Hello, lovely neighborhood. I hope you're having a wonderful start
to the year. As you know, we're taking a couple of weeks break from the show to recover from the madness of twenty twenty, but also to implement one of the biggest lessons we had from last year, which is to every now and then take a moment to step back, take a bird's eye view, and just have a look at what's working, what isn't working, what you want more of, what you want less of in the podcast, but of course in life as well, and in that process, if
you haven't already seen on the Facebook group, I've made a little serve YEA to make sure that I'm including as much yaghborhood feedback as I can as well while we plan out what's to come for this year on the show.
There couldn't be.
Anything more important than your feedback and suggestions to make sure that I'm putting exactly the ya in your ears every week that you actually want and need. So I'll pop the link in the show notes, and in the meantime, I'm releasing a couple of our crowd favorites from the last year in case you met any of them so that you still have some yea to catch up on. Ignore some of the time specific references, but otherwise most of them are pretty evergreen. So I hope you enjoy as much as I did.
There is no conventional path, or like the conventional path is actually the unconventional path. Right, You will stop worrying so much what people think about you when you realize how seldom they do.
Welcome to the Seize the Yay Podcast.
Busy and happy are not the same thing. We too rarely question what makes the heart seeing. We work, then we rest, but rarely we play and often don't realize there's more than one way. So this is a platform to hear and explore the stories of.
Those who found lives They adore the good, bad and ugly.
The best and worst day will bear all the facets of seizing your yea. I'm Sarah Davidson or a spoonful of Sarah, a lawyer turned funentrepreneur who swapped the suits and heels to co found matcha Maiden and matcha Milk Bar. Sez the Ya is a series of conversations on finding a life you love and exploring self doubt, challenge, joy, and fulfillment.
Along the way.
I'm one hundred percent sure some of you will be eye rolling at me when I say that this is one of my favorite chats to date, but I think you might agree once you actually have a listen. I'm gonna have to cut myself short in this intro because there is so much I could say about why Mark Manson is one of my favorite people in the world, but the episode itself makes it clearer than I could hear.
Best known as the author of groundbreaking New York Times bestseller The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, I once mistook Mark's refreshingly anti self help approach to life to be the opposite of seizing the a. In fact, it's not that he thinks we should give no fucks at all, but choose our fucks more carefully, and it's no surprise that he's witty. No bullshit delivery has taken
the world by storm. Like all our guests, however, mars Waytya has been anything but predictable, going from feeling misplaced in his Texan hometown, getting a complete ego breakdown at music school, starting his working life as a pickup artist, or before becoming an author, was even on the table, and yet he's now sold over ten million books, changed millions of lives, and has been trusted with writing the autobiography and first ever full account of the life of
Will Smith. Mark is a personality of so many contrasts and facets, and is open about every single one of them, including way more than I probably needed to know about his bodily functions. I dare you to listen without laughing, so you can definitely tell we've both lost our marbles more than a few times. In between the hilarity, though, there are so many deep, insightful reflections on life that I hope are as groundbreaking to you as they were to me. Mark Manson, Welcome to CZA.
It's good to be here.
I am so so delighted to have you here after our chat a couple of weeks ago. It's so nice to see you again with a microphone. I'm blown away.
Of course. Of course I always come prepare.
So professional, yes, so I usually start with a little icebreaker for every episode, but I've added another one recently, which is just to ask how you are, because I think in this crazy, crazy, weird hurricane that twenty twenty has turned out to be connecting with other humans and just touching base on.
How Yeah it is important.
So how are you going over in New York?
So you know, this isn't the answer you're supposed to give, but like, I'm fucking great. This is really I would like the first month was really rough, and there was a lot of it. It was like emotionally stressful and physically stressful, and I missed my friends and everything. But I'd say by by month two, I settled into this group and I've just been so healthy and so productive, and my wife and I are getting along great. I mean, I still miss my friends, but I talked to him
on the phone and on Zoom and everything. But like things have been pretty awesome. So like to the point where my wife like, so New York is technically opening up this week, and my wife and I were like, I don't want to go out? Do you want to go?
No?
I don't want to Like why would we go out? This is crazy? Like let's just just keep it going.
Oh my gosh, I feel that so much.
We've been exactly the same, Like that initial transition into a new routine with sort of like you get a little claustrophobic and then worried about uncertainty and like what's going to happen, And then you just fall into acceptance and realize you can just be the introvert that you.
Kind of always were.
Yeah, just be super antisocial and you don't need an excuse anymore. I'm like, this is amazing. It's just what I always wanted to do. Anyway.
It's and it's so easy to turn things down, to say no to things, like it's great. It's just all of that kind of like obnoxious. You know, I don't know, like the happy hours that you don't really want to go to but so and so invited you, and you've turned down the last two things. You know, it's like you don't have to worry about that stuff anymore. Like it's like I'm not seeing anybody, so not even a question. Yeah.
I also ready you wrote that your time and agency has completely gone. I was like, yeah, that's exactly what happened. Everything's just moved into this kind of like weird vortex of just chill at home and I'm like, I love not knowing what day it is. Yeah, it's like school holidays.
Yeah, it's I mean weekends, Like every day is kind of a weekend, but not like I'll work through one weekend depending on what I'm doing, and then I'll take like a random Thursday off and like just like completely guilt free. Whatever.
It took this for us to take advantage of the life structure that we have already, Like we already don't have a nine to five, and we already were able to go guilt free and allow ourselves to rejig our work over weekends and take you know, swat weekends for weekdays. But we didn't do it before because it was like this weird social construct of like guilt that you shouldn't do that. But I'm like, I left corporate to do that, and then I haven't allowed myself to do that.
It's so weird. Yeah, I've always felt like in the past, when I've tried to do that, it's been hard because a lot of my friends and family are in the corporate world. A lot of the people I work with are in the corporate do the Monday and Friday nine to five, you know, my agent and my publishers and all that. So it's like to kind of be optimal, you kind of have to at.
Least align with them a little bit.
Yeah, like be with them like around like ninety percent of the time. But now it's just like who cares whatever.
Yeah, I mean if you weren't giving fucks before, you're definitely not giving them now, which is amazing.
Yeah. Oh no, it's I mean it's weird in that way, right, and that it's I think on an individual level, it's been very clarifying for people in terms of like what you actually value in your life and what is actually a good use of time. And that's great, like that's a great feeling. But then on a social level, it's absolutely disastrous on a lot of different dimensions at the
same time. So it's this weird dichotomy going on where it's like, well, this is strangely, I don't know, like like a growth moment as an individual, but you know, socially, just shit has said in the fan.
Shit is definitely hitting the fan.
And that leads really nicely to the actual first icebreaker for every every episode, which is just asking people what the most down to a thing is about them and cutting straight through the glossy surface that I think the digital world allows us to create around our identity, or not even to create, but just it's it's hard to really cut through and show the real relatable stuff. But I think you were so good at it, even the fact that fuck came out in like the first three words of what you said.
I mean, do you really want the most down there things about me?
Absolutely?
Like the grittier and the weirder the better. That's what this show is all about.
