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Founder's Story
Mark Manson: The Subtle Art of Building a 20 Million Copy Empire | Ep. 337
00:47:24
Daniel Robbins sits down with Mark Manson to unpack why the internet hijacks our attention, amplifies anxiety, and makes it harder to choose what actually matters. Mark breaks down how he built a content empire by spotting platform shifts early, why he “viciously curates” his feeds, and how to handle hate without spiraling. They also go deep on purpose, AI companions, and why the real skill of this era is pruning your life down to what you value most.
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- [00:05]
A
Happy birthday. Thank you, by the way.
- [00:07]
B
Thank you.
- [00:08]
A
Also 84, right? Yeah, me too.
- [00:11]
B
Oh, no kidding.
- [00:12]
A
So we were talking earlier about how when we were kids, or maybe depending on the age. Right. Because 90s is all the rage right now. Dial up Internet.
- [00:20]
B
Yes.
- [00:21]
A
I mean that noise, the sound, the inability to really even have speed when you search. What do you think about when you go nostalgia about the 90s? What comes to mind?
- [00:35]
B
Nostalgic about the 90s? I think about like, actually those old computer games like Quake and Starcraft Warcraft, like actually having to. Used to have to manually type in the IP of the server to like join a game. And so there were these websites that had server lists and there were just lists of IPs and how many people were playing at a certain moment. And. And it's. Yeah, it was very old school. It was very like nuts and bolts. Things fell apart, didn't work half the time. And of course the Internet connection was awful. So you would drop in half the games. But. But yeah. Great memories.
- [01:11]
A
You know what? We might have played each other.
- [01:12]
B
Yeah.
- [01:12]
A
Because I was a big nerd.
- [01:14]
B
Yeah.
- [01:15]
A
In those games. And the same thing I was, I was always causing chaos in the chats. Like I would, I would pretend to be somebody else in the chats. Of course. Little did we know. Yeah. But when I read your book 10 years ago, which I think is the 10 year anniversary, it's coming up in about six months.
- [01:32]
B
Yeah.
- [01:32]
A
Incredible. I mean.
- [01:33]
B
Yeah.
- [01:34]
A
How does that feel? Like thinking of 10 years
- [01:39]
B
makes me feel old. Almost as old as the birthday, actually. What's. What's gotten weird is I've started getting, you know, I get stopped by fans occasionally. And what is, what has gotten weird is that people, people will stop me and they're like, oh, I read your book when I was a freshman in high school. And I'm like, this is like a grown man in front of me with like a kid. And I'm like, oh my God, I'm getting old. So it's. Yeah, I'm. And also people in my YouTube comments have started calling me Unk. So that I think that's how you know. I mean, I've got some gray hair. My wisdom, my beard's getting a little white. But like when the, when the YouTube comments start calling you Unk, that's. That's how you know.
- [02:19]
A
I know I thought I had blonde hair in my beard. My wife's the other day is like, it's not blonde. This is white. That's gray.
- [02:25]
B
Yeah.
- [02:26]
A
I'm like, what is Great. I can't see it. It's on the side. Like, how am I supposed to. We're getting unk. We're getting old.
- [02:31]
B
Oh, yeah, we are. We are.
- [02:33]
A
I don't know if I want to be Sad, but. So 10 years ago, your book stood out for me, the subtle art. Because I have a lot of challenges with control and also caring.
- [02:46]
B
Yeah.
- [02:46]
A
I don't necessarily care what people think. Right. But online, when people write something, for some reason, I really care, it bothers me. So for many years, I stayed away from even doing anything online.
- [02:59]
B
Right.
- [03:00]
A
How do you deal with that?
- [03:01]
B
Are you talking about people like haters in the comments, or are you just talking about, like, idiots online? Posting? Both. Okay.
- [03:08]
A
And all of it, to me, makes me anxious. Yeah.
- [03:10]
B
Yeah. Well, the, the haters problem, I think a certain percentage of it is just desensitization. Like, it's that the hate that you get online is very much proportional to your impact and your reach. So I just. Kind of the same way in, like, I don't know, you know, there's like a fail rate in manufacturing. Like, you just always know that 1% of your product's going to come out wrong. Like, I think online, it's just understanding that 1% of the comments is always going to hate you. And that's just a fact. That's just. That just comes with the territory. So I think understanding that, internalizing it and then. And then just developing kind of the scar tissue to, like, not engage and not try to argue and to stop reading them. The harder thing, I think, is when you see a bunch of, like, idiots or misinformation or people stirring up drama or whatever on social media that, that, like, I, I'm. I personally subscribe to the idea, and I, and I prescribe the idea of, like, viciously curating your own feeds, like, taking responsibility for your own feeds and understanding that, like, if somebody is posting something on X or TikTok or whatever and it's pissing you off or making you feel really bad, don't engage with it. Don't engage, because if you comment, if you try to start an argument, if you send it to a friend, you're like, oh, can you believe how stupid this person is? What you're doing is you're signaling to the algorithm.
