Episode 217: Mark Manson - How to Stop Giving a F*ck
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Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits & Hustle. Crush it!

Today on the podcast, we have Mark Manson. He is a three-time New York Times bestselling author. His most well-known book is The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, which probably has been the highest-selling book in its decade, almost selling 20 million copies. He also runs one of the largest personal growth websites in the world, more than 15 million yearly readers, and a half a million subscribers, making him one of the largest and most successful independent publishers

publishers in the world. This was such an amazing podcast episode, you guys. It was, first of all, I just really, really like Mark. He's super real, very down to earth. We covered so much stuff on this podcast. Universal made a movie out of the book, Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, with him. He's just crushing it. He also, by the way, for those who don't know, he wrote Will Smith's

autobiography called Will. I mean, this guy is, he's everywhere. He is incredible. I really can't wait to share this episode with you. And please, for those who I always forget to mention it, if you guys can remember to leave me a review, let me know how you're enjoying the podcast, what you thought of this episode, both on Apple, Spotify, wherever you're listening to this. It really, really helps a lot. So thanks and enjoy.

Poor guy. This is like, you've been here for like hours and we haven't even started yet.

Just don't tell me this is like a three hour podcast. It's not going to be three hours. I promise you. I mean, it might be two. No, I'm joking. I'm joking. I am there. This is going to be, this is exciting for me. I just did a little Instagram story on this because we have Mark Manson on the podcast today. And, uh, it, for those of you living under a rock, he wrote the book, uh, the subtle, the subtle art of not giving a fuck and, um, and many other books. And that book is,

I think I said this in my story is probably one of the top or has been touted as the one on the top books of the decade sold 20 million copies plus. How many has it sold so far? Uh, well, if you add all my books together, that's where the 20 million. Oh, I thought it was that one alone. So subtle art, I think is 15 or 16. Oh,

Oh, just 15 or 16? Just 16. Oh, that's nothing. It's like, oh my God, you're such a loser, Mark. So much less impressive. Oh my God, really? Just 16 million copies of one book. And then your follow-up book, we're saying, this is what I was like, oh, I want to have this on the podcast. Even though it was like a smash hit as well, you're saying, how many did that one sell? So it's coming up on a million worldwide. And it's, which is funny because-

By any, I mean, 99.99% of books don't sell a million copies. Yeah, right. Mine sure as hell is not. That's for sure. But it's funny because it's following up Subtle Art

you know you our our perception of what success is is very relative and it's very influenced by like the recent past and recent experience and so coming after subtle art it it was very very hard for that to not feel like a letdown right like a failure of some kind yeah but yet like even though you know psychologically intellectually that it was still an enormous hit yeah it's it's you you

There are many moments of having these silly arguments with myself in my head where it's like, you know, my primal instincts are like, oh, you're such a loser. This is such a, this is bombing. Right, right, right. And then my like higher minded, more intellectual part of my brain is like, no, like you have to keep perspective. It's hard.

though, to keep perspective. It's very hard. Like, do people even recognize, do they even connect the dots? Like, do they know that you're the guy that wrote that book? Like when you go out in public and do they come up to the people know who you are at this point? Occasionally back then, or I, I, I joke that being author famous is the best form of famous because, uh,

Everybody loves your work, but nobody knows what you look like. And so I do get recognized occasionally, but it's just sporadic enough that it's still very enjoyable. So I'd say like once a month, I'll get recognized on the street. Really? Yeah. And it's like a nice ego boost. Like, it's like, oh, sweet. Exactly. But it's not like ruining your life. No, it's not. You know, if it was every day, it would probably get tiresome, but...

Um, it's, it's just seldom enough that when it happens, I'm like super grateful and feel really good about it. What's interesting is like, okay, so I read that book forever ago. Like I told you, I feel like everybody on the planet that I know has, has actually read that book, uh, and, or at least in their audio books, you know, and I find it still so super relevant today, even more so today, um,

But I was going to say what's interesting is that like it has this like it's like the anti self-help book, but yet it's self-help and it's very like you're very you're not a psychologist, but you play one in the book, I guess. Right. I get mistaken for one often. Often. Right. Because it's very there's a lot of stuff in there that's very much like.

it has like that psychological element to it, right? Or like human nature element. So can we just go back to like the origin of like your beginning? Like, I mean, I know you're from Texas, but how you even got to be that person to even write that book? Because like I said, like what, who are you? Who are you, Mark? Well, I think I have...

One thing that's very inherent to my personality is I'm a little bit of a chronic contrarian. I was very rebellious growing up. And I've just always kind of naturally looked for the problems or flaws in things. And I think when I was younger, that caused me to be a very negative person and cynical person. But I think as I grew older, I was able to kind of harness that in a more productive way. And so I think...

I think what makes subtle art and just my work in general so appealing is that it doesn't, there's a certain amount of, I think, emotional pressure that comes with positivity. Like,

Life is just really fucking hard and I can curse, right? Well, yeah. I mean, the name of your book in itself is a curse, right? Just checking. I've been doing a lot of like TV and radio. No, 100%. Well, I'm glad that you asked though because I just noticed that in like Apple, they put like an E next to my podcast for explicit. I didn't even know that was even there. So apparently it happens all the time. Apparently you're explicit. Apparently, yeah. Yeah.

But yeah, I think, you know, there's a certain kind of emotional weight or pressure that comes from the expectation of positivity all the time. Because life's really hard and things suck and things are complicated. And I've just found a lot of relief in the acceptance of that and kind of learning to channel that and work with it rather than fight against it. And so...

From the beginning, that was always kind of the goal of my work. I think I grew up in during a period of the self-help industry or personal development industry that I classify as delusionally positive, like kind of like a delusional level of positive thinking stuff like this. Isn't that still like happening now? It still exists, but it was.

That was like the primary message of the industry, you know, when I was a teenager in my 20s and buying books and consuming a lot of this stuff. You know, The Secret was the biggest book in the world back then. Oh, right. Which is literally...

something that is true that is actually not and, you know, delude yourself into believing it will come true. No, but what I think that, first of all, that's still like right now a huge trend is manifestation. Looking into, and you talk with us in your book even back then, people like giving themselves positive affirmations, even if they don't believe it to be true, say it over and over and over again. I feel like everything in life gets recycled again.

Like it was a trend back then. And it's now, I think, hitting a stride again. Yeah, it's interesting. We don't need to go too far down this rabbit hole if you don't want to. But self-help is very cyclical. So you see the same ideas pop up.

- Generationally. - You do? Generationally? - Yeah, so if you think about like the classics of the self-help space, Think and Grow Rich, Power of Positive Thinking, I'm Okay, You're Okay. - Power of Now, is that considered? - Sure, Power of Now, Tony Robbins stuff in the 80s.

They all have very similar messages. They're just kind of packaged differently. And, you know, here in 2023, we look at all those books and we just see them all as classic books. But those books all came out 20 to 30 years apart. So Think and Grow Rich came out in the middle of the Great Depression. Power of Positive Thinking came out, Hide of the Cold War. Tony Robbins stuff came out.

height of the Reagan eighties, uh, you know, the secret power of now manifestation, all that kind of cosmic woo woo stuff came out, you know, in the, the mid two thousands, uh, when like Eastern spirituality was kind of making this big comeback in, in Western culture. So, uh, I didn't realize how many years apart. That's so interesting. Okay. Sorry. Go on. And you can take this all the way back to the 1800s. Um,

So I really studied, this actually ties in kind of orthogonally into the success of Subtle Art. Like I really studied the industry before I wrote my book. And if you actually pull up my book proposal for Subtle Art, I point this out in the book proposal. And I said, there's...

And I argued that, you know, in the next 10 years, there's going to be a classic self-help book for millennial, the millennial generation. It hasn't been written yet. And so my goal is to write that for the millennial generation. And then I kind of went through a section where I identified like,

these are the hallmarks of what millennials experience. They tend to be more cynical. They tend to be more honest and upfront about their emotions. They tend to, they've lived through the first major decline and, you know, they're the first generation to be worse off than their parents were at the same age. So there's a certain degree of like,

but realism about problems in life and realizing that you don't get to control everything and that you have to accept something. So that informed a lot of the,

kind of early packaging or marketing of the book in my mind. So interesting. Like by that point, I had been blogging a lot of these ideas and hashing them out and testing them, you know, on social media and with my blog audience. So I kind of knew which ideas were resonating really well. But in terms of like packaging everything together and really creating like a message that was going to stick around for decades, like that was...

That was something that only came together when I started thinking about the book. So you already had a very successful blog, right? Yeah. So how did the book even come to be? Because before that, you were a pickup artist, weren't you? Yeah. Talk about that. I want to hear about the evolution of you, right? Sure, sure. So...

I, uh, I too was an awkward and emotionally stunted adolescent male. Um, believe it or not. Um,

So the game, the Neil Strauss book, the game came out, I think I was 19 or 20. Okay. And I had just gotten my heart broken by my first girlfriend. So I was like the perfect, you know, perfect level of maturity, perfect level of like heartbreak and anger, perfect level of like total confusion towards women when that came out. And so I got...

I dabbled in that subculture quite a bit and I had a bunch of my friends were into it and, you know, we'd go out and try the lines in a bar or whatever. And, and it was, yeah, it wasn't that successful, but, um, but it was interesting because that subculture, you know, really what the pickup artist thing was, is it was, it was like a masculine excuse to actually work on yourself. Yeah.

Um, if you got past like the cheesy pickup lines and like the top hats and weird stuff that they did, you would actually find like very deep and interesting conversations on a lot of those message boards about trauma, childhood, broken families, childhood experiences, um, beliefs like shame around sex, around intimacy. Um, yeah. And, and so for a lot of guys, including myself, like this was the first time that we had ever

been exposed to a lot of these conversations, especially with other men. You know, like maybe you would talk about this with like a really, really close female friend. But not with like two guys talking. Yeah. You never get it. You would never see a group of guys sit in a room together and talk about their childhood traumas together. And this happened in that community. And so I think there's a really, there's kind of like a non-obvious positive element of that subculture that was

People who didn't really spend a lot of time with it didn't see It's funny too because most of the friends that I had from that that period I

really went on to become amazing dudes. - Really? Like what are they doing now, those guys? - Super successful in a bunch of different fields. And great relationships, marriages, kids. - Really? - Most of the guys left that scene after a year or two. Like they came for a reason, like either they're heartbroken or they're confused or they need to build social skills.

But then as soon as they got it, they left. You know, it was really only kind of a toxic minority that got stuck in, you know, this like weird festering misogyny brood over a period of time. - Yeah, yeah. - So I visited that subculture, spent some time in it, dabbled in it. Meanwhile, I started creating like blogs and e-commerce websites. You know, I read Tim Ferriss' "4-Hour Workweek." I wanted to do the whole like, you know,

work at home in your underwear make money while you sleep you know the dream living the dream yes exactly um so i was i was creating a lot of websites and and stuff like that on the side and um and one of the things that guys in the pickup artist industry or subculture would do is that they created blogs and they would kind of share stories like hey these here's the date i went on last weekend she never called me back like can you guys take a look at it and like tell me

you know, what went wrong. - Right, right, right. - And so there was a lot of that going on. So I also started a blog, like a dating blog on the side. - What was it called? - It was just my like pseudonym. - Oh, okay. - Which was, it was Entropy. Which was actually my gamer name in high school. It just show how deep the nerdiness goes. - I love it. Oh my God, I love this, this is so great.

But that's why you're so likable though, right? Like I said before we even started, you're like so different than I would have expected you to be just from the book vibe, you know? I thought you were like a Tucker Max, I told you, right? Yeah, I think people expect me to be super abrasive and...