So I'm a very gassy person. Yes, incredibly. My feet don't sweat. So what I always tell my wife, I always tell my wife. You guys, think the good with the bad, you know, like my feet never smell. That's amazing, you know, depending on what I yeah, depending on what I ate. You know, it's some nights better than others.
I mean, you balance right out, Like that's the.
Definition of balance, right, You're just total compromise walking.
I love that.
And you know what, I think so many people's answer to that question, like real answer is that.
They're really gassy.
You are the first person that just went there, and I love that you You've You've probably opened the floodgates now to every other person.
I think I think you should just change the icebreaker from now on to how gassy are you? Yeah, scale.
On a scale of one to Mark Manson, like where do you sit? What a great start.
So the very first section is your Way ta, which is I sort of try and show the fact that every pathway is nonlinear. You can end up anywhere that you aspire to end up. And you know, the quote that I always use for this section is you don't have to see the whole staircase to take the first step.
And I use people's stories in the Rollercoaster of how many different directions they went in and how many different places they've been to show that, Yeah, at any one time, you can change your life, and you can come from all sorts of different backgrounds, all the way back to childhood. And I love going through the decisions that you made
at each stage. So take us back to the very beginning, Young Mark in Austin, Texas, which I've heard you say you didn't really get along with, which actually doesn't surprise me in any way.
Yeah, I mean, you know, Austin is like the the hot spot these days, like it's people love it here in the US. Everybody's moving there. But what I always have to explain to people, I mean, Austin's a very cool place. Now, it's a lot of fun but when I was a kid back in the eighties, it was tax you know, like it wasn't really like it was the cool part of Austin was like, you know, four square blocks downtown and like everything outside of that, you're
in Bubba Country. And uh, it's so. I grew up in Bubba Country, you know, like in the suburbs way out outside of Austin, and I went to schools that taught us how to ride horses and square dance, and I didn't learn you know, I was taught that like the Civil War wasn't about slavery, like all this shit like that I went to I had. I went to church three times a week, so it was like Bible
Belt Southern United States. And yeah, that's not me, it's it's probably I won't take people very long to figure out that the guy with fuck on the cover of his book isn't really into the Bible Belt.
I mean that in itself is already such an indicator that you can outgrow your beginnings in any.
Direction that you want. I mean, amazing.
Yeah, So you know, I'm always care of you know what, I'm careful talking about my childhood because it was so blessed and privileged in so many ways, you know, like my my father was very successful, had a nice house, lived in a nice neighborhood. Everything was very safe, so you know, in terms of like on the lower in terms of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, like the lower levels in my childhood were always taken care of. You know, there wasn't violence or abuse or anything like that. It
was the higher levels that were a problem. You know. I just I didn't relate. I was the angsty fourteen year old with greasy hair and a Marilyn Manson T shirt who like listened to Metallica, you know, and read, you know, it was really into reading philosophy, and so it just I just didn't fit in, you know. And it's as soon as I got to that age, you know, got to adolescence where you start the brain starts to develop into those higher Maso's higher needs in his hierarchy,
it was a lot of social isolation and unhappiness. So very happy childhood, very angsty and angry adolescents. And I decided at a very young age that these people are all full of shit. I don't believe a single thing that I've been taught about the world, about life about anything. You know, it kind of helped that the Internet came around, you know, around around this time too, and so I just decided, you know, I'm going to start at square one.
I'm going to figure things out myself. So went to the library, checked out books on Buddhism and Hinduism and philosophy and spirituality and meditation and all these things, and just started kind of exploring knowledge in general on my own.
Oh my gosh, that is so fascinating. And you know, I think there are so many people actually who from very very early on, like before really even makes sense, felt at odds with their early early environment. And I think so sometimes we think that you're always going to
be a product of your environment, but absolutely not. I think from very early on, you know, when you start to question and you can feel like you don't belong where you are, And I love that you went straight to like, how can I find out more what bigger
world is out there for me? You don't have to be constrained by where you start off, and that's in childhood, but in any other stage that you go along, you can any time decide that you don't fit and you'll find the next best place for you, So I love that you then, once the Internet was discovered, sort of became a little bit of an online gamer and became
a little bit rebellious. I'm just not surprising that you had a bit of a rebellious phase with you know, psychedelics and like a bit of a colorful childhood there.
How did you then work your.
Way into a degree in international business and what led you to think that that might be the next best pathway for you.
That's a good question. I kind of wonder what the hell I was doing myself, not.
To sa psychedelics obviously.
Well, I originally went to school for music, you know. The thing that really yeah, the thing that really got me through adolescents was music, playing listening music. I got pretty good at guitar, so that like won me some points with my peers. It was kind of the center of my social identity as an adolescent. It's what I depended. It's how I got my self esteem, It's how I got approval from other kids, It's how it was how
I was known by everybody at my schools. I was the guitar guy, and so it just kind of was logical that I should go to music school. Funny thing. You get the music school and suddenly you're in a situation where every single person in the room is as good as you, if not better than you. So you go from a situation where it's like, I'm by far the best guitarist in my high school, and it's what everybody is like, Oh my god, Mark is so good,
he's so he's so talented, he's so cool. And then I go to this other environment where it's like everybody's a badass and I actually, as a freshman, I kind of sucked compared to them.
Low level badass, Yeah, entry level for sure.
Yeah. So music school was actually I would describe it as a healthy experience of ego destruction and that everything that I kind of depended on for my my personal validation and self esteem just got obliterated within like six months. And it was a very difficult thing to grapple with.
But I think coming out of that and realizing like you're okay, you know, you're good at other things, and people like you for other reasons, and you you know you can do other things, it's a I think that's a very important experience that we all need to have when we're young or at some point in our lives, but preferably when we're young, to know that we can, to know that we could kind of survive that, you know.
So then I transferred out of music school to I guess what you call it a normal university, and and I didn't know what the hell I wanted to do. And I started out business and I got about halfway through a business degree. My dad is a business owner, an entrepreneur, He owns his own company. So I would go to school for business at UNI, and then I would work the summers at my dad's company. I would work on the factory floor and just hang out with
him and ask him questions about the business. And after two years of that, I realized that I was learning like five times as much talking to my dad during the summer than I was from the actual business classes I was taking and paying all this money for.
I can't imagine you having that much patience for that. I can imagine you just being like, this system doesn't work.
I mean, I loved college because I mean I just partied all the time, you know. So I found class easy because it was self directed, so it was like I could study on my own time. And then, you know, I had. My dad is like kind of a badass of what he does, so I would I would take like an accounting class or or whatever. And I'm like in there, I'm like, yeah, this is Dad told me about this like a year ago, you know, like why I don't need to study this? So I go drink
every night and it was great. It was the time of my life.
Do you know something that I love so much about you? I loved it about your book, and it has been amazing to discover that you are exactly like that in person, That you are incredibly self aware in a way that belies your use of profanities, in the way that you
describe things. There's been like there's so much self reflection on social constructs and our identity and the deconstruction of ego and all these things that are so advanced in self reflection that you don't expect would come from someone who described themself once as a sexless neophyte.
