Full transcript
0:00This is over 20 years of therapy
0:02summarized in the next 10 to 15 minutes.
0:04My name is Mark Manson. I'm a number one
0:06New York Times best-selling author, and
0:07for the last 15 years I've been teaching
0:09millions of people practical
0:10psychological tips to help them improve
0:12their lives. And when you go to therapy,
0:14no matter what you go for, the first and
0:16most important lesson that has to get
0:18drilled into your brain is that nobody
0:20is coming to save you. And in fact, the
0:22fantasy of being rescued is itself the
0:25thing keeping you stuck. It's a way of
0:27outsourcing responsibility while still
0:29feeling noble and justified in your
0:32suffering. The most dangerous version of
0:34someone is going to save me is when you
0:36disguise it as a plan. Once I get the
0:38promotion, once I find the right
0:39relationship, once I move cities, then
0:42I'll finally be okay. Then things are
0:44going to start to go well.
0:45>> [music]
0:45>> Meanwhile, every year you spend waiting
0:47for the right mentor, partner, or
0:49opportunity is a year that you
0:50volunteered to stay exactly where you
0:52are. Self-reliance is not some rugged
0:55individualism cliché. It's the moment
0:57you realize that even the people who
0:59love you will never want your life more
1:01than you do. Now imagine how much the
1:04people who don't love you give a [ __ ]
1:06That's right. They don't. The second
1:08lesson you learn in therapy is that not
1:10all of your problems are supposed to be
1:12fixed. You just learn to live despite
1:14some of them. We've been sold this idea
1:16that healing means arriving at some
1:18pristine emotional state where nothing
1:20hurts you anymore. But that's not
1:23healing. That's just denial with a
1:25[ __ ] fairy tale ending. The truth is
1:27that problems never really go away in
1:29life. They simply get upgraded for
1:31slightly better problems. And that's
1:33actually what growth is. That's what
1:35improvement is. Going from one problem
1:37to another slightly less shitty problem.
1:39The people who seem like they have it
1:40together haven't solved more problems
1:42than you. They've just stopped demanding
1:44that every problem be solvable. This is
1:47particularly problematic in the
1:48self-help industry because what happens
1:50is that as soon as people start learning
1:52how to heal and solve some of their
1:54problems, they become almost addicted to
1:56it. They almost go searching for more
1:58problems that they can solve. They
2:00almost look forward to having a crisis
2:02that they can bring to a coach or a
2:04therapist. And ironically, this
2:06obsessive desire to improve everything
2:08can hold you back just as much as not
2:11wanting to improve at all. See, there's
2:12a strange piece that comes when you stop
2:14fighting something and just let it sit
2:16there. And what you discover is that
2:18most of the suffering was your
2:20resistance to the pain, not the pain
2:22itself. Another big lesson that you will
2:24learn is that you are not afraid of
2:26failure. You're just afraid of being
2:28seen failing. And those are two very
2:30different things. Because ask yourself,
2:32if you could fail with total anonymity,
2:34with zero witnesses, zero consequences,
2:37you would try everything endlessly. Like
2:40you wouldn't give a [ __ ] You'd just
2:41[ __ ] go. You'd do it. So, what that
2:43tells you is that the fear isn't
2:45necessarily about the success or failure
2:47or how good you are or how bad you are.
2:49It's about some imagined audience that
2:51you think will give a [ __ ] Humans are
2:53so [ __ ] weird, man. Like we rehearse
2:55our humiliation in advance. We pretend
2:58the worst possible outcome is true
3:00before it actually is because of
3:03reasons. And when we do embarrass
3:04ourselves, we play it on repeat in our
3:06minds not for years, but for [ __ ]
3:09decades. The people you're afraid of not
3:11impressing, they're actually barely
3:13paying attention to you. They're too
3:15busy managing their own fear of being
3:17watched to actually give a [ __ ] Another
3:20lesson you will learn is that your mind
3:21lies to you all the time. And so you
3:23have to learn to question it. See,
3:25evolutionarily speaking, your brain's
3:27job is not to show you reality as it is.
3:30It's job is to keep you alive. And those
3:32are two very different assignments.
3:34Depression lies to you. It tells you
3:37that nothing matters when it actually
3:38does. Anxiety lies to you. It tells you
3:41that everything is going to go wrong
3:42when it actually isn't. Insecurity lies
3:45to you. It tells you that you aren't
3:46good enough as you already are, despite
3:48the fact that you kind of are. But these
3:51ideas, they feel so real because they
3:53speak to you in your voice in your mind
3:56incessantly. And so, the fact is is that
3:58we have thousands of thoughts per day
4:00and our instinct is to treat every
4:01single one like a [ __ ] CNN breaking
4:04news alert. When most of them are just,
4:06honestly, commercials and spam. So, the
4:08skill is not learning how to think
4:10positive. It's actually just learning to
4:12catch yourself mid-story and asking, "Is
4:14this true?
