The Subtle art of not giving a f*ck by mark manson

Podcast Transcription:

Sarah Schrader 0:01
I think for this chapter like I 100% agree with everything you said and how putting the morality into perspective really can help define what is truly important and what should matter to you.

Welcome to the Creative Legacy Podcast, a podcast to help creative entrepreneurs build their business while leading a life of intention, joy and adventure. I’m Sarah, and I’m Shaune. There’s a point in this book where it says, What’s the point of this book, and it’s, this book will not teach you how to gain or achieve, but rather how to lose and let go. It will teach you to take inventory of your life, and scrub out all of the important items. It’ll teach you to close your eyes and trust that you can fall backwards and still be okay. It’ll teach you to get fewer afford here, and that they’ll teach you not to try. So the book we’re talking about is The Subtle Art of Not Giving A again, F-word here. We’re gonna avoid saying that to keep our clean lyrics.

Shaune Teske 1:13
Yeah, because we say it over then we have to put this podcast episode requires has explicit content. And that’s not, that’s not what we’re trying to do here.

Sarah Schrader 1:24
We’re gonna keep our clean lyrics, but the author is Mark Manson. And I don’t know about you Shaune, but I was like, getting serious like Gary Vaynerchuk and Grant Cardones vibes reading this book. Kind of that like you have to kind of get over that initial shock of just his bluntness and use of language, but so much good content within this book.

Shaune Teske 1:49
Yeah, I was a little worried that first chapter where he’s kind of talking about what the books about and all of this, I mean, the F bomb is dropped a lot. And then I’m like, okay, like, I get it, when it’s fun to say and whatever, but is that like the best words we can use. But the more I read it, the more it kind of calmed down a little bit. And it was full of great info and great quotes, and just amazing. So I was really thankful that I kept reading because I was a little like, I just, I don’t understand swearing for the sake of swearing, that’s just me. So um, like, if you’re just trying to be gimmicky, that’s one thing, but he’s not. Mark is so genuine and, you know, shares a lot. And what I love too, is that he has a lot of great humor in this book. He talks about like, the Disappointment Panda, and how that would be his superhero and how the panda would go around and just tell you that life can be hard and drink, it would drink like margaritas or something. It was just really funny. So I really appreciated that it wasn’t just swearing for the sake of swearing, there was a lot of great content and some really funny humor.

Sarah Schrader 3:01
Yeah, I agree that first chapter once you get past that, it definitely is more intentional.

Shaune Teske 3:06
There was no less, yeah, there was definitely less of that, which was great for me. And for this podcast. Because if all our quotes were full of swear words, it’d be a lot of we’d have to be doing a lot of bleeping.

Sarah Schrader 3:19
Sure, the same. I guess I’ll just jump in and start talking about some of the things that we liked from it. I think one overarching theme of this book is kind of talking about paradoxes and how the opposite kind of takes effect. So one of the first quotes in the book is the desire for a more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And paradoxically, the acceptance of one’s negative experiences is it’s self, a positive experience. And, like, it was weird to, like, hear that, but then he gives so many examples of like, going through that then like, oh, you know, that’s kind of right. So like, we have to go through the pain of working out to be fit at the gym, or we have to, as entrepreneurs, put in hours of work to be successful.

Shaune Teske 4:26
I think another way of looking at it, too, is he talks about how anything worth having, like he said doesn’t, it doesn’t come without struggle, the real like, you know, fulfillment in your lives type, goodness and joy, it’s gonna come with struggle, and you have to change to get there. He talks about how that struggling and suffering is basically biologically useful because it’s nature’s preferred agent for inspiring change, which I think is so true because we think about any difficult time you’ve had in your life, aren’t you a better person because of it? And when you have more difficult times coming ahead, can’t you go back to that memory of when you went through something and use how you dealt with that to deal with things in the future. So it’s so it’s so necessary. I mean, it’s the whole point of this book, too. It’s not about you’re not going to live without struggle. And you’re never going to get away from having problems, you just want to make sure that you’re exchanging your problems for good problems, that doesn’t more money more, whatever doesn’t is not going to take that away. In chasing happiness, instead of just living is never going to give you happiness, you need to just be and live and accept that you’re going to have problems and that’s where you find the true happiness. So really love that. He did have a quote about happiness and struggle, which I love. Because I think, not you’re trying to suffer through life. But I think everything, every moment in my life that has brought me great joy, it came out of great struggle. So this quote, reminds me of that, it says, because happiness requires struggle, it grows from problems. Joy doesn’t sprout out of the ground, like daisies and rainbows. See, there’s this humor, real serious, lifelong fulfillment and meaning has to be earned through the choosing and managing of our struggles. Whether you suffer from anxiety, or loneliness, or obsessive compulsive disorder, or a dickhead boss ruins half of your waking hours every day, the solution lies in acceptance and active engagement of a negative experience, not the avoidance of it, not the salvation from it. So just accepting that there’s gonna be things that happen, but you can find the happiness in it.