Like you're such.
A person of contrast. But I think that's why the cutthrough of where you ended up has been so strong, because you don't come at it from this weird, like you know, philosophical academic basis. You come from this like really grounded sense of real life experience, like yeah, I was magneicalm Maloudie, super smart, but also like drinking my way through college.
Amazing. I love that about you.
Yeah, it's funny because I think the contrast, the contrast you're describing about my personality. It's something that I notice. So my books do, I mean, they do well in the United States. They do really well in the United States, but they did like and everywhere, but Australia and Canada
in particular. Like, it's funny when I talk to people and audiences and journalists and stuff from Australia and Canada, it's like there's an appreciation for that, Whereas when I talk to people and journalists and things like that in the United States and in Britain, there's kind of like
a so what's going on? Who? Like they're suspicion. They're like, you're not for real, right, Like you're just pulling one over on us, Like you can't actually be like this, Like you're either really smart and pretending to be a cool guy, or you're actually a cool guy who's pretending to be smart, Like you can't be both at the same time. It's like I go to Australia and I just feel like it just feels like a party, Like it just feels like.
We're your people, right, Like we get that. That's all of us in college.
I love of you guys. Yeah, totally, yeah, you get it. Anyway, It's a tangent.
I mean, I love tangents.
This whole show is a tangent basically, which is why it's my favorite thing. There's like a loose structure and then it's like, oh, you're bladder and Bell tell me more. But I mean, I think another thing that's so interesting about you, and probably why people are slightly suspicious, is because we're so used to this conventional idea of career pathways and self discovery and yours just doesn't fit into
those conventions. But most people do, and that's why it's so relatable, and you're really bringing to the forefront of our attention the idea that you can become an author without going to writing school and thinking that you're going to be a writer and having books in your library when you're five. Like, I love that you have proven that you don't have to decide to kind of late after a whole career as a pickup artist.
What Oh god, I didn't realize you're gonna bring that up.
Of course, that's like, oh god, big section for what is it?
Entropy was your game? And a yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, like that's coming out.
Oh god. No. Well, so here's the funny thing. So I decided in UNI or I might as well just take the classes. I like, like, here's the funny thing. You actually just mentioned it about there is no conventional path, or like the conventional path is actually the unconventional path, right,
it's most people actually don't follow the conventional path. One thing that music school taught me, and it's definitely true with writing, and I think it's true with business as well, is that when I got to music school, it was so clear, like you could kind of do the math and figure out that like, okay, out of say one hundred kids in my class in music school, there's really only room in the music industry for maybe like a
dozen of us. Like it's the type of industry that either you make it or you don't, and if you make it, you get all the gigs, and if you don't, you get none of them. And what I realized, like the reason I left is because it was just so clear within the first year that it's like, Okay, those ten guys and girls are going to make it and the rest of us are going to fight for the scraps. And I realize I'm like, Okay, those ten guys and girls, they don't actually have to be here. They're so good
that they could go be professionals right now. They're just here to get the piece of paper. So I kind of I think most things are like that. It's like, if you're if you're really good at business, or have an aptitude for it, or have a passion for it, you don't need business school. Like the business school. It's just it's a formality, it's a it's a it's a
credential to show people who are skeptical of you. And that's kind of what I realized too with Like with my dad, I'm like, oh, I don't actually need my business classes if I'm ever going to start a business, like I just need to find really smart people and ask them smart questions, you know. And it's definitely true with writing. Most people who go to school for writing don't become authors. It's a very unpleasant secret of writing schools and writing programs it's just that none of them
become authors. It's and all the authors they never planned on writing like it just well a lot of them do, but like a lot of it's not like a thing that they studied necessarily.
That's such a good point.
I mean, it's a I kind of describe my law degree as a really really expensive, long winded way of biding my time to kind of get the piece of paper, have an amazing backup plan, like I always have a wonderful plan B. And the first three years where I did work in corporate was that there's something to be said for the fact that you don't necessarily need it. I definitely didn't for what I do now, But I couldn't have started what I do now when I graduated UNI.
I was just too young. I had no idea what I wanted to do. And again, you needed to go through a whole career before you got to where you are now. And it's not that like you can't have skipped that to get to where you are.
Yeah, you know what I mean.
Like, even though you didn't need that to get to where you are now, technically you could have started writing earlier, but the time that that allowed you like, there's a reason why a lot of us do degrees we don't end up using. It's not that we you know, they were never a waste. It's just that sometimes you need to mature and like get out in the world and figure out who you are before you know what the thing is that you're going to be successful in.
Absolutely, Absolutely, it's a constantly evolving process of trying something out, seeing how it feels, and then deviating. And what's amazing too, is not only do you have to do that to kind of get to where you're really happy and satisfied, but even once you've found that spot where you're happy and satisfied, the spot moves, you know. So it's like the things that I loved about my job five years ago, I don't necessarily love them as much today. There's other
things that I love today, you know. And so there's like a constant flexibility that you kind of need to develop within yourself.
Oh my gosh, that's the best SoundBite I ever could have gotten from you. I'm like, Okay, we can finish now. That's amazing. All right, good night bye.
The last chapter of my book is actually the big quote on it is yay is a journey, not a destination.
And that's so true.
Everything in our life is geared towards this idea that there's this static point of like, yes, I made it, but actually the point it's like constantly evolving your comfort zone. You step out of it, it catches up to you, step
out of it catches up to you. So I think if we see our way to ya is evolving in chapters rather than like just this one static journey, you understand the process better, you embrace it more, and then you do stay more open minded to like, this happiness right now might not be where I am in five years totally, which leads amazingly to your trendition from international business magnetum Lauder graduate to discovering the Game, which if no one has heard of this book, like there's a
whole thing around the game, read about it. It will explain to you why Mark entered what is actually a full community. And then transitioning in twenty ten from out of the community, from pick up artistry to civilian life and.
Then onto onto authorship.
Are you regretting that you commit a lot of your thoughts at certain times in your life to writing, because I've found a lot of great material.
Oh well, you definitely did your research. You know, the pick up artist thing. It's so funny to talk about that today because it doesn't really exist anymore. Like, well, I'll explain why, but I guess first to give people a little bit of background on like what it was. So basically pick up ours community was back in the early two thousands when social media first started, and forums
and Reddit and all this stuff was just coming online. Realize, like there are certain communities that were maybe a little bit taboo, like things that were too taboo to talk about that in person or the former group in person, that for some reason online it became comfortable, Like you know, thoughts that you had that maybe you didn't want to like say out loud to people in a room, you could go online anonymously and post somewhere and find out
that wait, wait, you know, there's tons of other people who feel this way. And I think one of those was men who were very insecure around their sexuality, around their dating lives, around their ability to attract women, to be attractive to women. They it's it's something that men we don't It never feels appropriate to actually talk about that to our guy friends because our guy friends would like make fun of us and tell.
Us or like you look like and your gassiness is just it's you know, it's a deal breaker, really exactly.
Maybe if you're less gassy mind.
Maybe you should say it gestion specialist. Maybe that's where things will really change for you for the better.