4:16Or am I just on autopilot?" Another
4:18thing you will learn is that no matter
4:19what you do, not everybody will like
4:21you. And this is actually a good thing.
4:23It took me a long time to figure this
4:25out, but the people who dislike you are
4:27actually doing you a bit of a favor.
4:29They're self-selecting themselves out of
4:31your life so that you stop pouring
4:33energy into relationships that were
4:35never going to work anyway. See, you
4:37need people to disagree with you. You
4:39need people to find you a little bit
4:40abrasive, who don't totally understand
4:43you. That friction is the proof that you
4:45stand for something, that you have an
4:47identity, that your life means
4:50something. Being universally likable is
4:52actually an invisible kind of prison.
4:55You're essentially outsourcing all of
4:56your self-worth to the world around you
4:58and then desperately trying to live up
5:00to everybody else's expectations instead
5:02of your own. The moment that you accept
5:04that some people are going to walk away,
5:05no matter what, you finally get
5:07permission to show up as who you are.
5:09And the people who stay,
5:11those are actually your people and you
5:13get to enjoy knowing that for sure.
5:16Another thing you'll learn is that
5:17feelings are not facts,
5:18but they are still worth listening to.
5:20See, it's in our default nature to treat
5:22our emotions as some [ __ ] cosmic
5:24decree handed down by the gods and
5:26chiseled into stone. But not only is
5:28this wrong, it's actually the complete
5:31opposite. Your feelings are always
5:33transitory, often arbitrary, wholly
5:36self-serving, and occasionally
5:37misguided. Basically, feelings are data,
5:40but they are not directives. They are
5:42telling you something is happening that
5:44you might want to change or pay
5:45attention to,
5:47but not necessarily all the time. Your
5:49job is to simply consider them. What you
5:51decide to do with them is up to you. Me,
5:54personally, I kind of treat my feelings
5:56like the comment section on YouTube.
5:58It's good to look and see what's there,
6:01but I don't take it that seriously. This
6:03video is sponsored by Brain.fm. So,
6:06here's something that therapy teaches
6:08you pretty early on, that your brain is
6:09terrible at sticking to what you wanted
6:11to do. The problem, of course, as
6:13always, is focus. The fact of the matter
6:15is that we live in a distracting world
6:16and our brains don't just fall into line
6:18because we want them to. We have to put
6:20them in the right environment too. And
6:22that's where Brain.fm comes in. It's
6:24actually music built with audio
6:25engineered specifically to shift your
6:27brain waves into focus states. It uses
6:29functional neuroscience to get you
6:31locked in faster and keep you there
6:33longer. Now, I've been using it quite a
6:34bit when I write. I used it to help me
6:36write the script for this video. I mean,
6:37it works really well. Not only do they
6:39have a team of PhDs crafting the
6:40soundscapes for you, but they recently
6:42had a study published in Nature
6:43verifying Brain.fm's effectiveness.
6:45Brain.fm has been doing this for over a
6:48decade. Millions of sessions,
6:49peer-reviewed research behind the tech.
6:51It is the lowest-friction, highest-ROI
6:52cognitive tool that I've ever come
6:54across, and you can try it 1 month for
6:55free by going to brain.fm/idgaf.
6:59That's brain.fm/idgaf.
7:03Stands for I don't give a [ __ ] Or,
7:05just check out the link in the
7:06description.
7:07Another thing you'll learn is that
7:09sometimes the best thing you can do is
7:11let a dream die.
7:13Holding on to the wrong dream is like
7:15staying in a dead marriage. It itself
7:17may not make you miserable, but it will
7:19definitely prevent you from finding
7:21happiness. The truth is that most of the
7:23things we hope for for ourselves at 20,
7:25we will figure out that they are
7:27completely impractical, unrealistic, or
7:29flat-out misguided by the time that
7:31we're 40. I mean, when I think about the
7:33[ __ ] that I wanted to do when I was 20,
7:36thank god I let that stuff go. I
7:38wouldn't be here right now if I was
7:40doing the stuff I wanted to do at 20.
7:43And that's okay. Like there's nothing
7:44wrong with that. That's actually how
7:46life is supposed to go. I don't know
7:48when we romanticize this idea that when
7:50you have a dream, you're just supposed
7:52to like [ __ ] run yourself into the
7:53ground trying to achieve it. That might
7:55work for a very few select people of
7:58exceptional talent, but for most of us,
8:00we're going to have to jump around three
8:02or four times throughout our lives to
8:03actually figure out where we belong. And
8:05if you matured any reasonable rate, you
8:07will be [ __ ] thankful you did not
8:09become the person you hoped to be at 20.