Sarah Schrader 6:47
Yeah, in talking of happiness, he said, the happiness comes from solving problems. And there was a quote, very soon after that, that I just stopped and had to take in and that was negative emotions are a call to action when you feel them, it’s because you’re supposed to do something. Positive emotions, on the other hand, are rewards for taking positive action. When you feel them life seems simple, and there’s nothing else to do but enjoy it, then like everything else, the positive emotions go away, because more problems inevitably emerge. And it’s just that cycle. So it’s a constant work in progress. It’s something that I mean, we’ll, we’ll have that happiness, but then something else, a new challenge will arise, and we have to solve that problem. But solving that is more enjoyment, and happiness,

Shaune Teske 7:32
Even though it doesn’t always feel like that. But it is, in the end, it is that it is you can find fulfilment, from solving your problems, or are going through something, which I think is great. A main theme of this book, too, is I think, when people read the title, you start thinking, Oh, well, I’m just not gonna give a bleep about anything. Like I’m not I can just go around and be indifferent and his message isn’t that. This isn’t about being indifferent. And this isn’t about not caring about the world. It’s about being very intentional about what you care about, and really putting your value in the right things. So he, it’s kind of funny that like, when I picked up this book, I wasn’t quite sure what this all meant. And it’s really about letting go of the material things or how people think about you or whatever, and just ignoring that. But really then investing all your time and energy into caring about the people and the things that are important to you.

Yeah, as I was reading, he brought up the question of like, somebody saying, like, Well, what do I do that if I have all these goals and dreams and desires, if I don’t do anything, I’m not gonna achieve them. And I was really glad you brought that up. Because I was thinking the same thing in my head. But he also brings up the point that not caring, and I’m using care as my alternative for the f-word here, not caring about something that’s not never going to happen. We always have something that we’re caring about. And it’s something that like, is important to us. It’s just like you said, choosing what is actually important to us. Like one thing that came to my mind was going to a restaurant and sometimes ordering stuff. If I’m going with a mom, my mom especially like if I get something with tomatoes on it, I’m just like, Okay, take the tomatoes off, and I’ll move on. But my mom doesn’t like cheese and if she gets cheese on it, it’s like it’s done for She’s not eating it. So then like I have that care moment of like, my mom needs to eat so I’m going to go deal with this.

Yeah, it’s you got to figure out how to what what is most valuable to you? And he talks about too like in the book about his mom going through. She was I think a lot like some friend of hers took some money from her. So he’s like, Well, yeah, if I didn’t care if I really didn’t care about anything, then I would be like, well, good luck, mom. But I care about my mom. That’s something that’s someone that’s really valuable. To me, so let’s go get a lawyer and take care of this. So I think for, you know, with your example, and his example, I think all of us would choose our family and our friends in those situations. But he also talks about you need to cut out people that aren’t right for you and don’t have those same values as you either it’s okay to change and grow into let people go that don’t fit with what your values are anymore. And he talks about the book a lot that is gonna, there’s gonna be times that are hard and times that are, it’s gonna be uncomfortable, because you’re developing this new system of only caring about things that are important. And there might be a lot of friends that you have that are just, they were just there for fun, or for a show or whatever it may be for company. But when you start really putting your value into things that are important to you, that those friendships might fall aside in their heads has to be okay. And he talks to you about how he, i his past, was very much like he would travel all over the place and meet lots of women and would not commit to one relationship. And he said, he just didn’t feel like the need to settle for one thing when there’s so much out there. And he realized that he wasn’t putting the value into people, he was just going out there and kind of experience but not really have any depth behind it. So I thought that was really interesting that now he talks about how now he lives in one city with his wife and wasn’t doing all this crazy stuff. And he’s feeling more fulfilled now than ever, so your things can change over time.