Uh snarky, but I don't know and arrogant and you're so the opposite Yeah, I don't maybe i've mellowed as i've gotten older. I don't know. I don't know you seem like I don't know I don't think I think this is who you really are. Yeah feels like it anyway um So I started writing about my dating life and and back then I had a pretty Raucous, I mean I partied a lot. I was drinking a lot. I was going out a lot um

And I was starting to have success in the dating world. I was seeing a lot of girls and hooking up a bunch. And so I was writing about it and I kind of developed this little cult following thing.

in, in Boston. But wait, did you have success around it? Because you're kind of like learning from the pickup artist world, like how to kind of navigate. Cause a lot of the stuff, as you know, it's like human psychology, right? Like people, does it matter how attractive you are, how talented you are? It's about how you, that's how, it's how you kind of carry yourself. Right. And you learned body language and honestly, I think a lot of

What made the pickup bar stuff quote-unquote work was was like the placebo effect Which was like these pickup lines don't actually work. They're actually very cheesy and stupid It's just they give you a false level of confidence To convince you to actually walk across the room and talk to that attractive woman who you were scared to death to to attract you before right or talk to before uh

And it ended up going really well, but it would have gone well anyways, even if you didn't have the line, you just needed the line to like give you that, that confidence to go do it. So I think, I think in a lot of cases, I think a large percentage of the quote unquote success that guys experience in that industry was really just that. Okay. And I kind of figured that out.

pretty quickly. Like the lines never sat well with me. I was like, you know, I'm, I'm actually like pretty fun and funny just being myself. So, um, if I can just get my foot in the door, like find a way to like open up a conversation, I, I think I'm okay from there. Um,

But again, I think a lot of the most valuable stuff from that community was, again, some of the deeper, less obvious stuff, like helping guys become more aware of their emotions, helping them become more aware of their insecurities, understanding things like body language, social etiquette, basic social skills, you know, how to be polite, how to be funny, you know,

How to be respectful. How to socialize, basically. Yeah, yeah. And it's, I think what also gets missed too is that, you know, a lot of the, I mean, there was a lot of disrespectful behavior encouraged towards women by some companies and some coaches in that industry. But a lot of it was just, I mean, a lot of it, there was a lot of just false bravado. It wasn't even necessarily about the women per se. It was,

It was kind of just dumb locker room advice of like, oh, bro, you got to, you're the fucking man. You got to let people know you're the fucking man. It's like whether it was a woman in front of you or another guy, like it didn't matter. It was a lot of these guys were just kind of like puffing out their chest and stuff. So it was a real crash course in just social dynamics, social skills, romantic dynamics, right?

And, um, while I, while there was a lot of cringy things that went on and, and definitely there were certain sectors of the industry that were misogynistic and not healthy. Um, I, I do think it was net positive for most of the guys involved. So, um, so anyway, I, I kind of developed this little following around my blog, uh, of guys in Boston, um,

And started to kind of be known as a party hound and a player, I guess. And then the weird thing that started happening is guys started asking me, asking to like go out with me, you know, like go to a bar with me to like see how I did it. Oh, like to kind of coach them. Okay, help them. Yeah. Like, hey, like I just want to see like how you talk to these girls in person or whatever. And I was like, all right. Yeah.

And then it started happening enough that I was like, I was completely broke at the time. So I was like, well, how about this? If you give me like 200 bucks, you can come spend this, hang out with me for a Saturday night. And to my shock, like,

you know, a dozen guys signed up. And I was like, oh shit. All right. Uh, how about 500 bucks? You know, let's see, let's see how far this can go. Um, so I did, you know, and then once it, once I realized I'm like, oh crap, I'm a coach. Like I need to like teach these guys things, you know, that started precipitating the,

the, the, the research and the investigation into like, okay, like, you know, what, what is actually effective here? What do different people need? Um, and it, it was, I did that for about two years and I, I ended up, I managed to kind of grow that audience nationally. I did it all around the country. I did it in Europe. Um, were you still taking guys to bars or yeah, like all across the country? Yeah. How much were you charging at the end? At the end, I think it got up to like,

$1,200 or $1,500 a day or something like that. For some guy to come watch you do this at the bar. Well, it actually, I mean, what you quickly learn is that it's, you know, for me to walk up to a woman in a bar and chat with her and like get her phone number or something, it's cool. Like for the guy watching, it's cool for about three minutes. Yeah, yeah. But then they don't actually learn anything. It's kind of like, you know, so...

So it quickly turned into like, okay, why don't you go talk to that woman at the bar and make a fool out of yourself? And then we'll see like what actually, you know, what are you doing wrong here? And it's funny because I'd say 90% of the time it was guys either just had –

Poor social skills. Like they really just needed somebody to stand there and be like, you know, don't stand that close to somebody. You're invading their personal space or like don't slouch, you know, look people in the eye when you talk to them. Like basic stuff like that, that most of our parents teach us. But, you know, a lot of these guys grew up without their parents around or without like a role model. So it, it,

It's weird. It's almost like you're being paid to parent somebody. I mean, there were clients where I'm like, did you take a shower today? No. Okay, first rule, you do not leave the house without taking a shower. Really? It's on that level. And I think, again, the whole industry kind of gets misconstrued as this evil conniving, mad, super genius nerds in their evil lair conspiring how to

trick millions of women into bed. And it's like, no, these are guys who like didn't learn basic hygiene, didn't learn basic social skills, often suffer from extreme social anxiety. A lot of them are on the spectrum. Um, a lot of them grew up in extremely there. I had a lot of clients that, um, either grew up in an incredibly religious households where like they literally were not allowed to date period. Right. Um,

Or they grew up in extremely high pressure households where it's like you have to go to med school, you have to become a doctor, or we're going to disown you. And next thing you know, they're 28, they're a doctor, and they've never been on a date in their life, and they have no idea how to start. All their friends are getting married. So 90% of the time, you're really just helping underdeveloped men, socially underdeveloped men,

You know, develop the social skills and the basic romantic skills that most of us learn in high school and college. Right. So did you just like take a boatload of people at once to the bar? Or did you like teach them a class? Like were you taking at a time? So early on, I would take, I think, up to five. And then...

And yeah, and we would do like classroom during the day and then go out at night. As time went on, I started to realize that, you know, it went from five max to three max to two. And I think by the end it was I would only do two at the most because it's just you need to.

you need personal attention. Like it's so much of it is, is personal attention. Yes, exactly. It's like what these guys are lacking is personal attention. Like nobody has spent enough time with them to tell them like, Hey dude, like,

You know, it's you've got this weird tick when you talk to people and it kind of creeps creeps them out. You should stop doing that. Like it's right. You need the you need enough face time to be able to tell them that totally. And yeah, after about a year, I got rid of the classroom stuff, too, because it was mostly stuff like you can just read it in a book or, you know.

But a lot of these things, you know this, like a lot of this stuff, common sense sometimes isn't so common. Like people can find a lot of information on this, on like life coaching on Google or on YouTube, but they're still paying like thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars for masterminds and for some guru to tell them what to do. Yeah, it's a weird aspect about this industry in that it almost...

So this is the weird thing too, is like, it's like the more money they pay, the more, I guess, accountable they feel for like, oh, I better get, get value out of this. So the more they listen and the more they care and the more they try, um, I noticed that was another great lesson, interesting lesson, uh, from my time in that industry was that like often raising prices made people try harder and care more.

Um didn't always but sometimes it did but then there are other times too where you know, it's people would Would be in the market for a coach and they'd be like well This person charges a thousand dollars a weekend and this person charges two thousand dollars a week and will clear the the two thousand dollar person Is better right perception of value. Yeah, right. Is that because if you charge more it must be better? Yeah, and obviously that's not always true. So um

Eventually, I wanted to get out of that industry for a few reasons. One was that it felt very, I became convinced that anything more than a superficial change isn't really possible in a weekend. You can teach some basic social skills. You can help somebody get over an anxiety a little bit. You can build a little bit of confidence.

But most of the quote unquote breakthroughs that happen in like an intensive, you know, say 12 hour coaching period, they don't stick. And because it's really what you're dealing with. You're not dealing with like, you know, oh, this guy in the bar is afraid to go talk to, you know, pretty Sally or whatever. Like what you're dealing with is years of bullying, bullying.

you know, years of social anxiety, ostracization, I'm not saying that right. Ostracization. Yes. Ostracization. It's hard work to say actually. You know,

Lack of socialization. It's embedded deep into your DNA. You can't just... But what do you think about Tony Robbins seminars and all these seminars where people go away to do their date with destiny or they go do whatever they're doing for four or five days and they're so motivated. I'm curious what the percentage of people who actually stick to that because most of the time it's the same. It's repeat customers going back all the time, right? Which...

I have a big problem with that. I know. That's why I want to, you're a perfect person. Like, can I tell you something? That's why I loved reading your book. Like everything you were saying, I like, I resonated because you were speaking like truth. Yep. It's, I have such a ambivalent, like love, hate relationship with Tony because I think a lot of the information he gives is very good. Um,

Like a lot of the advice is that is very good. Yeah, I agree. I agree. What I hate is the business model and the implementation. So I think one thing he does and he does, does it extremely well is, and I, and I, I learned this when I was coaching too, is that if you can, we used to call it state pumping. So if you could elevate a person's emotional state and make them emotional and

You create the perception of permanent change, even though nothing is permanently changed. All the only thing that's changed is the emotion. So one way to do this, and it's, it's actually ironic because Tony does the exact same thing. So one of the ways we used to do this, you know, let's say I take three guys out to a club and we're there to like learn how to pick up girls or whatever. Well, obviously there's a lot of expectation. There's a lot of anxiety. Um,

So what's the first thing you do? Well, you go to the dance floor and you get, you get everybody dancing like an absolute maniac. That was always the first thing I would do. And if things were going really well, then I, then I get them to do like silly things. I'm like, you know, we're like sitting there dancing on the dance floor, like idiots. And I'd be like, let's do 10 pushups in the middle of the dance floor. And they're like, that's crazy. You know? And so next thing you know, we're doing pushups in the middle of the dance floor. And, um,

And it just seems completely wacky and out of place, but there's actually a really important utility of that. One is you get over, you know, you get that first embarrassment out of the way. So it's, you know, once you've been embarrassed once, you realize, oh, nothing bad happened. I'll do it again. Right. The fear factor is kind of eliminated a little bit. Exactly. But then the other thing too is it just like in a very physiological way, you have, you

you have amplified or elevated the person's emotional state. And so they're way more excited, they're way more energetic, they're way more motivated. And so suddenly that difficult thing of talking to an attractive stranger doesn't feel so difficult anymore. In fact, it sounds a little bit fun. And that's great for that night.

The problem is, is, you know, the next weekend when they wake up and they're still their nervous self and they go into that club and they're like, oh man, well, maybe I should try to dance on the dance floor by myself, but that's weird. And, you know, they're right back to square one. Like it's, it's the real change only occurs over a very long timeline of, of

Kind of re rewiring neural circuits, read, re reforming social habits, emotional habits, um, altering people's expectations, altering people's identities, like their perceptions of themselves.

You can't do that in a weekend. So I think what Tony does really, really well, and it's ironic because Tony uses the dance thing. Like if you ever go to a Tony Robbins seminar. Have you been to one before? I have not, but I have a bunch of friends who have gone and I've watched a number of his videos. He has people, he's blaring music and having people dance constantly. And a lot of that is to elevate people's emotional state.

I think his argument would be that when people's emotional state is elevated, it makes them more open to feedback and lessons, which is true. But it also gives this false sense of change. It gives us false sense of progress. And so I think, and I hope this is unintentional, but what I think happens with

the seminar model like that. And it's not just Tony, you know, you could say this about Landmark, you could say this about a dozen other companies. Yeah, I know. We're just using him as an example. I mean, he's the most prominent one. Right. And we all know who he is, right? Of course. Yeah. You know, somebody, you take somebody, they're very depressed, they're very anxious, they're very insecure, they feel a certain level of hopelessness. They go to the seminar, they spend a ton of money, go to the seminar for a brief three-day window. They feel good.

They feel a little bit of hope. They feel like, oh my God, I changed. And they leave the seminar feeling great.