- [04:39]
A
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- [05:40]
B
you're, that that's what gets you to engage and stay on the platform. And so it's going to keep serving you that stuff that makes you upset. So like I try to be hyper aware of like okay, how is, how is this content making me feel? Is it adding something to my life? And if it's not, then I'm very aggressive about either like blocking the person muting the piece of content or most, most platforms these days they have a, an option you can like if you click on the three dots you can select like not interested in this.
- [06:07]
A
Yep. I'm starting to wonder if social media was the greatest thing for humanity or the worst thing for humanity.
- [06:16]
B
It's probably neither. As with most things, it's probably neither. I mean I talk about being old, right? Like I think one of the benefits of being our age, being our generation is you remember what was great about social media. Like I remember the first time I got on Facebook. I was on it until like 4 in the morning. I could not pull myself away from it. It was so absolutely incredible, mind blowing. I was looking up like all the people I went to high school with. It was incredible. So I think just the connectivity, we take it for granted today. Like we take it for granted the fact that like you can, you could get on right now and look up a guy you went to high school with and haven't Talked to in 15 years and reach out to him. Right? Like that used to be impossible, completely impossible. Back, back, back in our day. Right. So there is, there is something incredible about that and there is something incredible about like finding like minded individuals and reconnecting with people and keeping tabs on people like knowing when they got married or they've had a kid or whatever. There is a lot of value in that. That gets Missed. But there's. There's. Yeah, there's just. There's a lot of garbage out there.
- [07:30]
A
I remember when I had MySpace, don't stop believing was the last song that I had on MySpace. And I think you used to have the fate. The five. Like the five people or ten people. And if you switch somebody out. Yeah, they were like, so angry. Oh, yeah. Like, it was. How did you switch my. Like, Like T Mobile used to have the five faves.
- [07:47]
B
Yeah.
- [07:47]
A
Yes. Like, I'm not a fave. Yeah. Obviously you've been able to leverage social media. Yes, massively.
- [07:56]
B
Yeah.
- [07:57]
A
Like, hugely. How was the transition from. I know you had subtle art. You also had a book before that and a blog, right? Subtle Art 2000. Was that 2016?
- [08:08]
B
16, yeah.
- [08:10]
A
So 2016, social media is, you know, coming up. You know, things were coming up. How did you transition that into the social media empire and the content creation empire you have?
- [08:21]
B
Oh, man, it's, you know, there's. There's kind of phases to that question. So let me, let me. Let me kind of take it one by one. I. I would actually divide my career up in online content to kind of three. Three phases. So I started blogging, like 2008, 2009, my first business. I tried to start a number. I read Tim Ferriss book Four Hour Workweek in 2008. Started creating websites, online businesses, bunch of different things. Tried to do affiliate marketing, e commerce, like all sorts of stuff. And the one that kind of hit and stuck was dating advice. Dating relationship advice. And initially it was affiliate promotions. But then eventually once I, you know, the blog started to catch on, I started to sell my own info products and I did that for a number of years. And I was doing coaching and it was just like, very hard to scale and grow and build audience. Like back then, you. You literally had to reach out to other bloggers and convince them to link to you.
- [09:22]
A
I remember the back linking. Yeah, yeah. It'd be like backlink link for link. Exactly.
- [09:26]
B
It'd be like, hey, man, I'll write a post about you if you write a post about me. Or like, I'll put you in my sidebar if you put me in your. You know, it was very arduous and, like, slow. And a lot of it involved, like, networking. And then Facebook released the newsfeed. I want to say 2011. And I think, like, if my first big break in my career was recognizing, I think earlier than most what Facebook was trying to do, which is that it was trying to compete with like Google or the New York Times to, like, become everybody's homepage on the Internet. And they were doing that by, like, really pushing publication, like, published articles and different publications very aggressively on the people's news feeds. And so I looked at it, and I was like, you know, if I kind of wrote a really good title with, like, some good copywriting and had, like, a interesting image, I bet I could get shared a bunch. I bet, like, Facebook will kind of push me to a lot of people. And so, sure enough, I had from, like, 2012 to 2015, I had probably 10 or 15 articles go super viral, like, millions and millions of shares. And one of those. The biggest one, the one that went most viral, was an article called the Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. And it had a picture of a kitten with an explosion behind it. And the kittens, like, calmly walking away from the explosion.
- [10:51]
A
Cat things go crazy, dude.
