Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Mark Manson on Embracing Pain for Personal and Professional Growth | Human Behavior | YAPClassic
Fri, 21 Mar 2025
Mark Manson’s journey into the workforce started during a challenging time: the Great Recession of 2008. After struggling with various odd jobs, he shifted his focus to blogging and became a bestselling author. In this episode, Mark explores human behavior, the psychology behind success, and how the critical thinking needed to develop a growth mindset is key to navigating career and personal development in a rapidly changing world. In this episode, Hala and Mark will discuss: (00:00) Introduction (02:40) Mark Manson's Journey to Becoming a Blogger and Author (05:13) The Evolution and Challenges of Blogging (06:39) Key Takeaways from Mark Manson's New Book (09:43) Understanding Hope and the Uncomfortable Truth (14:09) The Thinking and Feeling Brain (20:18) Pain as a Currency of Our Values (22:14) The Concept of Anti-Fragility (30:37) Defining Adulthood and Real Freedom (39:35) Hope in Science and Technology Mark Manson is a three-time New York Times bestselling author and entrepreneur. His books, including The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, have sold over 20 million copies in 75+ languages worldwide. He has also built a thriving online business, offering courses, podcasts, and one of the most popular self-improvement newsletters. Known for his brutal honesty and dry humor, Mark has established himself as a leading voice in the fields of mindset, self-improvement, and human psychology. Sponsored By: Shopify - youngandprofiting.co/shopify Open Phone - openphone.com/profiting Airbnb - airbnb.com/host Indeed - indeed.com/profiting RobinHood - robinhood.com/gold Factor - factormeals.com/factorpodcast Rakuten - rakuten.com Microsoft Teams - aka.ms/profiting Active Deals - youngandprofiting.com/deals Key YAP Links Reviews - ratethispodcast.com/yap Youtube - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ Social + Podcast Services - yapmedia.com Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com/episodes-new Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship Podcast, Business, Business Podcast, Self Improvement, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Starting a Business, Strategy, Investing, Sales, Selling, Psychology, Productivity, Entrepreneurs, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Marketing, Negotiation, Money, Finance, Side Hustle, Mental Health, Career, Leadership, Mindset, Health, Growth Mindset, Positivity, Critical Thinking, Robert Greene, Chris Voss, Robert Cialdini.
Chapter 1: Who is Mark Manson and what is his journey?
Hey, Yap Fam. I hope you enjoyed my interview with Mark Manson this week, in which he showcased his wonderfully candid perspective on discovering life's deeper purposes. Mark is the best-selling author of many books, including The Subtle Art of Not Giving an F, and was also on my show way back in episode number 65 during the early days of the pandemic.
And so we decided to give you a double dose of Mark Manson for this week's Yap Classic. In that episode, Mark talked with me about the downfalls of hope and why we'll never be satisfied unless we face the uncomfortable truths of life head on. That's deep.
He also had some great actionable advice on how to gain more self-control, make better decisions, and even how to use pain to strengthen your relationships. So enjoy this hard-hitting classic conversation with the always entertaining and thought-provoking Mark Manson. Welcome to the show, Mark.
It's good to be here. Thanks for having me.
For my guests who don't know you, I would like to get some color about your background. I read some of your blogs on career advice, and you note that you're living out your dream job currently. And I say that with like air quotes because I know there's no such thing as 100% perfect job. So how did you end up becoming a blogger and an author?
Was that something you always wanted to do, or did that sort of like fall into your lap?
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Chapter 2: How did blogging evolve and what challenges did it face?
It was kind of an accident. See, I graduated from college in the last crisis we had, which was the financial crisis in 2008. And there was like zero job market. And I kind of bounced around a few odd jobs. I lived on a friend's couch for a while. And I started doing freelance web design. And around the same time, I read Tim Ferriss' 4-Hour Workweek article.
which talked about building online businesses and automating them and how you could work four hours a week and go live and play in Argentina or whatever. I was like, hell yeah, I'm in. That sounds perfect. And so I spent the next couple years trying to actually build e-commerce sites and affiliate marketing sites. And it turned out that I was kind of bad at it.
I'm not a natural salesman or marketer. But the funny thing was, was at the time, blogs were kind of like all the rage back then.
And so- When did you start?
I started blogging in 2008. And so if you wanted people to come to your website, if you wanted the rank on Google, if you wanted, there wasn't much sharing on social media back then. You had to be blogging. You had to be posting articles and coming up with stuff. And so that's actually how I ended up blogging. Originally it was just to promote these crappy affiliate sites I had.
And it turned out I was much better at blogging than I was e-commerce.
Yeah.
And by 2011, 2012, it was blogging was all I was doing.
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Chapter 3: What are the key takeaways from Mark Manson's new book?