Yeah. So this community emerged of all these guys who are like, yeah, like girls don't like me, I don't know how to get a date, I'm single, and I'm miserable and blah blah blah. And it was kind of the first time ever that men felt comfortable to come together in groups and have these conversations, which I think is a great thing. I still think it's a great thing. The problem is is that, you know, as anybody who's used the Internet knows, there are a lot of shitty
people out there. And pretty soon a large segment of the community became dominated by people by men who were very manipulative, had a lot of like sleazy tactics and tricks things to say the women, like trick them into like coming on a date with them or whatever. So there was a huge book in two thousand and five called The Game, which kind of described this whole community and a lot of these tactics and tricks and blah
blah blah. I read that as a as a student at UNI, you know, in between my cag parties and.
Important, right, like really important.
That was blown away. And it was funny because the advice in the book itself was terrible, like it's just the cheesiest, sleaziest stuff. Like within a week, I'm like,
this is awful. I'm never gonna say this again. But I found I got online, and I found that there was a whole you know, this whole community of men and they're sharing it and there's a lot of there's a very wide variety of perspectives in that community of a lot of guys, you know, wanted to have more integrity and be honest about what they were trying to do, and a lot of men were like very sleazy and whatever.
So jump ahead, like a couple of years. I get out of school, and the economies in the toilets two thousand and seven, biggest recession and like ever worst job market ever, and I have no idea what I'm gonna do, And so I started doing like freelance web design and marketing work and stuff like that and just to make
a few bucks. And I read Tim Ferriss for our work Week and he was talking about like, you know, oh, you just set up a site, you automate it, and you go live in Argentina and have a great time. I'm like, like, shit, it's that easy. Let me do that, you know. And so yeah, it's fine. I tried to start setting up these businesses and of course, you know, i'd work like you know for a month straight and uh and make like twenty dollars or something, and I'm like, okay, this is I'm going.
To make it to Argentina. Damn.
Yeah exactly exactly. So like this went on for like a year of just me struggling, building sites, trying different stuff out, trying affiliate marketing, trying like e commerce, try and drop shipping, like all this different stuff. And it's like I'm making you know, one hundred bucks here, twenty dollars, their pennies here, rolling in it. Basically yeah right, I'm
just killing it dozens of dollars. And I was living on a friend's couch and I had started a personal blog like a year ago, and I had just been writing about my personal life just like person like personal blogs were super popular at that time, and you know, people would just kind of journal online, and I was writing about my personal life, which primarily consisted of going the bars and clubs and going on dates, and it
just started to kind of organically attract readers. So it started out was just my guy friends in Boston, and then maybe three or four months later, some guys started showing up on it that I had never met before, and I'm like, oh, that's weird, you know. And then a year goes by and now I'm getting like one hundred people reading in a day, and it's starting to
get shared on pickup artist forums and stuff. You know, it's like I had a crazy party or I hooked up with this girl and had this great night, and it's like suddenly it's getting shared on these forums and stuff. And so I was like, you know what, like got to do something, you know. So I started trying to monetize it, and I never really thought of it as a career. I was just like, Oh, let me do this dating thing so I can make enough money so I can go to Argentina's still the work, that's still
the goal. I don't actually want to like work on this thing, like you know, and next thing I know, I'm I'm getting guys at like offering the pay me to like go out with them. You know, They're like, hey, come out with me and talk to girls and introduce them to me, and I'll like give you like five hundred bucks you hit them, Yeah, exactly. And so I was completely broken. I'm like that sounds awesome, Like you know, a broke, single twenty four year old, that's like literally
the best proposition. Like here's five hundred dollars go hit on girls.
I mean, like we said the dream, it evolves right like that was the dream then that was a contextual dream era appropriate.
Absolutely absolutely, So I'm like this, Wow, this is amazing. So I start doing this thing and start learning how to kind of market myself or whatever. And this goes on, you know, and so I'm scraping by I can finally like pay some rent. I'd say it. Like a year or two later, I started I started to realize something, which is, you know, guys would come to me and they'd ask all these questions, you know, they'd say like what do I say on a first date? Like or
how to like if a woman doesn't text me? Back what do I do? And they're like very surface level questions, And at first I would just give very surface level answers like oh, say this, do that whatever. But then I started to realize that, like, actually, most of these these men were like coming to me and like reading my blog and emailing me the real issues they have, emotional problems, Like it's not the big problem of your dating life. Isn't that you don't know where to take
a girl on a first date. Like the big problem is that you're like so insecure that you think this is like a big deal. This is like a deal breaker or something. You know, if you don't pick the right ice cream.
Shop, like you're the common genoma or I'm sorry to say, yeah.
Yeah, it's like women are fine. There's like three point five billion of them, so if you can't find the right.
One, like yeah, like it's you, it's probably you.
So I started getting into psychology, and this kind of you know, this kind of dovetailed with a lot of like the reading I had done for fun when I was like, I read a lot of psychology and philosophy and stuff like that when I was an adolescent, and so I really got into it. I really got curious, both for you know, my clients and readers, but also
for myself. Like I started discovering all sorts of crap about my like shit, I had mommy issues, and I was objectifying women and like, and so I'm discovering all this stuff and I'm like, man, I got to write an article about that. And so and then I would write an article and it would take off and get more readers and they'd ask me more questions, and then I'd go research and discover more stuff and have another epiphany, and then you know, it was just kind of the
cycle that happened. And then I guess, like the last big pivot, so I kind of I ended up. I realized that the pickup artist thing was. I was like, man, this is sinking ship. I could tell very early on, I'd say, like two thousand and nine, twenty ten. I realized this thing is going in two directions because there's basically, there are men who are into this because they recognize that they're responsible, that it's them who have the problem,
and it's them who need to fix their behavior. And then there was a smaller subset of men who refuse to take that responsibility, and they prefer to blame women, to blame feminism, to blame politics, to blame you know, economics, whatever, you know, And they started to become very political and very sexist, and I could see that divergence happening of like most of this is getting healthier, but there's a significant minority that this is going towards a very dark place.
And I think that's kind of what's happened today is today you have there's now a lot of very healthy men's dating advice out there, but then you also have these like in cell communities and men go their own way communities and red pill communities where it's incredibly misogynistic and anti social and like just dark, miserable shit. So I was like, I got to get out of this. And originally I rebranded my site and my business to
a just a men's lifestyle and personal development site. It was called post Masculine, and I kind of was very open. I'm like, look, it's I'm no longer just talking about relationships and dating. I'm talking about career, emotional issues, family issues,
self esteem issues, et cetera. Especially because there's not a lot there was not a lot of content like that for men at the time, and then something completely unexpected happened, which was that tons of women started reading the site, and by twenty twelve, I discovered that it was like the thirty percent of my readers were women.
Wow.
And they started emailing me. They're like, I love this article. Can you write one for women? And I was like, well, actually, you know you can. Just the advice is the same, just change the pronoun basically. And then I realized that I said that about enough articles that I'm like, wait a second, Like the hell am I doing writing a men's site. I should just be writing this for everybody.