And hopefully a little bit sticks and i'm sure some stuff sticks. I'm, you know, you nailed it though. Is that hope? Yeah, because people need hope to kind of move on and carry on right? Yes, that's the first part of it. Yes Hope for the future and hope for themselves that it's like oh I have now seen that i'm actually capable of being this different person So I think that is very valuable but then

The problem is that habits take time. Identity change takes time. And it's only four days have gone by. So pretty soon you're back to the same old you. And you start feeling hopeless again, feeling a little bit depressed. And then I think things can go one of two ways, which is one is, well, shit, I need to go back to do another Tony Robbins seminar. You become addicted to the self-help seminars. Yep. And I've seen this with people I know. They have...

They drain their savings. Yeah. It's sick. They're going over and over and over and over again. They're giving him thousands and thousands of dollars. It's gross, yeah. You know? But their life isn't really changing. Yeah. You know? But they get addicted to that high for like a few days. Yes. And that's the really gross side of it. And-

I don't think that happens to a majority of customers, but I imagine that is the majority of their revenue is repeat customers. Definitely repeat customers. So you get those people, they go one of two ways. They're like, I need to go back. The other direction is it actually makes them feel better.

More hopeless and this is something that doesn't get talked about right talk about it Yeah, but it's it's if you actually look so there's there's actually been a lot of psychological research on self-help material and self-help seminars and it's super interesting they find that overall it is beneficial it's like it's net positive it's not as net positive as therapy, but it's it's Good, it's better than nothing. Um, and

It's kind of like a therapy light, I guess. Okay. But what's interesting is that there is a significant minority of people are actually worse off afterwards. So they feel worse about themselves. They feel more depressed. They feel more anxious. By the way, this is true about therapy as well, but it's... How? Why is that? What's the reason behind it? I think, well, I think in the case of self-help, it's, you know...

You're depressed, you're anxious, you feel hopeless. You go to this seminar, you feel great. You come back, you feel depressed, anxious, hopeless. And you realize you're like, it's not, I, there's nothing I can do. It's not me. Like I'm, I'm broken and I either, and I need somebody else to fix me, but I can't, I don't have the money. I don't have the resources. I like, I don't have the money.

I can't be going to a seminar every weekend for the rest of my life. Or what happens? I would think, sorry, I was going to interject that I would imagine I haven't been, but like you go and you get all these people like-minded, like you all together in this community, like rah, rah, everything's going to be great. And then you go back to your real life and you're like, oh shit, this is my real life. Right? Yeah. Yeah. It could be. It's one thing I know. And again, this goes back to my coaching days. It's,

You know people who come into the this industry they tend to be in a vulnerable position Like they don't feel very good about themselves. They don't feel very good emotionally a lot of times they're very unhealthy and they have a propensity to blame themselves and So if you as a coach or therapist or a guru seminar leader, whatever if you give them bad advice And it doesn't work

Most of these clients don't blame you they blame themselves. They're like, oh well, you know mark knows what he's doing You know, it didn't work for me. So I guess there's something wrong with me or like tony knows what he's doing He's helped. I mean he's like millions of people. Yeah, he's advised presidents or whatever It's like so if his advice doesn't work for me, it must be me And and that's dangerous like that's a really dangerous uh and again, this is why the personal attention aspect is so important like

The reason therapy is so efficacious is because the therapist is in the room there when that thought is happening to catch it and be like, don't go there. That's right. That's not true. You know, therapists can be wrong just as often as anybody else. Like one-on-one, you're saying. Exactly. But if you're in a self-help seminar with 5,000 people in the room and you start having that thought, you're like, wow, look at all these people. Like it's working for them, but it's not working for me. What's wrong with me?

It's like Tony's not going to come off the stage and be like, hold on. Don't hold that thought. One second. Exactly. Everybody time out. Exactly. Because he always does pick that one person maybe. But that's what social media I find too, right? Yeah. Like it's this whole idea that you're looking at everybody else. It's like you're comparing yourself, which is a whole bad slippery slope in the first –

at all, right? Yeah. Because you always think what's wrong with me? Why am I not living that life? Why am I not happy? Why am I blah, blah, blah? You know? And that's something you did this in the book even before social media was so

as it is now, I feel. But sorry, I didn't mean, we were like, I was like, we're going off on, because you're saying that from the whole pickup world, how did you then, so you were kind of doing all this research on these like cycles of books for self-help and then what happened? Oh, well, that came later.

So right, right. So right. So the transition from pickup to kind of subtle art. Now you're deciding you don't want to do the pickup stuff anymore. Yeah. How did you kind of exit that? Yeah. So I decided to exit for a couple of reasons. One was because of everything we just talked about. Like I became very skeptical of how much, how helpful you can really be on such a short time span. I also just left because I'm like,

By then I think I was 27, 28 and I was like, shit, I don't wanna be like the creepy 40 year old hanging out in bars. - Exactly. - Talking to college girls. So I was like, I need to find a way to turn this into a real career. - Right. - 'Cause this is, I can't do this anymore.

Where did your parents think, by the way, of you being that person? Because you came from a pretty affluent family, right? Yeah. Dad and stepmom were pretty horrified. Mom was a little more open-minded and trusting. She didn't get it, but she was like, you know. He's going to figure it out. You're smart. You'll figure it out. Yeah. Dad and stepmom were pretty horrified. Really? Like, freaking.

There were a lot of awkward Thanksgivings of like, when are you going to get a real job? Where did your dad do for a living? My dad owns a small plastic manufacturing company. And your mom? My mom was in the travel industry for a long time. Okay, continue.

So I was kind of looking at the situation by this, by this point, the blog had grown quite a bit and, um, and you've always been a good writer, right? Like you've kind of, that's always been like one of your really strong. Okay. Yeah. So it, and I also enjoyed it a lot. I actually enjoyed the writing. I, you know, it took a couple of years, but I started to realize I actually enjoy the writing a lot more than the coaching. Okay. Um, so I was like, you know, maybe, maybe I can find a way to make the writing side of this work, uh,

And so I started developing the blog, building the audience there. And then I self-published a book, which was called Models Attract Women Through Honesty. And it was basically, at the time, I kind of thought of it as like my mic drop. I was like leaving that industry because by that point, there was a lot of toxicity going on.

It's funny because a lot of that is kind of resurfaced with like the Andrew Tate stuff the last year or two. But a lot of that like...

you know, alpha male, don't be a beta, like, you know, put her in her place type shit, you know? And you're right. There's always cyclical though. Like you said, when did you put that book out? Like, so that came out 2011, 11. Okay. So 12 years ago. Yeah. And it's, yeah, it's, if you think about it, cause it's my generation, we went through the pickup stuff to kind of, you know, our, our generation of men needed that to kind of grow up. And I think,

Gen Z now is hitting that age where they're looking for that. So yeah, I wrote that book and it was basically like, I want to write a book that is how to be more attractive, how to have better relationships, but from like a very emotionally healthy standpoint as a man, you know, but also acknowledging, you know, kind of the

The social pressures or expectations of like the man is always supposed to initiate, you know, the man is expected to take the social risk. The man's supposed to be willing to be embarrassed, um, to be rejected, uh, but write it from a healthy point of view. Like instead of like, Oh, you know, this like macho thing. Um, so that was that, uh, and it's funny cause that, that book came out and it was crickets like, um,

At first, none of the guys wanted to hear it. I got trashed on forums. I got called a beta bitch and all this stuff. I was like, all right, guys, good luck. Good luck. That's so funny. Enjoy circle jerking in your mom's basement. I love it. It's hilarious. It's so good. So...

The book did eventually kind of through word of mouth, you know, that industry kind of cleaned up its own act over time. And I actually became very happy and proud of how well that book ended up doing. It took a few years, but it ended up, I mean, at one point on the pickup artist subreddit, it was, there was like the pinned post at the top was like,

Don't ask any questions until you read Mark Manson's book. And it kind of became like the...

the first, any guy who came into those communities that are like, you need to read models before you talk to anybody or ask any questions, like read, read. Yeah. It was like my book and maybe one or two others that they're like, read these books. And then, yeah. Okay. Um, so I became very proud of that. So it was actually, it worked out really well, but at the time, you know, at the time when I left, I was like, Oh God, I can imagine. So my thinking at the time was like,

So what I also discovered from the coaching was like, there's no set, like all these guys would come to me. They're like, you know, I go on all these dates and girls never call me back. Like, I don't know what's wrong. And early on, I'm like, oh, well, you just didn't try the right text message. You know, I love it. Like you got to tease her more. What would be the text message that you would tell people to do? Oh my God. I don't even remember. If someone doesn't, you do so remember. I really don't. So if someone doesn't text you back, what do you say?

you just, you move on with your life. That's what you say now, right? But back then. I don't know. There would probably be, you know. Would there be something funny? Would you say like, you'd have to do something like humorous? Yeah, probably some stupid like. Self-deprecating? What would it be? Yeah, send a meme or, you know, a joke or, I don't know. Yeah, it was probably something dumb like that. It's like, okay, you get her to laugh. Then you follow up with a question and like,

So you know exactly what you would say. That's probably what the advice would have been. So get her to laugh and then follow up with a question. Okay. Good. I like it. I'm going to take a note here. I like it a lot.

You know, it's like once she responds, you know. Then you got her. She's hooked. Although today it's probably weird with like the red, the thing, messages being marked red. Oh, yeah, yeah. See, this is why it's hard for me to talk about this stuff because I. It's true. I was in this industry pre-tender.

I was in this industry between like pre, you know, WhatsApp and like, but it's still work. It's still the same. Like, I think that the, the principles will never change. The principles will never change. But this is, but this is why I like the, the tactical questions. I'm like, I don't know, dude, like, yeah, but you know, I think I would imagine, I mean, not to give you another, like you could have a whole new career, but like,

I think this is helpful for women who are single, right? Because like, you're like, you are like that quintessential guy, you know? So like, can't you give advice to women on the same thing? So this actually ties in to kind of where my career went next. So my, what I realized after a couple of years working with guys is like, okay, your problem isn't that you don't know what to text girls. The problem is, is that you,

you're super needy and it's just really repellent. Like, so like, that's exactly right. Like you can give them some like bullet points on what to do. So it's, it's, uh, like no tactic here is going to save you from yourself. Like you really need to look within yourself and figure out like, why are you so needy? Why are you constantly craving validation or approval? Um,

So I started writing about, and what I realized is that that's pretty much every guy who ever came to this stuff. Like the problem is not that you don't know what the text or don't know what, you know, how to respond or whatever. It's, there's some emotional issue going on. Um, so I started writing about those emotional issues and it was, um, and initially it was geared towards men, but something really interesting happened, which was, I started to develop a, a sizable female audience. I would think so. Um, yeah.

And it was crazy because I was specifically writing for men. You know, it was like, this is why she never calls you back. And then it would get into like how needy dudes behave and how to stop being a needy dude.

And then women started emailing me like, oh my God, I sent this to my brother. Like, this is the best thing I've... Totally. This is, you know, and... Do you remember the movie, He's Not That Into You? Yeah. Was that like around the same time when women started to really kind of look at you as that too? I think that was a little bit before. Oh, was it? I don't remember. But it was interesting because I was completely oblivious to the women's dating advice market. Like I had no...

had paid no attention. And I started getting a lot of emails from women. They said, you know, I know you write for men, but this is better than anything I've read that's written for women. Like, have you written anything for women? And eventually I got enough of those emails that I was caught. I was kind of like, huh? Yeah. Maybe I should just write for everybody. You know, I started looking at a lot of my articles. Doesn't it apply to both? It does. It does. The only thing that changes is, uh,

Well, I mean, the only things that are different, sex gets a little bit different because obviously men and women are... Different that way. Yes, have different parts. For sure. Different parts, yeah. But then the social expectations, like the cultural expectations are different as well. So it's like men are expected to initiate, but then women...

And this was the thing that guys never understood is that, you know, they're like, oh, women have it so easy. Like, they just, like, stand around and look cute and all the guys talk to them. And I'm like, you know...