Sarah Schrader 11:35
Another example he gave was a couple bands that kicked out, I think one was the drummer and one was a guitarist. And in one case, the guitarist went and started his own band and became super successful, but never compared to the band who ended up being Metallica in comparison to his success, so he felt like he failed. But in the opposite situation, the drummer was kicked out. And he never found success in music, but found value in having a family and he felt like his life was very well lived and was very happy.

Shaune Teske 12:15
Yeah, so that’s in that chapter, he talks about where are you putting your value of success? Are you basing it on what other people think should be successful? Are you basing it on what is truly successful for you? So the band thing is really funny. So the drummer is talking about like, I think it’s important to mention, it’s for the Beatles, they kicked out the Beatles kicked out their drummer, I think Peter, Peter, when they got Ringo Starr and the Beatles are huge, obviously. But Pete found such happiness, because he met his wife and had kids and have his family and he felt fulfilled. The Beatles didn’t always get to feel. They were constantly looking for that. Different relationships. I mean, they’re not even all here anymore, and Pete’s still here and thriving, and, you know, enjoying his life. And they said he even gets to perform music and do all this fun stuff. But I mean, that’s a bit like you would think not being in the Beatles would be this awful failure. And he’s like, No, because I would never have been able to be stable and and have this family and be able to love on them and do all this stuff. And I think that’s really important for all of us. Is that, are we chasing what other people want us to do? Or are we chasing what we want to do? And your success, your vision of success can change. And I just was having this conversation with someone recently about how, when I was 20, my vision of success was, you know, booking all these shoots and weddings and photographing all over the place and being able to travel and go full time with photography and do all the stuff and now my later 20s, almost 30 that I I want to work less and spend more time with my family that I’m totally fine making less money if that means more time with the people I love, because that’s more important to me. So it’s just, you know, where I think maybe some people are like, the older you get, the more money you should make, and the higher you should climb and blah, blah, blah, you know, so but like we need to take time to really recognize what is your success? What does that look like to you?

Sarah Schrader 14:25
Yeah, I think a little bit of that paradox again, going back to like Pete and The Beatles, is Pete was super happy and had this success where the Beatles were chasing success and they were searching for happiness. He mentioned that in the book. So it’s really determining he mentions value and metric. And if you have the right values and the right metric then, so he talks about good values being the internal things is it honesty, innovation, vulnerability, standing up for oneself or others, self respect, curiosity, creativity, and those are things that are really reality based, they’re socially constructive, and they’re immediate and controllable. And then the bad values were more external things like finding dominance through manipulation or violence or pleasure, merit, material success, always being bright, staying positive. Those are the superstitious things, the socially destructive and the ones that are not immediate or controllable?