And so that was the kind of the final pivot to my current career today, which is just personal development, blogger, author, web brand, whatever you want to call it.
Oh my god, you are the most self deprecating person in the.
Entire world, just like, you know, like a blogger, like not like a ten million books sold New York Times bestselling author, Like no, I'm just like a little internet man. Like it's fine, but isn't that Like it just blows up my mind. This is my favorite thing about this show is reminding everyone exactly what you just said that at any point right up until the final pivot. You had no idea what the next pivot was going to be,
which is the people we all know you for. Yeah, and people would kind of encounter you at this chapter of your life and think, ah, you know, he went to journalism school his whole life. He knew he was going to be an author, and him moves with all the right people, and he like had direction and certainty. But like, you had no idea up until the very blog post that you know that had the title of your first book. Yeah, that then made you realize this
is a book. I'm an author. Like, I don't even think you would have realized you were an author until sort of after that it happened.
Yeah. I didn't consciously decide that I wanted to be an author, like I wanted my career to be as an author. I decided that, I think when I was twenty seven or twenty eight. And it's funny because I mean, you're right, Like I get emails all the time from kids and UNI students and stuff. You know, they're like, oh, I'm twenty I'm only twenty years old, or I'm twenty years old and I haven't taken any writing classes, but I really want to be an author, like you know,
like I don't know what I want to do? Is it too late? And I'm like, are you kidding me? Like I was almost thirty and I'm like still like hmm, is this what I want to do? Like I'm not sure, you know, And it's It wasn't until I was I was twenty seven. I wrote I self published a dating advice book in twenty eleven, and the process of writing that, in the reception of that was so positive and enjoyable for me that I was like, Wow, I can actually do like I could actually be a published author, Like
I could actually be a best selling author. And that was when I was twenty seven.
Oh my gosh.
And then Fernanda married you, which is a miracle given everything I've had so far. But I love that, you know, you very much closed one chapter sort of in this evolution and then opened this whole new chapter to becoming. Rather than the focus being on relation is like a relational focused, it became just a lifestyle and you found I kind of see a lot of these stories where it takes someone so many evolutions to just find their linchpin,
like their things, Yeah, that's their signature. But then once you find it, everything becomes about that, and in reflection,
everything was actually about that, and I love that. Then sort of as you stumbled upon this theme and wrote a blog post that then became the book that sort of propelled you onto the scene from I don't know if I want to be an author to Oh my God, I've had like one hundred and seventy nine weeks on the top of the New York Times bestseller list, Like whatever it's You've become this counterpoint to bullshit, disruptor to the self help industry that's completely shaken up everything, but
without planning it, Like I just love that things can unravel in ways that you never expected in writing the book and sort of having a bit of evidence that this is really where the gap was in this cut through realist really open, kind of shocking, like using swear words. You know, I'm sure you in all you're reading you saw that there's a very soft attitude generally to self help, like very embracing and nurturing, and you're just like realist
cut through, You're not special, blah blah blah. Like it's obviously been received so well because people need that realist approach to be able to have revelations and sort of move forward, what did you think would be the best case scenario? And then when it actually ended up exploding, when did you go, oh my god, I'm successful, Like when did that hit?
Yeah, this is the thing.
Well, it's interesting because I think I would say it was around twenty thirteen or twenty fourteen that I really stumbled upon. I guess this kind of idea of like anti self help, or I like to think it was like negative self help, you know, so it's, you know, stop trying to feel good all the time, stop thinking positive all the time, Like life fucking sucks. You know, bad things happen to good people. You're going to survive, you know. It's it's all about the meaning that you
make from the moment. And I started kind of writing that style, that cutting style around twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, and the blog exploded. The blog was up to I think to this day, the biggest blog traffic year I've ever had was twenty fourteen, and it was almost two and a half million people a month on average. It was mighty like it was it was like a monster, just monster amounts of traffic. So I kind of I
knew it was going to do well. Like I knew if I could put a book out with that message and package it well and explain it well and put good stories into it, I knew it would do well. And my goal was I just I want to be a New York Times bestselling author. I'd like to do like a book tour, you know. I guess like a stretch goal was sell a million books at some point
in my career. You know, it's like if you maybe when I'm like got six books under my belt, if you add up all those numbers, it'll total over a million books. Like that was kind of that was kind of what I was shooting for, and in subtle art just smashed every single one of those dreams within like four months, which is crazy because it's it's on the one hand, it's amazing. On the other hand, your brain is kind of like, no, it wasn't supposed to go
this way, like this is not we weren't ready. I'm not ready exactly, Like this is supposed to be like a long gradual trajectory. You weren't supposed to go straight to the summit. And so it actually took about a year for me to just kind of like mentally adjust to what was happening. And it was very disorienting. And it's a weird thing to talk about, because you know, nobody wants to hear the guy who you know, sold ten million books talk about how difficult disorienting it was.
But it was a fascinating lesson for me because it showed me that, like, you know, we all know that large unexpected negative events can have can cause a lot of psychological stress. We don't really realize that large unexpected positive events can have the same effect on us. We don't really talk about that, like you're not really supposed
to talk about that. It's been interesting because as I've gotten to know a number of like very successful people over the last few years, I've found that like a lot of them have had a similar kind of experience that where they it's just completely disorienting and they actually become like a little bit lost and depressed for a little while because they're like, wait, this wasn't supposed to actually happen, right, Like what am I supposed to hope
for dream for it? You know, Like it's like the dog you've caught the car, he just kind of sits there, like now what right, which.
Is like exactly why I think this, Like my personal chase for success as a thing really evolved towards this more sees the YA philosophy, like chasing the fulfillment and the joy, because there is a bit of an existential crisis around success if you're too wrapped up in that being what your goal is and that being your like the totality of what your identity is wrapped around in, because then when you get it or you far exceed it, it does cause this strange like I'll never be able
to hit that again, like what is my purpose?
What are my goals?
And it is a really disorientating concept that leads us all, I think, down quite a new ual and disorientating pathways when either we get it or we don't get it, or we have it too much or too little, Like it's a very subtle balance, which is why I've really tried to like obviously still have that as a marker, but yeah, aim for different metrics, like the metrics that are less fluctuating, because then I'm more balanced and less like of a head fuck all.
The time totally well, And the irony is that like everything you just like everything, you just said is described in this in Subtle Art like it's I needed my own advice. Basically, it's the solution of my problem was my own advice. But you know, one of the things I discovered during that period too is and I think
a lot of it. I think a lot of the reason it kind of messed with me was because coming from the like blogging and internet marketing and everything, like, you get very attached to kind of this incremental growth, right, and it's probably similar with podcasting. You know, it's like this year or twenty nineteen was x percentage better than twenty eight and twenty eighteen was X percentage better in twenty seventeen, and twenty twenty is going to be ex
percentage better in twenty nineteen. Like you kind of get you get hooked on that, like you know, slow but steady growth that happens, and it's a lot of fun to watch, it's a lot of fun to experience. It's a lot of fun to challenge yourself to always like get that next leg up, that next step on the staircase, so to speak. And you know, when Subtle Art just went vertical, basically I realized, like there's no there's no step above this one, Like it's only down from here.
