The Psychology Of Not Giving A F*ck | Mark Manson

Mark Manson (0:00)

The information ecosystem has become completely fractured. There's kind of no shared source of truth among the population. And so a lot of how you perceive reality is now being dictated simply by, like, what information sources you choose to ingest.

Dr. Michael Gervais (0:16)

In a world where everything is competing for your attention, how do you decide what actually deserves it?

Mark Manson (0:21)

We are human beings. It is natural for us to compare ourselves to others, but we evolved in small tribes and small communities. So that comparison mechanism in our brain is very much designed to compare yourself to, say, the two or three dozen people around you, not the 300 million people on Instagram.

Dr. Michael Gervais (0:38)

Welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast, where we dive into the minds of the world's greatest thinkers and doers. I am your host, Dr. Michael Gervais.

SPEAKER_3 (0:46)

A high-performance psychologist named Michael Gervais.

Dr. Michael Gervais (0:49)

Who head coach Mike McDonald and former head coach Pete Carroll brought in to work with the Seahawks.

SPEAKER_3 (0:53)

Famous for his work with Felix Baumgartner when he jumped out of space in the Stratos Project.

SPEAKER_4 (0:58)

Olympic athletes depend on something more than just training and talent.

Mark Manson (1:01)

They have to stay mentally tough.

Dr. Michael Gervais (1:04)

Today's guest is Mark Manson, best-selling author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*** and Everything is F***. Whose work has challenged millions of people to rethink what they care about and why.

Mark Manson (1:15)

If you were adopting a value because some guy with a book or a big Facebook page told you to adopt that value, that kind of undermines the whole reason to value that thing. Like the whole point of this process is to figure out what you care about yourself. For no other reason than it is important to you.

Dr. Michael Gervais (1:30)

In this conversation, we explore a world where it's harder than ever to know what's real, what matters and what's worth your attention.

Mark Manson (1:37)

What is most upsetting to most people isn't necessarily that mistakes are made or a new story has gotten wrong. The problem is the insincerity of it. Finding out a story was spiked and portrayed wrong intentionally to nudge an election or to skew the population into thinking this. That's where people have gotten very cynical.

Dr. Michael Gervais (1:56)

With that, let's jump into this week's conversation with Mark Manson. Mark, last time we connected was in the middle of COVID.

Mark Manson (2:10)

Good times, great, great memories. All right, geez.

Dr. Michael Gervais (2:16)

You know, two, one, I love the humor, and the second is like, it's been too long.

Mark Manson (2:21)

Yeah.

Dr. Michael Gervais (2:21)

Like, I love how you think, I love how you operate, and it's been too long, so I'm really stoked to sit down with you.

Mark Manson (2:26)

Thanks, man. It's good to be back. It's good to be here in the flesh. And, you know, not quarantined with like a hazmat suit.

Dr. Michael Gervais (2:33)

So, times then were strange. We were trying to figure it out. It feels like times are strange now. There's a geopolitical intensity.

There's just a lot happening, you know, at the time of marking this, like, are we at war? Are we not at war? I'm not sure. It feels like it. And I say that because I don't trust the signals that I'm getting. I don't know really what's happening in the Middle East, but I'm uncomfortable with the whole thing.

Mark Manson (2:58)

Why did you ask? Because, no, actually, I have no idea either.

Dr. Michael Gervais (3:01)

Yeah, you gotta give me the answers to the whole thing. Perfect. Okay, good. So what is your take on what's happening now? Like, how's it going?

Mark Manson (3:08)

You know, it's funny, every time I hear somebody say something like that, like, times are so weird right now, my knee-jerk thought in my head is always, point me to a time where they weren't strange.

Dr. Michael Gervais (3:19)

The dark ages.

Mark Manson (3:20)

Yeah, where they didn't feel strange.

Dr. Michael Gervais (3:22)

Yeah, right.

Mark Manson (3:22)

You know, because you can go back decade by decade by decade, and every single decade, people were freaking out over something, and there was some sort of grand uncertainty that was happening. And it's just funny because it's a little bit of a perceptual bias in that we can sit here today and look back at the 90s, and the 90s seemed so calm and so simple, or the 80s, and the 80s seemed so, like, logical and reasonable, and like, oh, we totally understand why that all happened. But at the time, nobody knew, you know. It's just the flavor of uncertainty, like, morphs and shifts.