If you actually think about it, it's actually not that easy because anywhere you go in public, guys just like start randomly coming up to you and talking to you. Like that's really intimidating. And how do you, if you're not interested, how do you tell them you're not interested without them getting pissed off and taking it personally? You know, if guys being super creepy and following you, like how do you deal with that? And so there's a, you know, and women on the other hand see guys and they're like, wow, guys don't have to deal with

people following them and intimidating them and they don't get bothered when they're in a coffee shop or in a bookstore, you know? Right. And like, wow, guys have it so easy. And so there was a lot of interesting disconnects on kind of the social expectation side of things. But I also think with women though, like how many times have you hear like, oh, he's not calling me back or what am I doing? Like, why doesn't he like me or why this girl, you know what I mean? Like it's,

to the core of what you were doing with those guys, it's the same shit. It's the same shit. You're too needy. Exactly. It's the same shit. You don't know who you are. The artists are about giving a fuck. Your social skills suck. Be a little indifferent. Don't care so much. Go on and have a life. All these things. And it is similar to that most of the

female dating advice is very tactical, you know? So it's like, oh, like don't call him back for three days. That used to be a thing. Yeah. I remember that. Yeah. It was like, don't call him back for three days, which is fucking stupid. Like if you like a guy, just call him back. It's, it's, if you get one of the things that I started preaching at a certain point,

It was like, if you get your emotions straight, everything else takes care of itself. Right. You don't have to worry about anything else because you're not worried about rejection. You're not worried about getting your feelings hurt. You're not worried about, you know, not being liked enough or whatever. Like, so it's, it's get right with yourself, get your own life in order, figure out who you are, what you love, what you care about, who you want to meet.

Learn how to express that effectively. And then be confident when, or like be okay with hearing no for an answer. And then you're set. Like that's, it'll take care of itself after that. Right, right, right. Or you would hope, but yes. Yeah, eventually it will. So they start getting women as clients or women as an audience. Yeah, readers. And so from there, I kind of, I...

rebranded my website and changed everything and just became Mark Manson and started writing for everybody. And that was, that was 2013, early 2013. And as soon as I did that, the, the audience exploded. Like it was, um, you know, with, with the combination with all the women coming in and then at the same time, you know, social media was really, um,

I mean, social media had been around for a while, but that, that was the first time ever that things kind of like went viral on social media. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What year? Okay. So could the book came out? What year? Uh, the Settle Art. Settle Art was 2016. 2016. Okay. So, so yeah, so you're. Yeah, this was 2012, 2013. Did you, did you have like a big email list and a big audience before you even wrote the book? Yes. Like how big was that audience? Yeah. So we,

let's see uh from 2012 i think in 2012 it was like around i want to say like a hundred thousand people a month wow okay um and then by 2015 it was i think it it peaked in 2015 at two million a month two million wow so it 20x'd in two years that's amazing um

And it was, you know, it was one of those kind of perfect storms. I think a lot of things went right. One was opening up my material to both genders. Like that was really crucial and important. I think being, I think I recognize the viral potential of social media before most people. You know, it took a few years. Back then it was like,

Writers at the new york times or the atlantic like they didn't know what seo was they didn't know, right? They didn't really they didn't have a so like they maybe just hired a social media manager They would just kind of just post the article and forget about it on facebook. Right? Meanwhile, what I realized is that if you write a really good title and create a really good thumbnail image um

Like people start sharing your stuff. So you knew that already? I figured that out. I kind of figured it out on an accident. But thumbnails more like video. You weren't doing video back then. Well, it was, I'm not using the right word. But like when you post an article on Facebook, it like pulls an image from the article. Oh, you mean like an image. So I used to spend a lot of time thinking about like, okay, what image do I want to be pulled for this? What title? What description? Yeah.

Because I realized there was... So I basically just realized virality, I think, a year or two before most. Right. Which is super important. So you're ahead of the curve. Huge. So when you got the book deal and all that other stuff, did it kind of have that tipping point because you right away, your entire audience that you already had embedded in bought the book right away? Yeah. And then the algorithm started and made it go viral? Yeah, it...

I got my book deal in that period. One of the smart things my agent did is she started looking on... Molly? Yes, Molly. Shout out to Molly. In fact, I know her name is kind of funny. She started looking on Facebook for authors. Oh, really? So she came after you, Molly? Yeah. Right. Yeah, a number of agents did. I think kind of word got out that this was happening, that people were...

building these massive audiences out of nothing. Like when you were doing this back then. James Clear. James Clear, right? So was he the only one? Like who else was your, not competition. There were a bunch. So Tim Urban, Wait But Why started. So James, James started his blog, I think 2011 or 2012. Okay. Same timeframe. Yeah. Tim Urban, I think started 2013. Who's Tim Urban? WaitButWhy.com. You know, like the stick figures. Oh,

yeah, that's his name. Okay. I didn't know that. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Um, sorry, Tim Urban. There are a few others. I'm, I'm probably blanking on a few. Uh, I think, I think Gretchen Rubin started her blog around the same time. Uh,

So yeah, there, there's like a whole kind of like, right. Click of us that came up. But Gretchen Rubin's book, what was it called? Happiness project. Didn't yours kind of surpass that one by a landslide? Yeah. But I think she built her initial audience. Around the same time. Around the same time. Yeah. So people were all circling you to sign you for a book. Why did you go with Molly? Uh, so Molly, I, I love telling this story. Um,

Molly is a very aggressive New Yorker. And it's really interesting. So I took a lot of calls with agents. So to give a little bit of context, at the time, this was probably 2014, 2013, 2014. So at this point, I had been five years. I had scrapped and clawed my way. When I started, I was living on friends' couches. I moved back in with my mom for a while. It was...

hard days early on really because you're came from a rich family though too right but they didn't support you basically no no no okay no um i only know that because i heard you say that before on other people's podcasts yeah i uh or in an interview no i never asked for money and dad wouldn't have given it he would be like why don't you go get a job and i'll be a pickup artist yeah and then we'll talk so there there was actually a very there was like a lot of

I also felt like a very large amount of pride of like, I want to do this myself. Yeah. So, you know, I went back to live with mom for a few months. Ex-girlfriend of mine was supported me for a little while. Like it, it was month to month for a few years when I started out. And then,

After five or six years of clawing and scraping and grinding, I get to 2013, 2014, and I've built this huge audience. I'm finally making decent money. How are you making the money now? Was it just from advertisers on your blog? Yeah, mostly affiliate stuff, but I had e-books. I had the self-published book. I had a couple online courses that I was selling through my website. Courses on what?

Just basic relationship skills. Got it. Okay. Conversation skills. All the shit I used to coach, basically. Yeah, exactly. So I had a very strong sense of self-sufficiency. I got here on my own. I had to build everything myself. I...

you know, I'm making money myself through my own website. Um, so there was a little bit of like skepticism at, at, I guess, conventional media. Um, so when agents came and started knocking, I was like, well, and by then I had been working on subtle art for maybe six or eight months. Um, I knew I was going to do a book. So when all the agents came knocking, you know, my attitude was like, okay, yeah, I could do a book with a publisher, but

If you do it with a publisher, you only get 20%. Your royalty is 15 to 20%. And in a lot of cases, as you know, the publisher does not do what they say that they're going to do for you. You know, I had heard some horror stories. And by that point, I had already self-published a book and that book was

I'm getting between 70% and 80% royalties on that self-published book. And that book is doing really well. It's selling a couple thousand copies a week. Or not a week, a month. So I'm making like a really nice six-figure income off of that. So I'm like, well, you know, why give up that extra royalty? Like I've got this huge audience. I've got an email list. Totally. Why didn't you self-publish that book? So. Ugh.

none of the agents could answer this question. And, and it was, it was funny too. Cause a lot of, I mean, I talked to a lot of really nice, nice agents and, and had good conversations with them, but it was funny cause they were everyone, all of them that I talked to, they were really trying to be my friend. Like they're trying to be like really cool. Like what are your favorite books, man? Oh, I love that one. You know, like we'd have these like really chill 45 minute conversations about whatever. And, uh, and then I got on the phone with Molly and she just like,

very abrasively starts like bombarding me with all these questions about my audience and my, my monetization and my revenue and what do I want? And, um, you know, and then she starts saying like, well, if we pitch it to this publisher, you're, you know, they're probably going to expect this. And if we pitch it to this publisher and blog, I'm like, Whoa, who says I'm going to,

Publish it with a real publisher and she was like, what do you mean? And I was like, well, I've got this audience I could self-publish it if I want and uh

And she was like, you mean you don't know if you want to publish a book? And I was like, no, I'm still like, I'm actually curious. Like, why do you think I should do it? And she was like, I don't know, but like, stop wasting my time. And she like basically kind of hung up on me. And I was like, wow. All right. She's a prickly one. But then I started thinking about it and I was like, you know, what is an agent? And essentially an agent is like,

the bad cop to your good cop um you know because it's like you want to be chummy with your publisher and your editor and have fun conversations and talk about your favorite books but it's like if you're negotiating a contract and that contract's worth a lot of money and you don't want to get fucked over you need an agent who's going to come in and start being like you're fucking us over you're not going to do this you know i'm like

okay. Yeah. I want her on my team. Molly got the job. Yeah. I'm like, I want Molly to be my bad cop. Um, that's great. And she's, you know, and that's actually one thing I learned from my dad. Um, my dad, my dad taught me this great lesson. So my, as I mentioned, my dad has a small manufacturing business in, in Austin. And, um, I used to work summers there and it's,

It's like it's not glamorous. So you're you're basically in this giant warehouse shop making plastic in the Texas summer heat and getting paid not well. But, you know, it's one of those formative experiences when you're 18 that kind of sticks with you. But the cool thing about those experiences was that I would be on the shop floor all day, you know.

producing the plastic, hanging out with all these like blue collar, redneck Texas dudes. Yeah. Learning kind of like how a industrial company actually functions. And then I go have lunch with the president. And it was funny because so like the main supervisor of the shop floor was this guy named Ed. And everybody hated Ed, hated him. Like,

Everybody was always telling they're like don't talk to Ed. He's gonna ruin your day He's gonna fuck you over. He's gonna do this. He's gonna do that and After I've been there, this is like my first summer there I remember after I'd been there for a few weeks I've just heard all these horrible stories about Ed So I went to lunch with my dad and I was like, hey dad, I I gotta tell you something I don't I don't know if I should tell you this. He's like, what's that? Like man, everybody hates Ed and

Ed is the worst. And my dad just starts laughing. And he's like, really, what have you heard about him? And I started telling him some of the stories that I heard. And he's like, all right. He's like, let me tell you another story about Ed. I said, when I hired Ed, our quality control went up 40%. Productive output went up 20%. You know, he starts listing all these stats of just like Ed, just like complete game changer, made everything more efficient. And

And he was like, he's like, what do you think about that story? I'm like, well, yeah, but like, and he's like, look, Ed's an asshole, but sometimes it's good to work with assholes. And I remember like that lesson stuck with me a lot. Like there's a, I even wrote, I even wrote an article. I'm trying to remember what it was called. It was called like why it's important to be an asshole or something like that. And it was all about that. It was all about how like there are moments in your professional life where

Where it's, I call it the asshole switch. Like it's important to be able to like turn on an asshole switch. Yeah. And be like, okay, this is gonna be unpleasant for everybody, but we're all gonna be better off for it. Right. We're gonna have a very unpleasant interaction. I'm gonna call you out on some bullshit. We're gonna argue about it.

But it's going to make things get done and it's going to get done better because of it. And I think it's, as an individual, it's important to like be able to learn how to recognize those moments and flip that switch. But I also think in teams, like,

It's probably optimal to have an asshole on the team sometimes. It's true, actually, right? Yeah. Like, not everyone has to be your best friend. Yeah. You know? And, like, you learn that, like, with the agent situation, right? But I think because that Ed situation was so prevalent in your life, that's probably why you gravitated to Molly. You know, and I, like, one of my biggest values in life is honesty and trust.