8:11But I think people avoid this because
8:12they often feel like they've invested so
8:14much in a dream. They've already done so
8:16many things. They spent so much time and
8:18energy. But that sunk cost fallacy, it
8:20will eat your entire life if you let it.
8:23Ultimately, grief is the price of
8:25letting a dream go. And most people
8:27would rather stay miserable and stuck
8:30than to have to feel that grief. You
8:32will also eventually learn that your
8:33limitations are actually good for you.
8:36This is the affliction of our age.
8:37Infinite options creates infinite
8:39paralysis, not freedom. The person with
8:4210,000 choices and the person with zero
8:44choices end up in the same place, not
8:46doing a [ __ ] thing. The truth is
8:48constraints force creativity. Every
8:51great artist, entrepreneur, and thinker
8:52produce their best work inside of a box,
8:55not outside of it. Saying no to 95% of
8:58the things in your life is what gives
9:00the remaining 5% significance. So a life
9:03without limits is ultimately a life
9:06without depth. An ocean a thousand miles
9:08wide and an inch deep. Your mortality is
9:11a limitation. Your energy is a
9:13limitation. Your time is a limitation.
9:16Your lack of talent is a limitation.
9:18Your upbringing is a limitation. These
9:20are not faults. They are the entire
9:23reason anything you do matters. Ask
9:25yourself, what are you going to do with
9:27them? You will also eventually learn
9:29that your parents did their best and
9:30still [ __ ] it up. Both of those things
9:32can be true at the same time. This is
9:34where most people get stuck. They think
9:36they have to choose between their
9:37compassion for their parents and the
9:40honesty about how [ __ ] up their
9:42childhood was. You don't. They did their
9:44best does not necessarily mean their
9:47best was good. It just means they tried.
9:50And let's be honest,
9:52trying matters. It means something. One
9:54way I sometimes think about it is that
9:56if they gave 100% and it only ended up
9:58being 50% of what you needed, that is
10:00not either of your faults. It sucks,
10:03it's unfortunate, and it probably hurts,
10:05and you've probably been carrying around
10:06that [ __ ] trauma backpack for a long
10:08time, but it's not necessarily anybody's
10:10fault. Forgiving your parents isn't
10:12really about letting them off the hook.
10:14It's about letting you off the hook.
10:16It's about stopping the bleed so you can
10:18move forward with your life. It is
10:20selfish in the best way. And by the way,
10:23your parents were also raised by
10:24supremely [ __ ] up people, who also
10:26happened to do their best and it was not
10:30nearly enough. I remember right after I
10:31finished college,
10:33I I got really mad at my dad for
10:35something and was kind of giving him a
10:37bunch of grief about like not being
10:39there enough or something. A week later,
10:41he told me this story about how his
10:43parents, my grandparents, didn't even
10:45attend his graduation. They just gave
10:48him a phone call and said, "Good job,
10:49son."
10:51And then hung up.
10:52>> [laughter]
10:54>> I was like,
10:55"Okay, yeah, this was an improvement.
10:58Thanks, Dad."
10:59>> [laughter]
11:00>> And finally, you will learn that only a
11:02few people in your life will matter in
11:04the long run. Over the course of your
11:06life, you will probably meet thousands
11:08of people, and hundreds of them will
11:11strike you as really interesting or fun
11:13to hang out with or fun to get to know,
11:15and you will over index on the opinions
11:17of those few hundred people. But the
11:20truth is is that only a handful, maybe a
11:22dozen people at most, will actually
11:24meaningfully change the trajectory of
11:26your life. And so, when you find those
11:28people, you really have to prioritize
11:31them. Because all those others that you
11:34think care about whatever the [ __ ]
11:36you're doing, they're just background
11:37noise. As a rule, we tend to over-invest
11:40in the quantity of our relationships
11:42because intimacy is difficult and
11:44terrifying. Knowing five people deeply
11:46means five people can actually really
11:49hurt you. Therefore, it's easy to
11:50distract ourselves with fake friends,
11:52more contacts, more networking
11:54opportunities, you know, friends of
11:57friends, cool parties, awesome events to
12:00[ __ ] Instagram ourselves at, and of
12:02course, keeping all of our options wide
12:04open. But on your deathbed, you will not
12:06think about your follower count. You
12:08will not think about your networking
12:09contacts, and you will not think about
12:11anybody who liked a single post you ever
12:14put online.
12:16You will probably think about five or
12:17six faces. So, act accordingly now.