting into the game, you're on YouTube big time. Yep. Talk to me about that. What's the strategy? Two two sides of it. One is I got extremely burnt out a couple years ago and took about six months off, really just kind of evaluating what do I want out of my life, my career. Yeah, what am I doing? What am I doing here? What am I doing? And I really realized that what I missed, I think doing so many big projects in traditional media. I mean, while they were great and I'm very proud of them, I didn't like the effect it had on me mentally or emotionally. It was a lot of pressure. Like, I mean, it's like, as you know, when a publisher or studio shows up with a big contract and a big check, yeah, like they want to hit. Yeah, they don't want to screw around. Right. It's like give us a hit. And that sort of pressure, for me, it just wasn't fun. Like it, or it it just put a lot of pressure and anxiety on me. And it and it didn't like I found myself really missing those days of creating content on the internet. Hey, let's try five things, throw it at the wall. Yeah, two of them bomb, two of them do great, awesome. We'll just keep doing the two that did great. Like I missed that process a lot. Yeah. So I decided that I I really wanted to come back to online content. And and by this point, too, the whole market had shifted, right? We were talking earlier about shifting market landscapes and seeing that the the boulder that you're pushing down the hill is now up a hill, and you've got to reorient yourself and find find the new downhill. Um and to me, it's just plainly obvious that it was video and podcasting were like the two big growth opportunities. Yeah. Um so, in context of other people who are thinking about doing their content play, whatever genre they're in, you know, whether that's the you've got a flower shop or you're running an agency, or you've you're a painter. Yeah. So what have you learned so far about creating content? Because your videos are popping off, you're getting traction. I'm watching you, cheering you on. I mean, you're getting milestones. Yeah. Good things are happening. Sure. Of course, a lot of that's due to the fact that you've already invested, you've got all this equity already out there in the market. I'm I'm I have a massive tailwind. Yeah. Yeah. That said, you still have to show up and do the work. Sure. So, what have you learned? I've learned that I think video is there's probably the most opportunity in video. It's also the hardest. Um what's hard about it? To do it at a very high level, you you need some degree of a team. There's a lot of technical knowledge, uh, a lot of equipment. It's expensive to get started. Uh, and it's it's also just time and labor intensive, right? It's editing, it takes all forever. Um, so it's video, I feel like is is the high effort, high reward avenue. Obviously, a lot of this is dependent on your market and what kind of content you want to make. But just in generally speaking, video right now is high effort, high reward. Yeah, but you're doing direct-to-camera stuff. So it's not like you have I mean you're probably it's probably scripted, I would assume. Yeah, I'm not building sets and yeah, you know. But it is direct-to-camera. So it is in our world, it's a low lift. Yeah, yeah. Like for sure. Yeah. Um, yeah, I mean, the hardest stuff we do is just go outside with an iPhone and maybe talk to a couple people or something. Um so that's but that's been that's been very rewarding for me personally. Like I've enjoyed that learning curve. I kind of missed it. Yeah, I I missed kind of I miss struggling with something, like watching myself get better at it. I also feel like you're all in on it. I am. So maybe that's the other lesson is like you can't sort of be half-baked on this. You've got to either well, if you if you go half-baked, you'll get half-baked results. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, it it's any creative field is highly, highly competitive. And so you can't it's you can't part-time job it. Like it's it's you you really do have to go all in. Who are you competing with, you think? I mean, ultimately with myself, but it's I like to look at others as like, as you said, the word you said, milestones, right? So it's, you know, passing passing somebody in my industry and subscribers or views or whatever. Like it's kind of like it's a little pat on the back moment. Yeah. Um, but that it's not the reason. Right. I mean, those should be taken with the grain of salt. Yeah. Right. Like it's fun. It's like Jay Shetty has 16 or 17 million followers. Jay Shetty will not ever be on this podcast because I'm not a fan. Yeah. I won't mind saying that in public. Yeah, me neither. Um, but he has 16 million people who have raised their hand and said, I like you. So he's got that. Yeah. You know, good, good on him. Yeah. Um, but you're carving out your own space. Sure. So I guess you're asking, like, how am I defining success? Or yeah, I want you to maybe ins impart some advice because I know a lot of people are are really getting into that content game. Yeah. Because they see how valuable it is to build their brand. And I think when you again, when you show up and you're distinct, um, you stand for something, yeah, uh, you need to help create that brand, or else you you either you know run the risk of being the um generic brand, which no one cares about anyway. Right. All they care about is cost. So that's a commodity item that's forgotten. You show up in some forgotten Isle of Costco, and you know, you're not important or relevant. Yeah. Versus like, yes, I do stand for something. I'm shaken nut stirred, I'm the tuxedo guy, I'm I'm the hero of the story. Yeah. Um, this is who I am. You can rely on me for this. Um I want to ask like what else have you learned? What advice can you impart as you're on this journey? So it's it's anybody who wants to get into the content game, it's I think everybody struggles with this at some point of not getting captured by the views and metrics. Yeah. You fall into the vanity metric. Yeah, not not, you know, making sure you you stick by your values and uh also keep it fun. Like keep, you know, make sure you're making stuff that you're