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

**Shaan Puri** (0:00)
Andrew Tate is what men with no self-esteem think high self-esteem looks like. Unpack that a little bit.

**Mark Manson** (0:05)
So it's funny watching the rise of Tate, because he's a copy and paste of...

**Shaan Puri** (0:10)
20 million plus copies sold. The champion, the no-fucks champion. Official title, I think. Mark Manson, welcome.
Welcome to the pod.

**Mark Manson** (0:18)
When Subtle Art came out, and it blew up, and it was at the top of all the bestseller lists and stuff, everybody in the publishing industry were like, oh, you're the new Denom debuted author, overnight success, and all this. I'm like, overnight success? I've been grinding on a blog for 10 years. What do you mean, overnight success?

**Shaan Puri** (0:35)
Were you good at the beginning, or did you suck?

**Sam Parr** (0:37)
No, dude, I was a fucking disaster.

**Mark Manson** (0:39)
I was a total disaster.

**Shaan Puri** (0:43)
You obviously became a great writer, but I want to talk about what you're doing now, which is the YouTube video, or the YouTube channel, and is that the main thing?

**Mark Manson** (0:50)
When I saw Mr. Beast, a light bulb went off. I was like, I love Mr. Beast, and I've been watching his shit for a long time, but one of my frustrations with him is that it's all very...

**Shaan Puri** (1:13)
Intro to the camera here. We got three-time New York Times Best Seller, I believe. We have 20 million plus copies sold, the champion, the no-fucks champion, official title, I think.
Mark Manson, welcome.

**Mark Manson** (1:31)
Good to be here.

**Shaan Puri** (1:32)
Been a fan for a while, although I got to admit, I read a ton of your blogs and I didn't read the book until, and I said I've actually finished the book, but until we booked this interview, I was like, I should probably go ahead and read the actual book that he's most famous for. But there's something to like the fun of like, oh, I liked his old shit, you know, like the cool band thing.

**Mark Manson** (1:53)
I was a fan before he was cool. Yeah, that whole thing.

**Shaan Puri** (1:56)
Yeah. I was going to ask, so when I was writing that intro, I was like, this is pretty great, pretty impressive.

**Mark Manson** (2:01)
Yeah.

**Shaan Puri** (2:02)
But I always wondered this, like when you were younger, like let's say a researcher was watching you when you were like, I don't know, between the ages of 10 and 20, would it have been noticeable that you approached things a little different even when you were younger?

**Mark Manson** (2:17)
I was definitely different when I was young, for sure. I don't think it would have been obvious that I would, I was going to end up an author or in the personal development industry or whatever. But you know, my whole life, my teachers were like, Mark's different, he's special. We wish he would do his homework. We wish he would stay awake in class.
But he could do great things one day. Like that was kind of the constant refrain throughout my childhood.

**Shaan Puri** (2:44)
Because you just weren't interested in school or what was the situation?

**Mark Manson** (2:47)
Yeah, I was bored and I would just, whatever I was into, that's just kind of what I, like I used to bring poker books to class and read them in the middle of like physics class and my teachers would get mad at me. I'm like, well, I'm just like studying poker.

**Shaan Puri** (3:01)
Were you big into like, during like the Chris Moneymaker phase basically?

**Mark Manson** (3:06)
Oh yeah.

**Shaan Puri** (3:09)
Did you ever like go all in on it?

**Mark Manson** (3:12)
I tried, so it's funny, early on in college, I decided to sit down and take it really seriously. I made a few thousand bucks, which when you're like 19 or 20, it's massive, right? I'm like, oh my God, I can pay rent all summer off my poker winnings.
And then I hit my-

**Shaan Puri** (3:27)
You were in college?

**Mark Manson** (3:28)
Yeah.

**Shaan Puri** (3:29)
So you're paying like 20 grand for school, but ignoring school to make $300 in a sit and go?

**Mark Manson** (3:33)
Exactly. I stayed up till 5 a.m. Like, I made 200 bucks last night. Right. And then I hit my first big downswing and lost like half my bankroll in like maybe three days, four days. Right. And I was like, oh shit, I don't think I can pay rent this month. You know, I'm like, this kind of sucks, actually.