You know, you packed way too early. You just paid.
Exactly like I was thirty two, and I was thirty two, and I realized, I'm like, this is literally the most successful thing I'm ever going to do, like from an external metric point of view, like this is the biggest thing I'm ever going to do in my career, almost guaranteed.
And it really messed with me. It like really really mess with me because it's I think I didn't realize how attached I was to that incremental like being better than I was last year, you know, and I realized, I'm like, Okay, I need to find a different way to measure this. I need to find a different way to evaluate my career and evaluate like what I'm doing
with my career. And so yeah, it took it. That was like a probably a six month process to kind of work through all that mentally and emotionally.
And it is interesting that your book is exactly the book that you probably did need to go back to to just remind yourself that you already knew all the things you.
Needed to know to have that shift. They just took on a new.
Meaning because I mean, I don't want to reveal too much about the book because I want people to go and read it if they haven't, so I've love concentrating more on the story. But just to touch briefly, it's such when I first saw the title, I didn't read it for a long time because I thought it was anti Yay and it was anti like joy and the self help books that I kind of resonate with in
that fluffy, warm kind of way. But it's actually not that at all, Like, even though they're a chapters like You're not special, and you know self help books tell you to believe in yourself, I'm going to tell you not to like it. Sounds counterintuitive, but it's actually what I realized over the course of reading it. Because it was like irrepressible, like this orange cover like in my face in every airport. I just couldn not read it.
It was actually not about giving no fucks. It was just about choosing where you put them, which is like the most important lesson anyone could learn is no one's meant to not care. But we cared too much in too many directions and in too many of the wrong directions. But if you bring it all back to just simple
cut through no bullshit. That's where things start to fall into place, and I just, yeah, I didn't expect to love the book so much, and I understand why it became such a big thing, and that why you have become such a big thing, because you do you discuss things like the existential crisis of success that people don't talk about. Yeah, it's not normalizing stuff that no one wants to say out loud because it doesn't sound positive, but actually it really is.
Well it's I've kind of built my career on those conversations. Like one of the things I honestly asked myself anytime I am going to do another book or a blog post or whatever, I asked myself, I say, like, what what needs to be said and nobody's saying it. I want to be the one who says that. Yeah, And that's kind of like my guiding principle and a lot of this stuff I do. I did it with the
pickup artist stuff. You know, It's like the thing that needed to be said in the pickup artist community was guys, you're emotionally fucked up and you're denial about it. And by the way, like we need to have a real like ethical discussion about what's going on here, you know. And I decided in twenty ten, I'm like, all right,
well I'm out of I'm leaving this industry regardless. So I wrote my dating book is kind of like this is what needs to be said, and it became I mean, it's still the best selling men's dating book, and you know, and then I did that in self help as well, like, okay, what needs to be said in the self help industry, it's not being said. It was like, well, pain's fucking normal. Actually, Like it's probably not because your mom didn't hug you, or your dad, you know, didn't call you when you
left home. It's life is just fucking hard, all right.
Yeah.
Sometimes sometimes you deciding that this pain is is a big deal is or deciding that the pain is a problem is actually the problem.
It's it's And I think that's so wonderful because where a lot of the conventional self help theories fall down is when shit hits the fan, they just don't have an answer, they just don't address it. And I think that realist approach is actually acknowledging the shit bits is how you get to the good bit, Like the ability to tie that process, tie pain into joy is what
stands out so much. But I also love that your sort of you know you said before like I peaked with the first book blah blah blah, and nothing ever could after that could possibly come in another amazing development that you never could could have thought what was happening. You've not only written Everything is Fucked just before the world actually became fucked and needed every single lesson in that book. Your autobiography is coming out with Will Smith?
What explain.
Will contacted me?
Will's wanted Wait wait wait wait, wait wait wait, I don't like to interrupt, but like Will contacted.
You, Okay, not Will himself.
Know, but no, no, no no, but it came from his side. It came from his side.
Oh my god, I mean I wish people could see. You're like literally cheering in your bedroom.
I'm so excited.
Like it wasn't like you know, this kid from Austin who like you know, chased Will Smith's team for like five years because you wanted him to be the guard on the project.
It was he came to me.
Yeah, no, I never I never expected to do a project like this, and uh it was funny actually because my agent contacted me. There were a number of different like a lot of different opportunities came up after subtle art became like I got offers for TV shows and reality shows and you know, a lot of stuff. We turned down a lot of stuff. And I told my agent,
I'm like, look like I'm not. I don't need to like squeeze every dollar out of this thing, like I I want to, like I want to I want to be able to sleep at night, and I want to be writing and like enjoy my life, like twenty thirty years from the house. So like, I don't. I'm young. I don't need to like squeeze every penny.
Yeah, my twelve pennies. There's more than twelve pennies. Now, I've built up a few mole in my collection.
Yeah, yeah, it's more than a couple dozen dollars. So we were shooting down a lot of stuff. And then one day my agent called me and she's like, hypothetically speaking, which an agent talk is. This is not hypothetical at all, but I just want to see what your action is. She said, hypothetically speaking, how would you feel about working with a celebrity on their book? And I said, probably not, but it would really it would depend who the person is, and it would depend why they want to do the book.
I said, it would have to be like an a lister, like somebody really big and no, I'm serious, like.
No, I totally, I'm totally appreciate.
It, you know, like no offense to like Kevin Bacon or whatever. But he's a great guy. He's a great guy. He's a great actor. But it's like, yeah, dude, like there are a million ghost writers out there you can hire for you know, ten K or whatever.
So Kevin Bacon, if you're listening, I'm really sorry. I didn't know who was.
Nothing personal. It's just the first kind of you.
Know, like a minus grade, you know, b grade, semi kind of on the CUSP celebrity.
And I came to bright like if like Gary Sinisee reached out, I'd be like, I'd be like, oh, you're the villain from that one? What was that movie? And then I would I'd be like, oh, I guess I shouldn't take the project.
I'm just taking notes so that if Gary asks me, I'll say, on behalf of Mark Madson.
Just cause you don't want to.
This is how you respond yeah, you're that guy from that one flick.
That Yeah.
So anyway, Yeah, so I told my agent, I'm like, look like, it have to be somebody big. It have to be somebody really big, and they would have to want to do it for the right reasons, like I celebrity. In the publishing world, celebrities actually have a little bit of a bad reputation because they cost publishers tons and tons of money to do the book, and most of them don't actually want to work on it. They don't want to think about it, they don't want to share anything,
you know, they could potentially be damaging or controversial. It's basically a trophy that they want, you know, Like they're like, give me my own book so I can put it on my shelf and tell people I have a book.
You just call it how it is.
And by the way, give me millions of dollars and you're never going to make a profit.
So it's like it's a great proposition for you. Really, I mean, how can how else can I give you the selling points?