Shaune Teske 15:23
Yes, exactly. But he kind of like talks about, again, if you are basing a lot of things in that kind of bad value category, how you’re just not going to be fulfilled. And it takes time to get into that, like, good value type mindset. And then after that, he goes into like the rut. So that’s like the half first half of the book, the rest of the book is dedicated to five counterintuitive values that he believes is the most beneficial values one can adopt, they all follow the backwards love that we keep talking about how negative is positive, positive is a negative experience. And they all require confronting deeper problems, rather than avoiding them through highs. These five values are unconventional and uncomfortable, but they are life changing. So I’m just gonna, I just want to say what they’re real quick. And then like in the book, it gets deeper and deeper into it. And some of them were really great. The first one was my favorite, which was responsibility is that we are responsible for ourselves all the time, that not you know, things happen to us situations happen to us, we can get in a car accident, or this crazy snowstorm can be happening in April, all these different things that are out of our control. But we are responsible for how we react to it, how our attitudes about it, our actions after the thing happens. And really, that puts the power back on us that we can’t blame the world for our problems and for our unhappiness, because it’s up to us to take responsibility for that. So that’s my favorite one. And we can dig more into any of these, but I love that one. Then there’s uncertainty, the acknowledgement of your own ignorance and the cultivation of constant doubt in your own beliefs. The next is failure, the willingness to discover your own flaws and mistakes, so that they may be improved upon. The fourth is rejection the ability to both say and here No, thus clearly defining what you will and will not accept in your life. The final value is the contemplation of one’s own mortality. This one is crucial because paying vigilant attention to one’s own death is perhaps the only thing capable of helping us keep our other values in proper perspective. And that’s I love responsibility. And I love death, which is really weird, because that’s how I live my life every day is that I could go at any minute. And because it’s not guaranteed, so what am I doing? Does this really matter? Well, this will I look back on this and go, Oh, yeah, I’m so glad I worried, so much about this, because now I’m dead. You know what I mean? It really puts that into perspective. So those are my those are my two favorites that he talked about.

Sarah Schrader 18:14
I also really loved the one about responsibility. And that’s a concept I’ve heard before. Gary Vaynerchuk talks about that a lot. Like, take, you’re responsible for everything. But I liked that he put a difference between responsibility and blame. Like he talked about an instance like we can’t control death. So that one like, we’re not to blame for death. But we can be responsible for how we react to certain situations, whether this death or somebody cheating us out of money like his mom was or anything like we can choose how we’re going to react.

Shaune Teske 18:55
Right, and he talks about in that that chapter, he talks about how his first girlfriend cheated on him. Yeah. And it was he he can’t bringing it up. Like, I’m not, I can’t blame her blaming and taking responsibility. Like I said, it’s different. And I can’t not be upset and mad at her, but I can’t. She’s not responsible for my happiness. And even if she leaves and is gone, you know, I had to go out and do my own thing. And it was he said he started looking back at it. Like, I wasn’t completely the victim. There’s plenty of things I wasn’t the best boyfriend always. And that doesn’t excuse. I think that’s the other thing too, with taking responsibility. It doesn’t excuse someone’s actions. But by taking responsibility, you get the control back of not letting what they did affect you. Like you’re not going to let them rule over your life because of something they did you. You said Nope. That lives over there. And I’m choosing to be happy regardless.

Sarah Schrader 19:53
Yeah. One quote that I loved from that has a little bit of a poker reference in it. But it says we all get dealt cards, some of us get better cards than others. And while it’s easy to get hung up on our cards and feel we got screwed over, the real game lies in the choices we make with those cards, the risks we decide to take, and the consequences we choose to live with. The people who make the best choices in the situations they’re given, are the ones who eventually come out ahead, just as in life, and it’s not necessarily the people with the best cards.

Shaune Teske 20:24
Right. It’s all about how you look at it.

Sarah Schrader 20:26
Yeah, it’s good to say, somebody could be in a bad situation, but they can choose to learn from that and use that situation to grow. And that was in the next section about, like, not always being right, being wrong equals growth. And that was like the one thing I really felt from that chapter.

Shaune Teske 20:54
Right? It’s so good. I really, really like that one about about it, because it just, it I think we get so caught up in like things are happening to us, he had a quote about if you think it’s the world versus you, it’s really you versus yourself, because you’re not, you can’t control what’s going on out there, you can’t control what’s going to happen to you in our daily life. And all you can control is yourself and how you respond to it and how you think about it. And some of the other ones, he talks about how when we worry too much when we think we’re a failure, all these different things, like it’s just not serving us at all. So choosing to take things as a learning experience, choosing to find the joy choosing to, you know, forgive people, if you need forgive people, whatever it may be, is so powerful. So it allows you to have kind of more control in a in a world that feels like you can’t control anything.