And the great thing about Molly is I always know she's being honest. Yeah. And it's funny because I'm... You know where you stand. Always. Yeah. And it's funny because I'm... These days, I'm friends with a bunch of other authors who are really successful. And I've... Some of them have relationships with... Like, their agents basically just kiss their ass. Yeah. All the time. Tell them what they want to hear. And...

I know I can pick up the phone and call Molly and ask her a question and I'm going to get an honest answer. And it's like,

It might not be what I want to hear. And that's actually really, especially, and okay, kids, here's a lesson for you. The higher you get up the success mountain, the harder it is to find people who are going to be honest with you. Totally. And you see that now. I was going to say, you've seen that probably as you got more and more successful. Yeah, and seen it in others. And other people around you, because as you get more successful, you're probably, professional circle is getting more successful.

And you see that everyone just surrounds themselves with yes men. Yeah. And it's, and it's, I don't even think it's conscious. Like it's just, it's human. We like being told things that we want to hear. And so we become biased towards the people who will say the things we want to hear and we'll keep them around a little bit more. And, um, so true. How do you keep that like level of, um,

down to earthness as that, like, it sounds to me, is it because not you could be, you can use yourself as an example, but like, it is really hard. Right. Cause as you get more successful, as all this stuff is happening, it's, it's human nature that you gravitate to people who like make you feel nice and sweet and say nice things to you. Cause like you just, it just, it's what happens in human nature naturally. Yeah. How do you keep yourself like

on the ground and down to earth. I think it's a combination of two things, or there's two things that I do that I think is very helpful. One is just having very solid relationships with friends and family. Um, it's, you know, it's important to have people in your life that knew you before, you know, you were whatever. Um,

Who still see you that way. Right. Who don't think of you as a big deal. Yeah. Right. Like, it's funny. I brought, I brought my mom once to one of my events and, you know, afterwards I like, we were hanging out backstage afterwards and I was like, so what'd you think? Like, how was it? And she just, she was like, don't take this the wrong way, but.

That's really fucking weird. But that's good. It's good. Yeah, it's totally good. It's amazing. Did you know your wife before you became... Oh, you did. Okay, that's good to know. Which is...

Also very helpful. So what year did you meet your wife? I met her 2012. So what's interesting to me also, because I see this myself, once people hit a peak, like a success peak, they get rid of those people, right? Yeah. And they marry someone else who's like, they like marry up or not like what I would think is up. Right? But what they see and perceive is like a status symbol for themselves. Yeah. You know what I mean? Which is so gross. It is. Well, it's interesting because-

So this is one of the things that I talk about in my dating book is that it's toxic to see most people, most people who have poor relationships, it's because they see relationships as status games. It's because they don't feel like they're something. It's more because of themselves. They're usually so insecure. They feel inadequate themselves. And so they, as a result, they see relationships in terms of like, I don't know,

Yeah, status. Scoring points on a scoreboard. And they're like, oh, well, she looks like this and has this background. So that makes her more, you know, a better catch than this other person, you know? And it's... It's 100%. And I see that happens almost always, by the way. A lot, yeah. It's not the exception at all. Yeah. And I mean, I think it's because usually that person... And if you get to know that person, you can see their deep-seated insecurities. And that's why they're doing that, right? Yeah, it's...

I always try to be aware with myself is that, you know,

It's more likely than not that this is going to go away at some point. Maybe it takes five years. Maybe it takes 25 years. But at some point, I'm just going to be a random dude. But you're never going to be a random dude. And I'll tell you why. Because you already had the success behind you to say you had this book. You had this movie that was made on your life and your book. Even if you don't have the, I guess, the very...

the success that is at that level at that moment, you still are successful because you had it already. Yeah, yeah. Does that make sense? Sure, but it's...

That's why you're a bad example. Let me keep telling myself that. Okay, okay, okay, go ahead. It's very important for you. You asked how I keep myself grounded. Okay, good, go ahead. But I do think it is important to like keep that awareness that this, it could go like. Because I'm sure girls, you meet girls all the time. Yeah, it's. But you're not as forefront. I know you're not like in the front as much as you would be. But the movie. Well, yeah. I mean. We'll see, we'll see. Yeah.

I try to keep that awareness in mind that this is likely temporary. And I'm sure we're gonna talk about Will Smith at some point, but Will-- - I was gonna go right into it. - Okay, so Will's grandmother has a fantastic line in the book.

Let me just say something because I don't know if people know, but Mark wrote Will's huge biography, autobiography called Will. I don't think most, I don't think, does everyone know that? I don't think it's like common knowledge that it was you who wrote that with him. Yeah. I mean, it's,

If you open the title page, my name is there in a much smaller font. For people who read the book, he's not exactly a beloved person these days, right? No, no, it's complicated with him. But you said his grandmother would say. So when he first went on his first tour, so a lot of people don't know, he was a hip hop star in the 80s before he was an actor. Doesn't everybody know that?

Not our age, I think so. Okay. Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Yeah, but it's, yeah, a lot of kids don't know that. I've been surprised how many people were like, wait, he was a hip hop star? Like, yeah. Oh, okay. Won the first hip hop Grammy ever. Really? Yeah.

Fun fact. Fun fact. Okay. So anyway, when he went on his first tour ever, as he was getting on the tour bus, his grandmother told him, she said, be nice to everybody you meet on the way up because you might have to meet them again on your way back down. That is a great line. Yeah.

I like that. That's a really, I love that line. There's a lot of wisdom in that. There's a lot of wisdom in that. What I was going to say just to finish what I was going to say earlier is that like you may not have relevance in that particular moment later on in life. It was a relevance, but you'll always have had the success. Yeah. Yeah. Relevance and success are different in the moment, in that moment in time. Yeah. I think, I think what I mean is, um,

you know, the, the, the ego gratifying stuff, you know, being recognized or, you know, getting offered contracts to do movies or TV shows or whatever, like that, that will probably go away eventually one day. Um, but you're still young. I mean, you have a whole life, like you're going to have a huge, more hits, like things keep on like elevating for you. So, okay. So this, this kind of brings a full circle of like, I, um,

I feel like it's very important for my own sanity, but also my own creativity to constantly be aware that this is very temporary, that this is probably not because I think it's by that constant awareness of knowing that this could be temporary and this might not last it. It, I don't know. It brings me like some degree of peace. Like I, I feel like if,

If I went, if I proceeded in my career with this expectation of like, no, this has to last, or I have to become even more famous now, like it would put so much pressure and expectation on myself. Totally. That I'd make myself miserable. Whereas if I'm like, okay, you know.

you happen to hop on the, this roller coaster here. You stumbled upon this. Yeah, like enjoy it. See where it goes. Enjoy the highs, enjoy the lows, whatever. But it's not going to last, right? So,

I'll keep on saying that with you then just to make you feel better. Thank you. You're welcome. This is my delusional negativity. But listen, it works for you, right? Because it keeps you honest. And I think that you have more peace because of it. Absolutely. Like that to me is what I noticed just from like the essence of you versus like,

you know, a lot of people I meet who are very famous and they have like, they, they got that, the, the, the partner that's way more elevated and famous and beautiful. And they're doing this. It's constantly like, it's searching for more and more and more. And they're so empty and lonely and sad inside. Yeah. You know, it's really sad. And like you see, I see it all. It's especially living in LA. It's like all you see here. You see it quite a bit here. It's like uncomfortable. And I have to say like,

Being a tourist in the film industry, it was a little bit shocking and off-putting. Yeah. The way I got treated in the film industry versus how I get treated in like my other professional relationships. Really? The amount of ass kissing, like almost like the anxiety that happens when you walk, when being the talent walks into the room. It actually reached a point, it got awkward at a certain point, like when we were making the film. Yeah.

you know, I'd be like, you know, we'd have like a little bit of food backstage or like offset or whatever. And, uh, wow, the sandwiches are really good today. You know? And it's like, we shoot another scene and then I come back 20 minutes later and it's like another tray of sandwiches is there. I'm like, I didn't need that. But, but, you know, there's some PA who's like, Oh my God, Mark said he likes the sandwiches. Gotta go get more sandwiches, you know? And, and it's, it, it actually, I'm really glad that the

the shooting only lasted about 10 days because, uh, I, I started getting uncomfortable. Like it, it, I became almost hyper aware of the things I was saying or doing around other people because I knew they were putting so much weight on my words and actions that like, if I made a joke that came out the wrong way or made a comment, you know, a snide comment about something that isn't really a big deal to me, but I'm just kind of making a comment. Like,

I don't know, it was just like everything was being blown out of proportion. Totally. And it made me think, I'm like, God, like I don't even know how, like if you're like Tom Cruise or somebody like, how the fuck do you live? How do you live? That's why, like I was going to say, like how do you live when you're actually like a real, like I'm going to ask you about Will in a second. Yeah. Because it's so awkward and off-putting. Like when I first moved here, I was an assistant at a place called 3Arts. It's like a management company because it was like,

I was like really super young. And at the time, I'm sure you remember those jobs still is super coveted. Like these assistant jobs for these like top agents and like managers and bullshit like that. And I literally lasted seven days. I could not do the job.

because of the bullshit that was around. I could not stand it. Everyone's kissing each other's ass. Like I couldn't like the, the kind of messages that we were getting from the agents of how to like deal with the clients. Yeah. Like doing this shit. Like we would have these people, I'm not going to mention her name. She'd call and she'd be like, um,

can you order flowers? I have to do this thing. And I would be like, and I'm, I'm Canadian. I just moved from Canada at the time. I'm like, well, why are you calling me to order the flowers? Like you could have just called the florist. Like I couldn't, I didn't understand the kind of like nonsense that really goes on. And I saw it in six days. I was like, Oh my God, this is such bullshit. How to live in that world is so awful. Yeah. It's like not, it's not for, it's not for, for me, but anyway,

okay, I just wanted to kind of like to put my little two cents in. Cause I, and I've been around a lot of these people and it's uncomfortable for me to even watch how people deal with them and like how they have to like, no wonder they're all, so many of these people are anxious and nervous and like hyper aware. And like, because they have like everyone's staring at you 24 hours a day. Yep. It's crazy. Yeah.

So to bring it to Will. How did you even get to the place where it was like, hey, Will Smith wants to write a book? Like, how did that even happen? Well, it's interesting. So I think to kind of answer our own question here, what I learned, what I noticed rather about Will and the people around him after spending a couple years around everybody, there's like layers to an onion, you know? Yeah.

If you're a random person off the street or somebody that he's meeting just very casually in a professional situation, you know, a PA on set or an assistant in a meeting or something like that, there's a certain kind of, you get like celebrity version of will, right? So he's, he's going to be very friendly and charming, but it's going to be very impersonal. You know, it's, it's an interaction that he has a thousand times a day. Anytime he goes out in public, people recognize him, scream, you know, they're fans, whatever. Um,

That's kind of the outer layer. If you get to a place where it's like, okay, you're a person that he's going to see and work with repeatedly, there's a little bit more comfort there and a little bit more authenticity. He'll open up a little bit. But it was funny actually working on the book with him. I honestly feel like it took maybe three or four months before I

I even started getting like actual real material. And I, at the time I found it kind of frustrating and I thought it was him. You know, I'm like, wow, it's kind of hard to get him off autopilot. He's done so many interviews throughout his career. But then I realized, I was like, you know, it's,

I think it's more that I, in hindsight, I think it's, I had to kind of earn my way in, you know, it's like I had, I had to stick around for three or four months and show that I was trustworthy, that I wasn't gonna, you know, that I was reliable, that I got along with his team, that, you know, his family members liked me, um, before he'd kind of go to that next level. Well,

What is the next level? The next level is, I think, probably the first level that it's actually him. Yeah, right. That you're interacting with. Which is what, though? Because I don't believe that he's like that affable, hey, look at me. Like, we saw that already would happen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, a lot of times when people have that, like. He's a complex individual like anybody. You know, for me, it took, yeah, I'd say maybe the fifth or sixth trip I did with him.