Yet publishers line up by the fucking dozens does there? So go figure. But it's you know, ninety percent of celebrity books you know, it's it's their nightmare to get done, and the celebrities don't really cooperate anything, you know, so they have it's actually these books have kind of a
bad reputation in the industry. So I was my agent warned me of all this stuff, and and so I met with a bunch of Will's people, a couple of people on his team, his manager, went through this whole kind of bizarre interview process where they asked me, like they totally asked me all the questions you're not supposed to ask in a job, like who did you vote for at the last presidential election? How do you feel about Muslims? Like what's your relationship, you know with black people?
Like things like that, which I totally respect. Like it's it's the type of thing that would never happen in the corporate world because you get sued out of your mind. But I mean, if you're Will Smith and you're you're a gatekeeper for Will Smith and you're looking to hire a guy to like deal with intimate details of his personal life, like you got to make sure the values line up and that it's it's gonna be a good fit. So so it was super interesting going through all that,
and then finally they're like, okay, cool. So the next step is for you to meet Will and they're like, well, we'll keep you posted. And it was so bizarre. I don't know if they did this on per Like I don't know them just kind of stringing me along, like testing me to see if I was gonna be a prima donna and like freak out and be like, I'm a very important author. Time is valuable, like i'd be, so this is what would happen. I'd be hanging out.
So I I had a meeting with their people in la and like I think October of twenty seventeen, Like cool, So we're gonna we're gonna get you some time with Will. We're gonna like fly you out and you're gonna spend time with Will and see how you guys get along. I'm like, okay, cool, we'll be in touch. Like so, about a month later, I get an email out of the blue. They're like, so, Will would like to see you. Are you available? You know it'd be like a Thursday night.
I get this email They're like, are you available on Saturday to go to London? And I'm like okay, sure, what is Yeah? Fuck it, Like, I'll just I'll clear my weekend, I'll cancel everything. I'm going to London. I'm gonna hang out with Will Smith. Sweet, you know. And then twenty four hours later, I get an email, Like Friday night, I get an email and they're like, sorry, it's off. We'll keep you posted.
So this is they read the game.
Yeah right, they're totally getting me hooked. Yeah, you're totally right. You're right.
You should have seen this coming, aiming me.
Every step of the way. So this happens, you know, and then like another month goes by, and then I get this email and they're like, you know, it's a Tuesday night and they're like, Will's gonna be in Miami. Can you leave tomorrow? And I'm like I look at my calendar. I'm like no, I have like three important things to do this later this week. I have like meetings and friends in town and staying with me and
like all this stuff. I'm like, no, I can't, Like, can't you guys give me like a week notice or something. I didn't say any of that. I'm like, you know, sorry, not available. So anyway, this goes on. This happens like three or four times. And then finally and I actually got to the point where I'm like, you know what, this is probably never going to happen, but whatever, it's fun to think about.
That's fun.
Ma, You're not special. I mean, just rad your own book, please.
And so February of the next year, get the same kind of email. It's like a Monday morning, you know, They're like, are you available to go to Georgia tomorrow? And I'm like, yeah, I actually don't have a whole lot going on this week. I can move, I can move stuff whatever. Sure enough, ticket comes through, end up
on a plane land. Next thing I know, I'm like on set on an Angle film, like hanging out watching them shoot action scenes like Will Smith's like ten feet away from I'm like, what the fuck is going on here? Like this is insane? What wait, hold on a second, this is actually fucking happening.
Worth the wait, yeah, oh yeah.
And then and then once we actually got in a room together. I mean, what I've since discovered is that Will is just like literally the busiest human on the planeff. His schedule is absurd, Like he does more in a day than like most people do in a week. And but yeah. Once we finally got in a room together for a couple of hours, It's yeah, we hit it off.
He told me flat out, you know. I told him, I said, look, the only way it really works for me to do this book, like, the only way I can be excited, you know, I shouldn't do this book
and it's your life. Whoever writes it should be excited, right, And I told him, I said, the only way I'm going to be excited to do this is this needs to be like there needs to be some sort of cause or motivation beyond I'm Will Smith, and I want to have an autobiography, you know, if you just want somebody to document your life, Like there are a lot of really good writers who can do that. And he said, He's like, no, Actually, I went through a lot of
trouble in my marriage. My father just passed away. He had a little bit of a midlife crisis. He's like, I've I've had like a very big transformation over the last five years. Like my worldview is completely changed, and I screwed a lot of things up in my life. And people don't know that about me. People don't know
who I really am. Like I've had to keep my image so perfect for so many years because I was in the spotlight that I people don't actually know what I've gone through, what I've been through, and so I want this book to be able to share that with people for the first time. And so I was like, fuck, dude, I'm in if that's why you want this, Like I'm in, and he's I mean, Will's great, Like I'm nothing but amazing things to say about him, and he is. I
just finished the draft last week. We actually postponed this interview because I was thank you because I was.
Like, oh my god, I think may.
Freaking out, like try to finish this draft. But yeah, it's it's uh. I think people are going to be blown away by how candid the book is and how how many life lessons there are from it. You know. One of the first things he told me when we sat down is he said, when I was nine years old, I watched my father beat my mother so hard that she vomited blood. And I decided that night that I needed to be in charge of the family so that this never happened again. He was nine years old, and
then he like went and fucking did it. And I'm like, Okay, I'm in, I'm in, I'm in. I will write that story.
Oh my god.
Though, but seriously, Mark, like to like, who would have thought this pooch from Texas, who didn't even know that he wanted to be a writer, would be trusted with the first ever account of Will Smith's most intimate revelations about his life, Like I cannot actually process it's and I'm not even intimately involved, like the the jump is just.
It took me like a year process, Like, I dude, I lost my virginity watching No, this is true story. I lost my virginity watching Men in Black. True story. I invited my girlfriend over to watch Men in Black and then we like totally lost my virginity. I told Will that he thought it was hilarious, but.
I love that you were, Like, here's Will Smith as a taster, Like, get excited.
This is the Warmer Upper.
It's Will Smith being like a bowler, and I can't believe as well, even.
More amazing to me full circle.
That he's actually Hitch. You are writing the book of Hitch.
What is this? Like, No, it's it's it's just a mind fuck in like eight different ways. And it's it's weird because you know, I mean we everybody in our generation. We grew up watching him, Like everybody watched Will's Smith, Like watch Will Smith movies, watch Fresh Prince of bel Air.
Did you fan girl, please tell me you fangirled?
I did? I mean I was they like him, and his people told me later that I was pretty good, like I can be pretty stoic, like they said, I didn't really show it. I was like the whole first day, I was like freaking out.
I mean, if anyone's going to make your feet sweat, it would be Will Smith.
Like a rather full circle, well done.
Oh well, oh my gosh, I've like literally talked to your ear off and like skipped two whole sections because that was the best tangent ever.
But I should let you go. It's late at night for you.
But I would like to wrap up with just a couple of last questions that kind of bookend, along with the sweaty fat thing bookend.
The.
You're not going to beat the sweaty feet book.
No, you're right, I mean, but the Gassi.
I mean, we should have separated those two facts to bookend, because that would have been great if anyone was banging over you. Now they'll now they'll know you're.
Down to earth.