Sarah Schrader 21:48
Yeah, I think the second one for me that I really loved in those five chapters was the one on failure is the way forward. And there was a part in that talking about motivation. And that’s something that I’ve heard, again, I’ve heard before, and I just love it. So I want to share it. And that is that we just have to get started because action isn’t just the effect of motivation. It’s also the cause of it. So it’s kind of a cycle of action creates inspiration, which creates motivation, which leads to more action, and subsequently inspiration, motivation. And so he was talking a lot about like, oh, there’s an example he talked about a math teacher said, If you don’t know how to solve the problem, just start and in the process of starting you’ll find the answers. So again, like we might not know how to do something, we might be stuck, we might not have the motivation, because we feel that way. But if we just start doing, eventually, we’ll get the inspiration and the motivation, and it’ll just keep working.

Shaune Teske 22:49
And he talks about how that kind of became his like, slogan for life. Don’t just sit there do something and the answer will follow. Like you said, like his teacher had told him and so he started applying that to everything. As long as you just start it, then maybe something will come. And he gave examples too about an author who has written all these amazing books. And they’re like, Well, what’s your success to writing, I think it was like 70 books or something, he’s like, 200 crappy words a day, I just make myself write it. And then by the process of just doing it, then you start to get inspired. But if you don’t ever start, you’re, you’re not going to get there. So just doing it, even if it’s not good, even if it’s crappy. That just the process of doing it can then inspire you. And I think that’s a really, that’s a really big one for me of like, oh, I want to be perfect, I need to plan it all out. And I need to do all the things and then only when all the things are right, will I pull the trigger and go, it’s like, no, just start doing and it will take you to where you need to be. And that’s, that’s something I’m trying to learn right now. With building new things in my business, and I want to be perfect, and I got to do the research. And here we go. And it’s I need to start and then it will turn into something. And I think we’re so afraid too, as entrepreneurs, we’re like, if I put it out there and it doesn’t work. Oh no everyone’s gonna think I’m a failure. It’s like nobody cares. It’s all an experiment anyway. So just start somewhere, just start with I mean, look at even our podcast, we just were like, let’s just do this. And let’s just put out some episodes. And here we are, you know, almost a year later.

Sarah Schrader 24:25
Yeah. He actually said in chapter two. He’s talking about when he got out of college, and he was I think he worked a job for like six weeks. And in that time, he was debating like, do I work this job that I don’t love? Or do I pursue something else that makes me happy? And he ended up with the saying “to not pursue his own projects became the failure.” So he just like okay, I’ll do this. I’m no batter, like you said, no better off now or in three years than I am now. If I just try it and do it and make it happen and see if it works.

Shaune Teske 24:56
Right. That was the thing like well, if it fails, I have to get a job anyway. So, let’s just do it. And I think that attitude is so great of, well, if this fails, I can just go back to this thing, you know. So what’s the point of? Like, why wouldn’t I try? Because I can either stay where I am. And then wonder and and do the what ifs at the end of my life, you know, or I can just go after it. And if it fails, then yeah, I can go back to Plan B. So yeah, my favorite, I mean, I love the responsibility. I think that the one you talked about, too, about failure, and all that was so good, but mortality is so important. I know, it’s so creepy and morbid, but I think it’s so important. And it’s a lot of things I base my life on, because I’ve witnessed so much death around me from you know, loved ones and friends. And it’s been a really, you know, even before this age, I’ve experienced a lot in my, I’m only in my 20s and I’ve experienced. I’ve been to plenty of funerals and have planned a few of my own funerals. So it’s been, I mean, I don’t think anyone really has to deal with that at this age. But um, yeat. And I think, yeah, there’s definitely I mean, I’m not gonna say I’m not the only person there’s definitely people that have gone through, you know, hardships and things like that. But yeah, because I’ve gone through it that is so important in my life, to live my life, to the best of my ability and to not get caught up in what I should be doing, or you know, this is the road I’m supposed to be on because life is short, and nothing, nothing is guaranteed at all. So I really like the chapter because this is how I look at life. And he let me know that that it’s not really a morbid thing, because he brought up a quote in here that people have been doing it since forever. Like, let me see, this willing and even exuberant, interfacing with one’s own mortality has ancient roots. The stoics of ancient Greece and Rome, implore people to keep death in mind at all times in order to appreciate life more and remain humble in the face of it’s adversities. And it keeps going about like, in Buddhism, there’s, you know, different talks about, about how to prepare for one’s death while still remaining alive, dissolving one’s ego into an expansive nothingness. You know, just awesome stuff like that. That’s how I feel about it, that death is not a scary thing to be looking at. I mean, I think it’s scary when you think about someone else love dying, but your own death should not be a scary thing. I think the scariest thing for me is that I didn’t live in that on my deathbed, you know, if it comes to that, that I don’t want to look back and regret anything. So that’s important.