- [10:53]
B
It was. It was. It was a magic formula. And it was. I think it did something like. I think it did 6 million page views in, like, the first day or something like that. Just, like, absurd numbers kept crashing my website. It was. It was a whole thing. And so then that is what opened up the opportunity for the. The book deal. And I got an agent. I went and got a publishing deal, and then that's how the book happened. Now, what's interesting is that back in those days, the Roadmap or the Playbook was like, you get big on the Internet, so you. You can go get a deal in conventional media, right? So There were, like, YouTubers who were using YouTube to, like, get on the TV shows, and there were musicians that were, you know, posting on Bandcamp to get record deals. And I remember that one. And I think my generation of bloggers, like, you can look at people like. Like me and James Clear and Ryan Holiday, like, what we were doing is we built these massive blog audiences, and then that got us book deals. And so the idea was that, like, once you get your foot in the door and you're like, okay, now I'm a published author. Now I'm a bestseller. Like, now. Now you're just an author. Like, you don't have to do that stupid Internet stuff anymore. And that was kind of my attitude for the next few years. I did a bunch of book deals, I did a movie deal, did a couple TV deals that never got made. But in my head, I'm like, okay, I'm like, I'm an author, screenwriter, whatever, producer now. Don't have to do this Internet stuff. When those projects ran out, then the pandemic happens and everybody goes online. And online content just like goes. There's a bonanza of online content. And it was around that time I looked around and I was like, you know what? I actually miss the content game. And then B, I actually think this is where more of the opportunity is because I just spent five years with traditional media companies, publishers, movie studios, Hollywood production companies, and they're all so fucking slow and incompetent. And like, like I remember getting on a marketing call for. So we did a low budget documentary film called the Subtle Not Giving a Fuck with, with Universal Studios. And I remember getting on the marketing call with the Universal Studios marketing team and they couldn't tell me when it was coming out because it was, it was different in every country. They couldn't tell me what platform it was going to be on because it's going to be different in every country. They couldn't tell me. Like, they had. Their marketing campaign was basically just incomprehensible. Like essentially what it boiled down to an hour long call with like nine people. What it boiled down to was, mark, can you post about this on Instagram? Like, that was essentially what everything kept coming back to is like, well, if you post it on Instagram, we'll figure it out. And I was like, damn, like, feels like they're just paying for my Instagram account. Like, that's kind of all they're interested in. And so it got me thinking and it got me like looking back at the kind of the online content ecosystem and I realized that like, I missed it. Like, that's actually, that's my roots. I missed being entrepreneurial. I missed having my own team. I missed like making my own content, like not having a gatekeeper, like controlling my own fade. So in 2022, I kind of came back to this world, launched a YouTube channel, a podcast, started scaling content on every platform and that's, that's what I'm doing today.
- [14:39]
A
It's incredible. Now we can control that.
- [14:42]
B
Yeah.
- [14:42]
A
It used to be like, you're saying if you want to be a musician, you got to get a deal. 1.001%, get a deal or even a book deal.
- [14:50]
B
Right?
- [14:51]
A
A movie. Like, these things are only for the very few people. Now you post something online overnight, like your blog, you might become something, the thing that you wanted to become. When did you realize that this, this is a business in itself?
- [15:08]
B
I think I realized that when Mr. Beast started to like really take off. I remember I discovered him, I think I want to say the 2018, 2019, and I just remember being like, wow, this kid's brilliant. This is so cool. But I think it was like 20, 21 or something. He went from, I think like maybe 20 million subscribers, like 100 million in a year. And he was just doing stupid amounts of money and like getting hundreds of millions of views on his videos. And I remember, and it was right after I had just done a bunch of the movie and TV stuff and was pretty dissatisfied with it. And, and I remember sitting there and like sitting down and doing the math of like, okay, how many views is this guy getting? What's his reach? How many, how many views does like a typical TV show get sitcom or whatever? And then kind of doing back, like working backwards, doing some research into just where is everybody's eyeballs going? And sure enough, if you do the research, it's like TV is dying. Most streaming platforms are losing money. Hollywood is just hemorrhaging money all over the place. People are, don't go to the movies anymore. They don't want to spend money on movies. People are spending all their time online, you know, and then you see it, you look on, on the flip side online, and it's like, YouTube is now the biggest media company in the world. Podcasts are growing at like just absurd rates. And people are spending more and more time on social platforms. So I, I just kind of like read the tea leaves. And I was like, okay, if I'm going to be creating content for the next 20 years, like, which door am I going to pick, right? And because now I have the resume and the experience to like do either, but like, where am I going to place my chips and put in the bet? So it, it is funny. It's a total reversal too. Like back when I, I remember when I did my publishing deal, it was really unconventional for a blogger to get a big book deal. Like, it was, it was kind of like a little bit of a salacious headline within the publishing industry. Now it's the reverse. Now it's like, now I meet all these like professors and PhDs and TV personalities who are like trying to get a book deal, but like they can't get a book contract because they don't have a social following.