First of all, it took, I think, probably four trips for me to just end up in a room with him one-on-one for more than 10 minutes. There are always people around. Who's around? Who are the people? Personal assistants, managers, family members. That dude works so hard. His schedule is so packed with so many people.

Even if he's doing a movie on off days, he's doing some sort of ad thing for something in Japan. And he's got a meeting for a charity. He's meeting kids at a local university for some charity that he's doing a thing for. Like there's always something, always. There's meetings. Is it, like give me a day in the life of what happened. It's hard to pick, like, well, I think it's hard to,

It's hard to give like a typical day. I'd say that there's two different ones. You know, if he's on, if he's making a movie, it's very different than when he's not, when he's making a movie, it's the movies, the full focus. And the rest of us are just trying to fit ourselves into like, he's got two hours off here. He's got an hour here. Um, but it's, those situations are hard. It actually got to the point, you know, by the second year I worked with him, I kind of told his manager, um,

like the manager who's of the book project, I told her, I was like, look, like if he's on set, it's not even worth me coming because he's, even if I do get FaceTime with him, he's so distracted and like, we're not getting high quality time. We're getting interrupted constantly that it's really not worth me being here. Um, so yeah, when he's, when he's doing a film, it's like, it's full on 12 hour days, 14 hour days, super intense meetings all the time. Um,

When he's not doing a film, it's a lot more free-flowing. It's more fun. Like he's got a pretty – I'm not going to surprise you. He's got a pretty awesome life. Really? You know, so, you know, there will be – he'll be hanging out at home for a few days and then he'll have – there will be some event in like France that he's emceeing or appearing at. So he'll fly to France and then he'll spend a week there. He'll do –

Maybe a couple events there and maybe bring one of his kids out and hang out on a yacht for a couple days and then he'll go to Miami for a week and...

It's all very like kind of seat of your pants. Fluid. Yeah. It seems fluid. Like, yeah, it's very fluid. There's always something going on everywhere he goes. There's somebody wants something. So, um, and where did you fit in? Like, how did you have to like have a, how do you have a life if you have to work around his life? Great question. Um, you know, it worked well because I'm very, uh,

Like chaos a little bit, you know, I'm not super structured in my life You're malleable, I'm very malleable. I'm not I'm not huge on routines so

So like habits and hustles, not really. I mean the hustle for sure. Habits I'm working on. Yeah. You got the first part. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so it, you know, it, they, it's funny cause a couple of people on this team told me really early on, they're like, if this is going to work, you need to be flexible. Um, cause it's, there's crazy stuff. Schedules get interrupted. I mean, there were times like I got flown, I would get flown out. There was one time I got flown to Atlanta, uh,

And I basically just sat in a hotel for three days and they're like, yeah, he doesn't have time. And then, you know, got sent back to New York. So it's... So what do you do? Do you have to sit there and wait for him? Or can you go and work out? Can you go for lunch? Can you go for whatever? Yeah, I mean, it's... But if they call you, you got to come right back. Yeah, it's... You're kind of on call, basically. And look, it's not the worst thing in the world. Like they put...

Put me up in the St. Regis and I'm like ordering room service. Right, right, right. You're not at the Doubletree, you know, like waiting for, you know. So I'm being taken care of. Right. And at that point, I was working on my other book. So I was actually...

perfectly happy to sit in a hotel room and write for 10 hours a day, um, with no other obligations. So, you know, it's just, I had to learn how to be very flexible. The biggest thing for me was to learn how to not take things personally, because especially being around such a prominent person, um, early on, like, so this is a funny story. Um,

So the first time I wrote anything for him, which anybody who's a writer or an author has published anything, like you know the insecurity that comes with writing something. So he and I had had, I think, a few meetings, and there was one story that he and I both really liked, and it's...

I decided, I was like, I'm just going to write up this story, like two or three pages. And I'm going to try to write it sounding like him. It was kind of my first shot at sounding like Will. And so I wrote this up and flew out to meet him. He was shooting a movie. Where? In Columbia, actually. You just flew to Columbia? Yeah. Okay. Cartagena, yeah. Yeah, okay.

So go meet him on set. I'm like, hey, you know, so I wrote this thing. At this point, it's still early in the process. So I don't realize how insane his schedule is and how unavailable both physically and mentally he is when he's on set at a film. So I'm like super excited. I'm like, hey, man, I wrote this thing. I want you to check it out. And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, leave it, leave it, leave it here in the hotel room. I'll check it out, you know, next time I get a break. I'm like, okay, cool. I'm like, leave it.

leave it on the desk in the room and he goes back to film set and i like go to lunch or whatever and and it's i think shooting's gonna break at like 2 p.m so that's when he's gonna read it and so i'm like looking at my watch i'm like super nervous like oh god i hope he likes it um i'd shown it to his manager his manager loved it she was like it's great don't worry he's gonna love it like okay cool so two o'clock comes around he goes back to his hotel room like all right

you know, waiting any minute. I'm like literally just sitting in the lobby. Like, all right, any minute now I'm going to like get called up there. We're going to start talking about it. Two 30 comes three o'clock comes by this point. I'm like freaking out. I'm like, Oh my God. You know, it doesn't take an hour to read three pages. Like,

There's a problem here. He's not happy. I'm going to get fired. Like this is shit's going to hit the fan. You know, I'm like pacing in circles. I'm like, oh God, like, well, it was fun while it lasted. All this stuff, you know, uh, three 30s, still nothing from him. Finally, it's like four o'clock. He comes out of his room, goes back to set. And, uh, and then his manager comes out and I'm like, what happened? Like,

She's like, what do you mean what happened? I'm like, well, I left the pages for Will. Like, it's like...

I don't know. I didn't hear from him. Like, what, what did something go wrong? And she's like, she's like started laughing. She's like, no, he took a nap. Like he didn't read anything. I'm like, Oh God. I'm freaking out the whole afternoon. I told her, I was like, I've been, I've been pacing in the lobby for two hours. Cause I'm thinking that he's like reading. And she just started laughing. And she's like, he was up till 5.00 AM shooting last night. Like he hasn't slept.

She's like, it's not you. And I'm like, oh, okay. Okay, exactly. That is really funny. When you first read your stuff, did you like it though? Yeah, it went great. It went great. There was no problem. Yeah, yeah. Honestly, his and I working relationship was fantastic. When you saw him. How often did you see him? Yeah, the problem was getting FaceTime. That was honestly the biggest challenge of that entire project. He and I, we got along really well personally. Yeah.

We got, we meshed really well professionally. I think our skills complimented each other really well. Like it's the, I'm very good at like theme and structure and outlines and understanding like, okay, this chat, this idea should come after this idea. Whereas I really struggled to sound like him on the page. Whereas he was great. Like you could, I could go to him and I'd be like, hey,

write that story you told me yesterday. Like, can you write like a one pager in your own words? And he could write it and it would be great. Like it would be fantastic. And I could literally just copy and paste that into what I was working on. Yeah. So the, what we ended up with was I, you know, we did the outline together and then I did the first draft and then he went through and kind of revised his own

Stories in essence. His own style and language onto it and added little details and things like that. So he like embellished it, you know, kind of the way I thought about it was like if we're building a house, it's like I laid the foundation and-

built the framing and then he went through and like painted it and decorated it. Right. Put like, yeah, exactly. Put his touches on it. Yeah. But did you, like how often, like how many times did you actually see? And were you seeing him for big chunks of time? Was it like five hours? Cause you need to get the story done. You need to get like the nuances. It took a while to kind of, so early on it was, they would just kind of fly me out to tag along with him randomly. Yeah. And that was useful for maybe like,

two trips right but once it's two years you said of your life doing this right yeah well i worked with him on and off so we started in 2018 and the book came out end of 21 so it was it was three it was a three-year project um

Yeah, that first year, it was a lot of just kind of tag along, which I think there was some utility in that just because it's such a foreign world. I used to call it willy world because it's like you're in an alternate reality when you're around somebody that famous. Like the security, like they come in and out of hotels in ways that you didn't know you could. Like, I mean, how? Yeah.

So I didn't realize this, but pretty much every five-star hotel, every high-end restaurant, every airport, major airport, there are secret entrances. Yeah, the back doors and stuff like that, right? Yeah.

Drives us to a restaurant lets us out in an alley. They open the back door. We walk through the kitchen and then there's a secret dining room that

And this is a restaurant that I had been to multiple times and I had no idea there was a secret dining room. There's a secret dining room? There's secret, so like high-end restaurants will have secret dining rooms for celebrities, politicians, heads of state, things like that. They go to the kitchen, yeah. I see that in the movies all the time. That's real. Yeah, it is real. And then at the hotels, are they going through the back entrance? Like people see you in the lobby, don't they walking through? So what they would do is they'd bring him in through the service entrance.

Like so the same place that they like deliver the laundry. Yeah. Like that's where celebrities go in. So you go in through the service elevator. They take you up to whatever your floor is. And then they've already got security on that floor to escort you to the room. So yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy. Like your whole life is different. Whole life. Whole life is like that. It's strange. It's also really exciting and fun. Yeah, I was going to say. I kind of miss it a little bit. Did you like it? Yeah, like I loved it.

being attached to it like i love that it wasn't my life right but you could be like the like the outside or kind of perched in for a few days yeah like that's why i called it willie world like i used to tell you know when they would call i used to tell my mom by my wife i'd say uh you know i'm gonna go visit willie world for you know i'll be gone for a week probably maybe longer and is he nice so like how how many how big is great he is nice did you see any like

Like anger, like obviously he's got like some deep anger issues, right? You didn't see any of that? Uh, no. I mean, so it's interesting. His, his Achilles heel is, and we talked about this in the book, his Achilles heel is the women in his life. He feels very, he feels an irrational level of protection towards Jada, towards Willow and towards his mom.

Um, and actually comes from his mom. So his, his, his, he, he came, his father was a very violent alcoholic, um, used to beat the shit out of his mom all the time. And Will was the oldest child. And so Will felt like it was his responsibility to intervene or help or do something to stop it. And he never could. Um, I remember him talking to Oprah about that actually. Yeah. And it, it,

It's really, it's interesting because it's, that came up, that story actually came up pretty early in our interviews. And it was funny because as soon as it came up, I was like, wow, that's like a defining component of your personality. Like that should, we should open the book with that. And he was like, really? Like, yeah.

He's like and you did didn't you? Yeah. Yeah, we did. He was he was like wow It's like a really dark thing though. And I was like, yeah, but that is Like the whole arc of who your development over your whole life has been that it's like you are the scared nine-year-old boy failing to protect his mother um in like all of the struggles you've gone through throughout your life or just You playing that out that conflict over and over again and um

So yeah, it's funny. Like if there's one thing that could set him off, it would be.

attacking one of the women in his life. Like it's a very irrational trauma based thing. He didn't get attacked. I mean, Chris Rock hardly attacked her by saying something about the bald head or something about Propecia. I don't know. Whatever. But did he seem like a good dad? Was he nice with his kids? Did you spend time with her too? Yeah, I spent time with everybody. Were they all traveling with him or did they all travel? They come in and out. So he's on the road all the time. And so...

you know, Willow or Trey would travel with him for a week or two. Jada would come out for a week, you know, and then he'd go home for a few weeks or a month. Like they're all very, you know, and they all have their own careers too. So everybody's pretty transient. Yeah. They're all a little bit like nomadic, but they, they convene in a lot of places together. So I like, you never saw him lose his temper or anything like that. No, but see, it's one of those things that, uh,

He probably should lose his temper more often because if he did, then this wouldn't happen. Exactly. Yeah. You know, he's, he's one of those people. It's, it's like he, it's like chronic nice person syndrome. Like, cause he is, is he nice to people? He's unbelievably nice. He's unbelievably nice. And it's, it's funny. Like when I was, so when you hang around somebody that famous, um,

you spend a lot of time waiting and idling cars in hotel lobbies. And the only people around you are the security guys. And so I got to know a lot of his security guys. And it's a fascinating industry because all those guys, you know, they've all worked for other celebrities. They've all worked for like heads of state and things like that. So

And they don't share stories, but like, you know that they've seen some shit. And I remember I was talking to like one of the security guys and he had actually been head of security for Madonna for like 20 years. And I was like, dude, you must have seen some shit. And he was like, you can't even imagine. He was like, I can't talk about it, but man...