Yeah, you are such a good writer. So many people really like your writing style because it's so different. It's like a breath of fresh air. It's like a little witty and cheeky. So props to you. I actually had a website as well. I had an entertainment news website from like 2010 to 2013. And I think that was like the height of blogging. But I couldn't monetize it. And so I shut that down.
And your blog is one of the only blogs I think that really has been able to monetize. You've got like a premium subscription. I know you also have a podcast, which is sort of like the audio version of a blog in my opinion. So would you recommend like going, starting a blog or a podcast or do you think those things are saturated now?
I definitely think blogging is in a tough spot. I... What happened with blogging is just that all of the smaller and medium-sized websites, they either couldn't monetize anymore or they got eaten up by larger networks and large websites. So people went to Huffington Post or writing for Huffington Post or Business Insider or whatever. So it's a tough spot to start.
I don't want to discourage anybody from blogging, but if you're looking to build a content business, blogging is probably... one of the worst options right now.
I totally agree.
If I was starting today, I would start a podcast or a YouTube channel. Those are the spaces that are still growing very quickly. Those are the spaces where there's still a lot of opportunity, you know, like the big media companies haven't totally figured out what works or how to do it. And so those are always going to be the spaces where young hustlers have an advantage.
I totally agree. And I'll be more frank with my listeners because I have a more personal relationship with them. I would totally avoid blogging if you don't blog yet because unless you're Mark Manson, who was able from back then when it was like at its peak to get all these subscribers and things, it's really hard.
And I would suggest working on something like you mentioned, like podcasts or YouTube instead. Okay, so we have limited time. And like I mentioned, your new book, Everything F***ed, has so much content. And I definitely want to get into some of the key takeaways that I found. Just to summarize, in my opinion, at a super high level what this book is about, it's really about becoming an adult.
And not just any adult, but the best adult that you can be. And some people think that like when you turn 18, you automatically become an adult, but that's not really the case. 13% of adults actually behave and think like adults, according to some studies. We'll get into that later. I just want to say that I read that book. It was great.
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Chapter 4: How does Mark Manson define hope and the uncomfortable truth?
So it released in May 2019. So I'm assuming you wrote it like the year before. At that time, why did you think that everything was ****?
Well, it's funny talking about this now when actually there is a real crisis happening because I think we so easily forget that I feel like that period of 2017, 2018, 2019, there was kind of like a fever pitch in our culture where everything felt like a crisis but nothing was actually a crisis. People were always freaking out over everything that happened.
Whereas you look out the window and everything's great and job market's best it's been in 50 years and economy's doing great and all the metrics in terms of life expectancy and health and education are all-time highs. Meanwhile, you go on Twitter and you would think that the apocalypse was happening. The book was... very much written to address that.
What is it about not just our culture today, but our generation that we get so worked up about things and trying to put those things in perspective.
And it's ironic because one of the things that I talked about in the book is that there's a little bit of a paradox where when things are great, you kind of have to make up problems to be upset about because it's by being upset about things that you give your life a sense of meaning or a sense of hope.
And when things are actually f***ed up, as they are right now, you don't have to go searching for a crisis. You don't have to go searching for problems. The problem's right there in front of you. So in a weird way, crises are almost psychologically easier for us to bear because we know exactly what to hope for.
Yeah. So it's almost like when things are going so great, we end up making it worse for ourselves because we imagine things to be so bad or we make things that we wouldn't otherwise think are bad just to like kind of satisfy our need to have a crisis and our need to kind of like hope for something. So tell us what the definition of hope is in your opinion. Like how do you define hope?
I define hope as some sort of vision of the future that we believe will be better. There are a couple of things that are interesting about, I guess, that definition of hope. One is just simply that if we don't have some vision of our future that is better, that's when we fall into depression or despair.
It's one of the things I talk about in chapter one is that the opposite of happiness is not sadness or anger. The opposite of happiness is hopelessness, is the sense that nothing we do matters, nothing that we do will affect any sorts of change.
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Chapter 5: What is the thinking and feeling brain concept?
Chapter 6: How can understanding the uncomfortable truth impact motivation?
But if you are able to accept it, it it shows you that most of the things that stress you out are actually not that significant. And so it kind of has a, it's a double, a little bit of a double-edged sword. It can, it can make everything feel meaningless, but at the same time, if most of the things that you
say or do or pursue are meaningless, then that means you're completely free to do what matters to you. There's no excuse to not embarrass yourself or to not fail at something or to not pursue a dream or to not tell somebody that you love them. Because we're all going to die anyway, so you might as well live each moment to its fullest.
Yeah, totally. It's like gives you some perspective and also helps you with your priorities and makes you realize that like this big problem that I have isn't really that serious. Who's gonna remember it when I die? Who's gonna? So that's a good point. Let's hold that thought and take a quick break with our sponsors.
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