passionate about and care about. I I always I've always seen it as a Venn diagram, you know, like there's one circle is the things I love, and then the other circle is the things the world loves or the audience loves. Yeah. And you find that overlap and just try to live there. And if I'm ever gonna get out of that overlap, just make sure I get out on the side of what I love, not on what the audience loves. Like if you ever fall into the trap of just making things the audience loves and you don't, you're shooting yourself in the foot. Like it's it's a short-term, you're sacrificing longevity for a short-term win. Well, you built your own prison. Exactly. Exactly. So I try to stay in that overlap. And I, in terms of the brand question, you know, uh understanding your side of that Venn diagram is really understanding your brand. It's like, like you said, what are my values? What do I stand for? What's the message I'm trying to get out into the world? And I personally think like every brand probably has a ceiling somewhere, just based on how many people are going to be interested in those ideas or or values. Um and my goal is to, you know, establish the values and the ideas, and then just squeeze all the juice out of it. Try to hit the ceiling. And if I'm at the ceiling, great, good job. So who's it for? What you're doing, who's it for? Uh it's for myself primarily, and it's for everybody else secondarily. Um be more specific though. Like who's the audience for what you're making? Oh, um it's generally it's anybody who is going through a tough time in their life, who's struggling with something um who's in pain, who wants to give fewer fucks. Yeah. You know, stressed out, anxious. Yeah. Um you talk about a lot of emotional wellness things. You talk about therapy, you talk about relationships. Yep. You're very candid about you know, your uh prior dating life and then you know your married life. And I think there's a lot of people in this world that need that. There's millions. Yeah, they're all trying to navigate it. Yeah. I mean, and all those things are interrelated. So it's I'm fortunate in that I've built a brand that casts a pretty wide net, right? Like you can we joked about the chicken soup thing, but like there is a how to not give a fuck about silly things in a relationship, you know, how to not give a fuck about silly things at work, how to not give a fuck about family drama. Like it's you can apply it almost anywhere. Yeah. And so where's that gonna take you? What's what's the next chapter look like? So I I really want to get very good at video. Like that's that's the primary focus at the moment. I think there's the most opportunity is in video. I'm personally enjoying video the most at the moment. Are you scripting it all out? Are you reading from a teleprompter? Or is it all right here? No, it's definitely a teleprompter. Yeah. And are you writing the script so? Yes. Yeah, I've I've experimented with hiring people to help with that. And it's just that's it's my superpower, so I can't you can't really outsource that. Yeah. It's kind of the one thing I I'm not really able to outsource. Yeah. How about the kryptonite piece of that, the giving up control? Is that hard to do? Sometimes. Yeah, sometimes. It's what areas are you having difficulty? Like in the cuts, the edits, like, oh that should stay in. Yeah. Not that. That's not not not that. Sometimes the edits, um, what I've noticed with with my team, and I and I I I imagine this generalizes towards any sort of creator business or content business, is that there's a certain like trust is extremely important. So I I have people who have worked for me for many, many years, and I know, I trust that, like, okay, if he's gonna go edit this piece, this newsletter, or whatever, he's gonna do a good job, and I probably don't have to look at it. Yeah, but it takes years to get to that point. Right. Um, when somebody comes on and they're brand new, I I think of it as in terms of like alignment, like aligning taste and and vision. And yeah, it takes many, many months of feedback, back and forth, discussion to to find somebody who can get on the same page with you. Yeah. I I feel the same way. It's like someone doesn't edit, it's like, I look like an idiot. Yeah, like why would you put that shot there? Exactly. Like that's my I have a double chin in that one, and it's like a lazy eye. Yeah. That's the problem with video too, though, is it's just like we're the so critical of ourselves. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I can't watch it. I mean, it's painful sometimes. It's just like, uh, yeah, I really look like Do I laugh that way? Oh my god. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. All right, as we're sort of uh rounding third coming home, uh, final maybe parting words of advice for um entrepreneurs, people trying to start new ventures, trying to do their thing. And this is maybe from you know your side of the house, the the wheelhouse where you feel comfortable, which is maybe navigating the emotional side of things. I I would say just that. I I generally find when I talk to entrepreneurs and founders and uh people in the business world, I find that they underestimate or don't even consider the emotional component of what they're doing when actually like emotion is extremely practical. Like if you are if your work is fun or you're excited about it or you believe very deeply in it, it it's an accelerant for everything. You're gonna be able to work longer, you're gonna be able, you're gonna be more resilient when problems show up, you're gonna problem solve better, you're gonna recruit talent easier, you know, all all of everything is gonna get 10, 20, 30% easier if you're emotionally aligned with what you're doing. And I just find that so many people don't they just try to bury it. They they they try not to think about it. I mean, we were just sitting back, you know, chopping it up, reminiscing about the good old days and all that, you know, tracking my roots, where I came from and where I'm going. But like I say, man, I say, man. Always said it. It's not about the destination. It's all about the journey. It's all about the journey, but the journey.