They'll think twice they think, And.
I admire Fernande even more now, I mean, wow, the ship that she deals with yea literally.
Well, so the last section would have been playta, which is I think just the area where I'm reminded so much about in the redefinition of my metrics for measuring success in life, I've realized, or just for measuring life and its value and quality, is that no matter even if you love your job, especially if you don't, all of us need to unwrap our identity from productivity and
achievement and goals and objectives and self development. I think it's especially when you're someone like us who loves to work on ourselves and have big revelations.
It's hard to switch that off.
But all of us, especially creative people, need something that just makes you forget what time it is.
It's just for joy.
That's not like I used to walk my dog and think I was resting, but I listened to a finance podcast and be like ticking over and being like, oh, I rested today. So what do you do for play to bring like your childlike sense of wonder and pass the time when you're not being sort of author, Mark Speaker, Mark blogger, Mark, you know, famous person Mark Gassie Mark, Like, what are you doing.
When you're.
Just like date night or just just underlinding? Can you read other people's books or does that make you like.
Oh, no, I read tons, tons and it's yeah, it's I read tons And I've got a bunch of friends who are authors and I read their manuscripts and they read mind and stuff like that. Yeah, I've actually I rediscovered my my inner gamer years ago back. He's back. And you know, I kind of gave up gaming when I started my business because you just working sixteen hour days, you don't have time. And then I was traveling around
the world a lot. And so when that was actually one of the things with Subtle Art that I was like, you know what, I'm going to go out and like buy a Nintendo in a PlayStation and just play a bunch of these games that I haven't had time to play in years. And so yeah, it's like I love it still. I still game like every day.
That's amazing.
Actually, last time we spoke with the business Ticks thing, you were like, it's like, how's I say been?
You have just been like playing a lot of games.
Yeap, like got rs I in my thumbs because I've been playing too much games.
Yeah, it was pretty bad. With the funny like, video games have kind of become like the same way I used to party compulsively. I think I now like if I'm like stressed or having emotional problems or whatever, the first signal to me is that I'm playing way too many video games. That that's like, that's like my my, my life, the universe saying hey, Mark, there's shit. You're not paying attention to put the controller away.
That's like the internet blogger metaphorical version of like punching a punching bag.
But you're like, I'm going to game.
The shit out of this game. I do man all the levels.
Oh man, that's amazing. I mean, well done, well done. Sixteen hours a day.
I would hope that you would be beating all the levels.
Yeah, my wife's not very impressed.
She hasn't seen you in like three weeks. So the second last question, even though you've already dished up a lot of these and now you'll wish you'd save them for last, what are three interesting things about you that don't normally come up in conversation.
Fo, I speak three languages.
I wrote that down.
I was like, if he needs help, give him a little push. Yeah, explain how and why, because they're very different to each other.
Actually, no, they're not Russian. Really. Oh no, I don't speak I don't speak Russian. Well, I speak a little bit of Russian.
Okay, well, need to take that off your LinkedIn then?
Oh yeah, well I probably do. I'm it is kind of a lie like I I guess that's another interesting thing about me, because I lie on my LinkedIn profile.
You're not above a resume pad. I love it.
No, so I speak, I should say I speak three languages. Well, like I speak Spanish and Portuguese to like a high conversational low fluency Russian. I speak a little bit. Like I can go to Russia, I can order food, I can read signs, I can kind.
Of like, oh that's pretty good.
Yeah, but like I can't like have a conversation in Russian.
Oh, I mean, well, then definitely take it off. I'm just gonna report that afterwards.
Report.
Oh they're great, they're good ones.
Yeah, so that's two. Yeah, I don't know video games kind I'm trying to think of another one.
Do you have pet paves or like weird sleepy habits or like a.
Huge pet peeve of mine is people who eat noisily, like are you oh no? And apparently apparently there's actually a word for it, like there's uh, there's like some Greek word for it, like there's something like ten percent of the population. It's almost it's like a phobia. It's like people who smack or eat loudly, like it just it's like nails on a chalkboard. For me.
It's okay, Well, I'll keep that in mind. So next time we catch up in like, you know, obviously next week when I'm in New York just hanging out at your place, I just I'll just make sure I don't eat because I'm one of them. Like I'll eat an apple and it like reverberates around nation.
Live with this.
I don't know what it is, though, Well, I feel like it's loud for you anyway, Yeah, so I don't actually, you know, like I'm enjoying the apple.
So some people like I a good friend of mine, he like smacks really loud when he choose and he's like, I enjoy it. He's like it's satisfying, like I like like smacking when I like chewing stuffing, and I'm like, dude.
That's a full sychopath.
Interesting exactly, Like how do you how do you sleep at night?
Seriously, how do you live with yourself? I mean you said you need to be out of sleep at night. You need to be out of Yeah, like be okay with yourself. So I'm glad you keep your chewing volume to a minimum.
That's great. At least Bananda's got that as a chick.
In the box exactly.
And the last question seems I love quotes so much. What's your favorite quote?
My favorite quote? Well, it changes quite a bit. Oh man, I got to pick one, so I'll give you two. One is comes from David Foster Wallace, and he said that you will stop worrying so much what people think about you when you realize how seldom they do.
That's such a.
It's it's so I love it because it's it sounds a little bit depressing on the surface, like, oh, people don't think about me, but then you just realize how you realize how liberating that is, you know, and and you also it also implies that like like an obsessive concern of what other people think about you is a very subtle form of narcissism, Like it's it's you're making everything about you, and it's like people don't care, Like honestly,
people just really don't care. So we've got much better things to do than to worry about whether your presentation sucked, Like we don't care, So life goes on.
That's on brand.
I love it. And then the other one is it comes from Freud and he says that in hindsight, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.
Oh my gosh, what a beautiful way to end. They are two incredibly valuable quotes. Along with everything else that you've shared and everything in your book and every article that you've published. You've done some really wonderful topical ones as well lately on uncertainty and what's going on in the world. I'm so so grateful for your time. I'm so sorry everyone us overtime.
That was just like as far as conversations I've ever had.
It was so much fun. Thank you so much. And I can't wait to read the next book.
It's gonna be good. And I usually hate my own stuff, like like no, it's like usually at this point in the process where I just finished a draft, like I'm like curled up in a corner crying, being like I'm a fraud. Nobody's ever going to read me ever again, you know, And it's like with Will's book, I finished it and I'm like, this is awesome. This I nailed it. Yeah, No, I did so well.
I cannot wait. You've come so far from self deprecating Texan pooch. Thank you so much for joining.
Thanks for having me.
I mean, sometimes someone says yes and you know there's no way you'll ever be able to express how grateful you are. If you enjoyed this too, It would be amazing if you'd share your thoughts and tag at Mark Manson and myself so we can share in some of your takeaways. This was one of those chats that literally changed the way I think, as all Marx books have done. I hope you took some nuggets or even just a chuckle out of it too. Plus, oh my gosh, what a scoop on Will Smith. I can't wait to read
the boo when it comes out. I'll keep you all posted in the meantime. Have an amazing week, and I hope you're seizing your yay