Sarah Schrader 27:49
I think what you said just there of like, feeling like you haven’t lived and that regret, like, to me that makes death a little bit scary. But that’s, I mean, Christian roots, like, I’m not afraid of that. But I think for this chapter, like I 100% agree with everything you said, and like how putting the mortality into perspective really can help define what is truly important and what should matter to you. But I was really just enthralled with the stories. He was telling me this chapter. So I didn’t really take any notes on this one. But yeah, like talking about how he experienced death with one of his friends early on, I think he was 19 he said at that age and then also this experience that he had in South Africa have going to like the Cape of Hope I believe was called and it’s just like this drop off in the water like looking over it and how this whole time he’s thinking like, Is this the end? Is this the end? I was just, captured in that reading the last chapter.

Shaune Teske 28:55
Yeah, I think it was just a good His stories were a good kind of example of like, you know, he keeps talking about like, Oh, I’m you know, one step on the edge and you start shaking and all this different stuff, but it just really was like, you’re looking at death and you’re looking at Oh, my gosh, this this could be it. This could be the end and he kind of like he chooses to live. Not like he’s was suicidal. I was just like, yeah, he chooses life. He sees his friends below. And he’s, you know, smiling and happy and he chooses to continue to live his life and I just really love it because it this always just comes back to if this is it, if this is the end if tomorrow was your last day, did you do everything you want us to do? Did you live the life you imagined did you go after your dreams? Did you take risks? Did you risk you know, just did you love on the people that were important to you, all that kind of stuff. So that’s why it’s so important to me. I think then he talks about I think all of this is I had to save this qupte because it was totally fitting of the podcast. And it’s a little longer. So just bear with me as I read this. And this is in that last chapter talking about mortality. Confronting the reality of our own mortality is important because it obliterates all the crappy, fragile, superficial values in life. While most people widdle their days chasing another buck, or a little bit more fame and attention, or a little bit more assurance that they’re right, or loved, death confronts us all with a far more painful and important question, what is your legacy? And that is like, Hello. So he goes on, how will the world be different and better? When you’re gone? What mark will you have made? What influence will you have caused? So it’s just, that’s, I think what it all comes down to is we’re all searching for that we’re all searching for meaning and we’re all searching for purpose. And, when when life is tough, and when you’re worried, or if you’re chasing after things that you think you’re supposed to be chasing after, when is it gonna play into your life’s goal? And if it, if it doesn’t, then you need to let it go. And really think about your legacy. Think about what you’re leaving behind. So that was just another reminder of it’s all about legacy is all about, you know, making an impact on the world and the people in it. And if it’s not, why are you worried about it?

Sarah Schrader 31:28
I think that’s probably a good place to end.

Shaune Teske 31:31
Yes, everyone go home and think about their own mortality.

Sarah Schrader 31:35
Yeah. No, surely there is a lot more stories that Mark shares and a lot more like little gold nuggets in this book that we haven’t talked about. So it’s really a good one to pick up. It’s a super simple short read.

Shaune Teske 31:47
Yeah, I read it in one sitting, you can definitely just pick it up read it. If you’re worried about the F words, there’s not as many as you think after you get through the first chapter. And he’s so much more than that. I think sometimes. I don’t know if he chose a title who did but I think sometimes there’s like, oh, like, let’s be edgy and right. Title, but there’s so much more to him and to this book than that. So definitely recommend it.

Sarah Schrader 32:13
Yeah. All right. So next month, we are going to be reading Building A Story Brand and that is by Donald Miller. So if you want to pick it up and join us, we would love to have you read that and we can discuss that next month.