If you ever wanted to write a book about some stuff, Lee's like, I've got some stories. Right, right, for sure. But he asked me, I remember he asked me, he said, he's like, have you done a lot of celebrity books? I said, no, actually, this is the first one. He's like, you've never worked with a celebrity before. I was like, no, Will's the first one. And he looked at me and he said, you got the best one.

Really? He is... This is why... So I came out and like after the whole slap thing, a lot of my readers got kind of upset and got angry emails of like, you know, I thought you said he was a good guy and I can't trust you anymore because how could you work with something? It's like, yeah, whatever. Go fuck yourself. So I wrote a piece and one of the things I said is I was like, look, like we all do stupid things and make mistakes, but like...

you know, the level, his level of like genuine kindness and generosity. Um, first of all, it's, it's really remarkable. And he does it even when nobody's looking like it's. That's what I was trying to ask you. Even when nobody's there, when nobody, like there are things that nobody knows about that he's done that are absolutely incredible. Like it's honestly, it was very inspiring for me personally. Yeah.

Yeah, he made me want to be a better professional. Really? Yeah. Like the things I learned from him, you know, the book is primarily about his personal life. But I told him at one point, I was like, dude, these last two years have been like a master class on like how to be a professional in an entertainment industry. Like it's, he's...

He's great. That's amazing. I mean, also based on like what happened, have you spoken to him since that whole thing? A little bit, a little bit. Do you guys text each other, call each other? Cause he's so busy. I mean. Yeah. It's text. You're never going to get him on the phone. Um, yeah, we, we texted a little bit after it, you know, we went back and forth a few times and had some conversations, you know, I was very vocally supportive of him. And I think, um,

I mean, I don't know. I wasn't keeping up with it, but maybe I was like one of the only ones. So he reached out and thanked me and we talked about it. Oh, we did? Yeah. Yeah.

Isn't it funny? Life is so relative, right? Like you are with him, like the people don't know who you are because he's so big, right? But like you and yourself is very much like in your world, you're a celebrity, right? You go to his world, they're like, who are you? Like what books have you written for? Like they don't even know about like what you've done. You know what I mean? Is that funny how like life works like that? Yeah. Yeah. It's, yeah. Yeah. It's strange. It's really strange. And it, I think it was funny.

You know, I grew up watching him. So... That's right. That's what I'm saying. Like, he's like an icon for people like us. Right? Like, for us, I mean, I remember, like...

He he like epitomized like he was a star like from like the hip-hop days to like Muhammad Ali like he's There's no one really bigger than him really in that world. Yeah, I mean there's a Madonna a few people on the same level Yeah, I mean, but no one yeah, I don't think you get more famous than him Do you think his career now is ruined though because of what happened? I don't think it's ruined so I think the interesting thing about

So I think people are going to say it was ruined, but I don't think the slap ruined it. There's kind of an unspoken truth out here in Hollywood. Maybe people here in LA are more aware of it. Maybe not. But, you know, the film industry, star power has been in decline for well over a decade at this point. Because of social media, probably. Social media. People are, you know, it used to be when we were young, you know,

You'd go see the new Will Smith movie. You'd go see the new Tom Cruise movie. You'd go see the new Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. It didn't really matter what the movie was. It was like, oh, it's Arnold Schwarzenegger. So of course I'm going to go see it. That's changed. That doesn't exist anymore. Now people go see franchises. They go see the new Marvel movie or the new Star Wars movie. That's exactly it. There's no mystery. There's no level of mystery in people's lives anymore. That's why. And there's no...

you know, the, the celebrity themselves is not the, the, the focal point. That's not what people get attached to. So I think there's already been a pretty steady decline of star power for a long time. And will, and his people have been very aware of that. Um, and actually will was kind of one of the last holdouts. He was like one of the last celebrities that could still get a good turnout to, to movie theaters. Um,

So I think it's... That's true, actually. Yeah. Now that you think about it. I think about it. Even The Rock, who always had like a big movie, the last movie bombed, I heard. Yeah, it's... Which is not very rare for that. Well, and what I've heard too is that post-pandemic, it's like, you know, that whole industry is...

in complete chaos. Nobody knows what works anymore. I think the new Top Gun movie is the outlier. That is the only outlier. Yeah. But everything else is just kind of like, everything's falling flat. Nobody knows what works. So I think in terms of being an A-list Hollywood celebrity, that decline is probably going to continue, and it'll probably be blamed on the slap

post hoc, but I don't think that's what caused it. I think it's just times are changing. Yeah. I mean, I guess that's true. It's just, he will work again though. I'm sure he'll do movies. He'll do,

Other stuff and people will like it and life will go on. Are you going to do any more celebrity books like that though? Have you been asked to do any more? Has that book, because that book sold exceptionally well, right? Yeah, it did really well. Up until this. I was going to say up until this lap.

I was going to say, I'm sorry, Mark. Don't you get paid based on the royalty? I got paid. Yeah, I'm sure you did. My check got written regardless, so I'm not... Did you get an upfront check? Didn't you get royalties also? Yeah, I got a piece of the advance. Oh, you did, yeah. And honestly, for him, that...

You know, book money for him is... She's not doing it for the money. It's chump change. Come on. I mean, give me a break. That guy needs money like I need a hole in his head. You know what I mean? Like, give me a break. But it is funny and kind of sad to see, like, the chart of book sales. Yeah. You can go on BookScan and see the chart. And it's like, you know, that last week in March, it just falls off a cliff. Oh, God. I think it was probably... I think it was...

It sold a million pretty fast in like a month or two. I think it was, it's pretty close to 2 million probably worldwide, which is still amazing. It's like your second book. Yeah. You still, you still basically though, like catapulted him by like 15 million now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's, it, I think, I think had the slap not happened, it probably would have been significantly higher. See personally, I would have wanted, I would want to read the book

more to know like what is inside of him. I'm so surprised. - That is the irony. Is that if people, and I wrote this in the piece that I put out as I was like, you know, if you people actually read the book, this would not surprise you. Like he had a long history in his teens and twenties of sucker punching people. Like he used to just walk up to people and punch them out of the blue.

That he had people he had problems with. And you wrote that in the book. There's a whole chapter about it. And, and he had to like learn why, you know, this is, this is, this is the thing at the end of the day. Right. It's like, I think we got spoiled. The guy, he, he was such a,

It was like such a perfect product of great PR for so many decades. So true. That we took him for granted. We started to think that that's actually who he is. Like we forgot. So true. He's a dude from West Philly who got in trouble for fighting. Like,

That's not fiction. 100%. That is who he is. But his image is a fresh prince. Yeah. No matter what happens, you know, like that is how people want to, because you, you, you, facts are not reality, right? I mean, facts are not your beliefs, right? So it's like what we want to believe to be true, no matter what the facts are. Yeah. Are you going to do it? So have you, so have you been asked? Yeah, I've been asked by a few other people. You know, it's not something I'm like actively looking for. Um,

I'm open to it. I think it would have to, again, it'd have to be like a very, very prominent person. Like who, who would be your ideal person to write a book for? Oh, I would write the shit out of Tom Brady's book. Oh, that would be a great one. I would love that. Yeah. I'm a big, big Tom Brady fan. Um,

Yeah, it'd have to be somebody like that. It'd have to be somebody that I really personally respect and admire. And then they'd also, you know, one of my, when I first met with Will, one of the first things I told him is I said, like, look, you know, for me to be on board with,

By the way, I'm going to clip that for Tom Brady's people. And I know them, so I'm going to send that to them. Are they talking to you already? No. No. No, but if you can hook that up. Maybe I'm going to. That would be a great one. The thing about Brady is I think it's, you know, well, anyway. No, no, no. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. I'm curious. So the thing about Brady I think would be incredible to kind of investigate.

Because everybody knows he's competitive and he's like works really hard. And like, so this is the thing. This is what I told Will when I first met with him is I said, the thing I'm asking myself, because obviously, you know, you're talented, you're famous, you're charismatic, whatever, you're smart, you're

You have to be all those things. What I'm looking for is like, what is the thing that you can say that nobody else can say or 99.99% of people can't say? Like, what's the, what is the absolutely unique thing? And for me with Will, it was, he actually has this unbelievable capability of, for resilience, for overcoming incredible amounts of hardship and

pushing himself through unbelievable amounts of struggle and pain and training and discipline um like his pain tolerance is the highest i've ever seen in an individual and that goes all the way back to his childhood yeah you know dealing with the family the home that he came out of like the rest of us would not come out of that home you know the way like as functional as he is so

you know, for me, that was when I found, when I, we tripped upon that with him, I was like, that's, that's gotta be the central thesis of the book. That's why it's called will. It's cause it's not just his name. It's like, it's, it's his, his will undying will to, to overcome everything. Um, Oh, I didn't even know that. That's great. Yeah. So it's, um, I think with Tom, the, the,

The thing that's remarkable about Tom is that everybody who's ever played with him says he's the best teammate they ever had. And I think there's such an opportunity to investigate, like, why is that? What does that look like? Because there have been a lot of huge stars in sports who have been total assholes, who have had drama and beefs with people.

Who have had left teammates and coaches with bad tastes in their mouth. Look at Michael Jordan, right? The best in the world. Yeah. Yeah. Undeniably the best. Undeniably. Also undeniably an asshole. Yeah. And, and so what I find really remarkable about Brady is that all of his teammates just have these like gushing, you know, when they, when they're asked about him, they just gush about him.

That's an interesting one. Yeah. So, yeah, it'd have to be somebody like that level and they'd have to be doing it for the right reasons. You know, it's it's I'm not interested in a PR campaign or whatever. It's like they need to be bought into it, like really care about it for the right reasons. Yeah.

Okay. So what else do you work? By the way, we start off, you're like, this is not going to be a three hour podcast, is it? I'm like, no, don't be ridiculous. No, just two and a half, two hours and 45 minutes. Okay. I'm sorry. What are you working on now that we, that people can, besides of course you have your movie. That is amazing that you've got a movie deal. I mean, nobody ever gets a movie deal. The fact that you have a movie deal and they're making a movie, the movie's out. Um,

Congratulations. Thank you. What else are you working on? So I'm actually...

This is so LA, but I'm, uh, you're opening up an era one. No, I'm just joking. Make it a yoga studio. Exactly. You're going to become a life coach and then teach yoga at night. Ayahuasca yoga on the beach. That's, that's what we're doing. Exactly. I forgot about that. Ayahuasca yoga. That's a great, that's a great hybrid actually. It's just, it's my, my calling. Um,

I love it. That's hilarious. Okay. Besides that. I'm actually hiring, um, in the process of hiring a video production team. So I've been asking myself a lot, like what, you know, coming back to personal development. Right. Let's get back to that. Right. It's at a certain point.

As a writer, it's hard to keep writing about these topics without repeating yourself. It's impossible. Yeah. It's like human anxiety doesn't change. Relationship problems don't change. 100% true. The same thing, the same advice that worked 10 years ago works today. It's going to work 10 years from now. Just packaging it. Exactly. So I think traditionally what happens to...

self-help authors in my position is that you kind of just end up rewriting the same book for like 30 years and cashing checks. Just calling it something else. Yeah. And I really don't want to do that. Like that doesn't feel...

It's not exciting. I'd rather like retire and go do something else. Right, right, right. You have such ethics though. It's pretty amazing actually. So I've been asking myself, the one thing that can change is the format of the advice. And some formats are more useful than others. So, you know, some people, the same way like some people learn, you know, video games.

visually better than reading or you know better through audio or whatever some people learn better through doing with coaching versus talking um i've been thinking about like what what sort of formats are possible uh with video and i've been really i've actually been really inspired with this this like younger generation of youtubers and some of the some of the creativity that's coming out with them um like mr beast and stuff have you seen his stuff yeah like mr beast and

air act. There's a guy named Ryan Trahan that does some really cool stuff. It's a lot of like kind of man on the street challenges, things like that. It's really, it's really remarkable. And I feel like there's a really great pivot from that because I love the content they're doing, but they're primarily like, you know, 24 year old dudes who've

Not to sound like an old person, but I haven't really lived life much yet. Well, this is what's happened, right? Exactly. How old is Mr. Beast? Like 23? He's 24. Yeah, 24. He's really young. So their content's extremely entertaining and it's really inventive. But as a 30-something-year-old watching it, I crave this depth that's not there. Mr. Beast did this video of a guy...

I think he spent like 100 days in a house. He couldn't leave the house for 100 days or something like that. And this guy was socially deprived. Like he had nobody to talk to. Wow. Like he had nothing to do for months. And I think if he succeeded, he got like half a million dollars or something. So it's going to put his kids through college. All these other things, yeah. It's going to have this incredible knock-on effect for his family. Can he watch TV? Yeah.

I don't remember like the exact rules or stupid, but the guy suffered. Like it was clear. Like, yeah. Socially. Yeah. Isolation. Cause like Mr. Beast would go like 15, 20 days between checking in on him. And you know, every time he came, the guy would be like, Oh my God. Oh my God. So good. You're here. Ah, so glad to be talking to somebody. Really? I'm going to Google that after. It's really fascinating from a psychological perspective. Um,

But it, I felt like it was such a missed opportunity because, you know, Mr. Beast would kind of just come check in and be like, oh, okay, that's weird. And then like leave, you know, he wouldn't, he like didn't investigate. Like what is, what's the mental process that's going on here? What is the emotional process? Like what are the emotional struggles? How are you feeling? It's been 20 days since you had a conversation. Like,

How has that affected you? Like, why don't we sit down and talk for like an hour and see, you know, obviously we'll, we're not a great idea. So I love this idea of kind of using this, this YouTube challenge format, but using it like more instead of like giving away more money or doing like blowing up crazier stuff, going deep with it. Right. Like, yeah. And, and,

Like, for instance, I think back to bring it full circle to the coaching, you know, it's like take people with social anxiety and there's all sorts of ways you can kind of coach them through social anxiety. You can take them out to a mall, try to get them to talk to strangers, things like that. But what if you tell them like, hey, I'll give you a thousand bucks for every stranger you talk to. And then you kind of like film them going through that process, dealing with the rationalizations, the defense mechanisms, the insecurities, you know,

Um, and kind of like chronicle that process because it's, it's what we don't like to admit is that incentive is probably the biggest lever for behavior change. You know, like, and also money incentive, by the way. Yeah. And it's been proven by the way that money is the biggest incentive. Like if you want to change a habit, put money on the line. Um, and so I look at Mr. Beast, I'm like, well, he's putting a shitload of money on the line and there's

And it's super entertaining, but it's like, what if you put that money on the line on, on like something a little bit more productive or like developmentally interesting, right? Like, like do a video of like, like one of the videos I want to do is find like a local gym around here and maybe take a group of like 10 people and be like, all right, if you show up at this gym at 5am every day for like the next two months and do a full workout, you're

And don't miss a single day. Like, I'll give you $10,000. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And then see the motivation. See them, like...

Because eventually there'll be that initial excitement, but a weekend, the motivation starts waning, the excuses start popping up. See who drops out, see why they drop out, interview them afterwards. That's a great idea. There's just so much to learn and glean from that. You haven't done it yet? Not one video? No, I'm currently...

So I've hired a few people and I'll probably hire a few more. So we're going to probably start production next month. So who do you need to hire? Not to sound like you know who, but who do you need to, you know what I'm talking, it's an inside joke. Um, so who do you need to hire to make this a reality for you? Um,

me and mark go way back on this page you can have lots of inside jokes here yeah the whole three hours yeah four hours um this is not going to be three hours the so this kind of reminds me by the way of the mr beast like stuck in the house for a hundred days you're stuck in this house for yeah there's there's a prize after this right oh

Sorry. There's a circle. It's progressively getting smaller. Oh my God. I'm sorry. Don't mean to laugh. I'm getting you ready from all the hours. Okay, go ahead. So who would you have? Oh, the team. Yeah. So this is part of the exciting thing for me. Like this is all new. Right. Did you think of this yourself? Was this your idea? Just okay. Yeah. I just, I became a fan of a lot of these, these YouTube guys and, and,

Love what they're doing, you know over like the last year, you know I really love what they're doing but then at the same time as and I think a lot of its age But I think a lot of it too is the background I come from the kind of the psychology and personal development I'm just like god. There's so much opportunity here Yeah, so much opportunity like Ryan Trey ended it did a whole video series of him he started with a penny on Venice Beach and he got all the way to the East Coast and

He like traded it for things. So he traded for a pen, then he took the pen, traded for a bottle of water, sold the bottle of water for $2, took that $2, bought two bottles of water, sold those like...

and managed to get himself- - Stop it. - All the way to the East Coast. It's like a 20 video series. It's incredible. It's like one of the best things I've watched in years. - He got from California to New York. - The East Coast. - No way, where? Like to New York or where did he go? - To Mr. Beast. - Okay. - But yeah, I think North Carolina. - On a penny. - On a penny. - Where did he sleep? - He bought a hammock.

On the way. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, he had like a whole strategy. He like managed to get a bike at some point, started doing DoorDash deliveries. With the penny. Started dog walking. Yeah. He like everything started from the penny and he like made it all the way there. And it's, it's such a cool series too, because it's a real, um,

Well, there's a few reasons. One is it's actually a very honest portrait of America. Yeah. So he goes from state to state and he interacts with dozens of strangers every single day. And he's basically asking them for things, asking them for favors, asking them to buy something, asking them for support, help. And you really just get this incredible sense of like,

Wow, 99% of people are really good. Like they're just good people everywhere that you never hear about and you never see. And so that in and of itself is really inspiring. But then there's also this other element of, you know, you...

You get to see it starts. It takes him a month and it starts wearing him down like he gets visibly exhausted. Yeah, for sure. Starts losing motivation. You know, at a certain point, I think his dad flies out and spends a day with him because he's just like destroyed. Wow. You know, so it's it's it's a really cool journey that you get to go on with him. And yeah, this it's a new format that like.

hasn't really existed before like you could never do that on television never never um that's a great that's amazing it's incredible and it's it's you know there's a there's a group of guys out here in venice uh another huge youtube channel called yes theory and it's funny because they i met them um they wanted to meet me to they wanted like some advice they were they they got a book deal and they were in new york and they were like hey can we like

Get lunch and like ask you for book advice and I get dozens of emails like that all the time And I was like, all right Who are these guys and I click on their link to their youtube channel and it's like six million subscribers And I start watching their videos and it's the most incredible fucking thing like they have a video where they go door to door saying uh If you could travel to one place in the world, where would you go? And the person like says a place and they're like, okay, let's go

And then they find a person and they take the person to like Africa. And like they actually do it. And that's the video. Like. Are you serious? Yeah. Like in the moment? Yes. In the moment. Like they're just like answering the door. And what happens if that person has a job, a life? Well, so most people turn it down because either they don't believe them or they're like, no, I've got. So they do it until someone says, OK, let's go. Yeah. And then they film it.

Yeah. It's so cool. It's so cool. Yeah. That's so cool. You could imagine a production studio's legal department. I can't even imagine. I can't even imagine. That's crazy. Yeah. And it's the other reason I'm really excited about this format. You know, one, it's, it's,

It's so new. It's so young. It's a new generation. We were talking earlier about the generational turnover. It reaches a new generation. It's fresh. It's fresh. It's a new challenge for me personally. And it's also just like I really, and this is the last thing I'm supposed to say as somebody who just made a movie. I've done a lot of projects in conventional media.

Overall, I'm very grateful. They've been great projects. But as somebody who came from the internet, blogging and scrappy, creating scrappy content, doing podcasts, I find it to be very old and stodgy. And I think this is the future. It is the future. And so I want to be a part of it. And so that's super exciting to me. It's like finding...

finding my my niche to fit into in that world that's incredible so but so who do you hire to help you do hire people you know like you hire people who are production people do you hire people to find these people to storytell with you like who do you hire so yeah i've i've i've hired a producer and i've hired an editor um it's kind of like the first two key hires and then who else do you need i'll probably need videographers i might need

more production people, depending on how crazy their productions get. Do you have a budget for this? Yeah, roughly. I have like a number that I'm willing to lose. Okay, okay. That's good. That's good. That's good. Can't you get someone to underwrite it, like a brand or a content? Yes. So I think the idea is to get a first handful of videos out

kind of proof of concept to ourselves first. Like, okay, this is something that we can scale and, and consistently make and then start going and looking at brands. I mean, I already have a YouTube channel. I get brand offers all the time. Yeah. But you have like what, like 700,000 or something on there? Yeah. Like 650. Yeah. Um, I did my research on you. Yeah, there you go. So it's, you know, they're the monetizations there. Like I'm not

I'm not worried about that. Not like you need to worry about the money. I'm not saying you did. Obviously, you don't have to. But I'm just saying like that, you know, is that just part of the plan? Like, because it would cost, I mean, Mr. Beast spends millions and millions of dollars. Which I think, and he actually, it's funny because when I first discovered him and went and watched all these videos, it was very interesting because it's like four years ago, he's

giving people like five thousand dollars and then a year later he's giving people like twenty five thousand dollars then a year later he's giving people a hundred thousand dollars and anyway it's worked out it's way up to like half a million yeah he's spending millions of dollars per video i heard all the money he makes he puts right into the production that's why and uh

But I think there's a diminishing returns to that. 100%. People, they don't respond any better to- 100K than 10K. Nope. It's just a lot of money. Exactly. It's just a lot of money. Exactly. That is amazing. So when is that launching, that whole project? Later this year. So we'll start initial shooting next month. So we're talking it's February. Start shooting in March. So probably start posting April or May.

Oh, wow. Soon. Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. I mean, it's one of those like, you know, timelines that... Right. It can move. It can move. What's the... There's a thing called Hofstadter's Law, which is every project takes twice as long as you expect it to, even when you account for Hofstadter's Law. Even when you account for that. That's a good one. I like that. Yeah. And by the way, I know this has been forever. It has. I mean, I feel... Well, I don't feel terrible, but I...

I feel kind of guilty because I'm like, oh, it won't be this long. But I really thoroughly enjoyed you being a guest on this podcast. Thank you. This has been great. Thank you so much. I mean, so people, if you have not read the book, of course, he's got a lot of books. Just go check out Mark Manson. That's your .com, right? MarkManson.net. .net? Yeah.

Oh. I have the same feeling. Oh my God. Do you also have like a Hotmail account? Wow. Or what are those? The other one? What's the other one? No, markmanson.com is owned by...

An old guy named Mark Manson and he won't give it to me. He's never had a website there. He's owned it since 1999. He's never had a webpage. I've offered him a lot of money. He won't take it. I've offered him Mr. Beast money and he won't take it.

Are you serious? I'm like literally waiting for this guy to die. Are you kidding me? To get my .com. And he's doing nothing with it. He's doing nothing with it. Well, that obviously hasn't hurt your business at all being on a .net. No. I mean, you are still the first Mark Manson that comes up when you Google. The SEO is there. Yeah, yeah. It's working. So that's good. It's working. Wow. Well, that's amazing. Thank you so much for being on this. I mean, thank you. That's all I can say. Go check him out. He's amazing. And he's even nicer in person. And go check out his movie, Universal Studios. Yeah. And that's it.

Bye.