- [17:29]
A
It's kind of crazy. I know I have a lot of friends who are like, but I'm the world leading expert in XYZ and, and I can't get a book deal because they were asking me about, we just launched with Penguin, our book a couple of months ago. And I'm like, look, unfortunately this is how it is. Fortunately, it also kind of democratizes the ability for more voices to get out there, but that also leads to more competition, you going up against more people. I think there's a really interesting change that I'm seeing around the expertise. Like we're saying, where it used to be, if you're a content creator, you talk about something, you may not have really, like, a lot of expertise in it, but you're just talking about it, and you might be the only one. I feel like there's a new push towards people like yourself who have extensive experience in it, right? Where people are like, okay, I like this person who doesn't really have experience, but they have a following. But then I see this other person who has Ph.D. who's, you know, like you're saying, established in it for 10, 12, 15 years, and, wow, you know what? I think I want to listen to them.
- [18:31]
B
Yeah, it's interesting. I think in the content world, there's kind of two types of authority. One is kind of the classic credentialed authority. Like, okay, you're a Harvard professor and you are the world's leading expert on studying motivation or whatever, right? So it's like, okay, I'm going to listen to you. And that's been around forever. But there's. The Internet has kind of created this new form of authority, which I would kind of say is epitomized by like a Joe Rogan or something, which is. Which is the. I'm going to learn with you, right? Like, I'm not an expert. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing, but I'm really curious, and I'm going to put a lot of time into this, and I'm going to document it as I go. So let me talk to the experts. Let me dig into the research and try to figure something out. Let me go read 10 books and come back and tell you what I learned about it. Or, like, what are the five things that you need to know? And so you see a lot of really big social media figures or podcasters or YouTubers who are like, it's. It's the learn with me crowd. And I think. I think wires get crossed sometimes. Like, you'll see somebody like Rogan get criticized all the time in traditional media because they're like, it's just. He's an idiot comedian. He doesn't know what he's talking. Well, it's like, yeah, that's the appeal.
- [19:45]
A
That's the appeal.
- [19:46]
B
Because it's like his listeners get to be curious along with Him.
- [19:50]
A
Yeah.
- [19:51]
B
And they get to, like, he's going to ask the exact same questions that a completely uninformed person is going to ask. So, like, that is why people listen. And it's. It is. It's interesting, though, because I think if you are that credentialed expert, it can. It can feel incredibly frustrating that it's like, okay, this guy who knows nothing has ten times the audience I do.
- [20:15]
A
I'll never forget. Do you remember Clubhouse?
- [20:17]
B
Yes.
- [20:18]
A
So one day I was on Clubhouse, and. And I was listening to this room about this topic, and it was kind of idiotic, and there was a lot of thousands of people were listening. Then I went to this room. It was like, 20 Harvard professors, and there was like, 20 people listening to these 20 people.
- [20:33]
B
Right.
- [20:34]
A
And at that moment, I realized this is like, 20, 21. I'm like, this is. This is fascinating to me. Like, I can't believe the. The. How far. It doesn't even make any sense.
- [20:46]
B
Sometimes.
- [20:46]
A
I'm like, but. But I think there is a. I think there's a recent transition, though, at least I feel like.
- [20:51]
B
Yeah, I'd say the last five years.
- [20:53]
A
Professors are like rock stars now, I like to say.
- [20:55]
B
Well, the funny thing is, is, like, so this is. The interesting thing is that I would say in the last few years, the professors, the CEOs, you know, the former politicians, like, they're figuring out the game, right? It's. Gavin Newsom just launched a podcast. Like, it's. It's. They're figuring this out, and I'm seeing it all the time. Like, I was. I was actually on YouTube the other day, and there was this guy, it was like an MIT professor, and he was like a private equity billionaire, and he started a YouTube channel. And it. And he had, like, really well done thumbnails, and it was, like, really well edited. I mean, it was clearly. Clearly he was spending a lot of money on it. But I remember just, like, watching it being like, why does this guy give a shit about YouTube?
- [21:40]
A
Like, if he's dire. Yeah. Like, yeah, it is interesting. Who. Who's who? Like, you're saying, who's looking for attention.
- [21:48]
B
Yes.
- [21:49]
A
Who's seeking online attention? Same like you. I imagine people reach out, and sometimes I'm like, why are they reaching out to me?
- [21:56]
B
Yes.
- [21:56]
A
Like, they're. I don't know what I get to provide. What value could I add to that? So it sounds like, like, you've. You've created the business now. Yeah, I see the transitions. What does it take, though? You know, let's let's go behind the scenes. What is a day like for. For you, your team, everything you're doing to be able to push out the content that you do?
- [22:19]
B
Yeah, I'm glad you're asking this because it's. I think people don't realize how much work goes into it. They just, they see a couple Instagram reels or a tick tock or something and, you know, join your newsletter and they're like, oh, that's cool. I actually get people in my daily life who come up to me and they're like, wow, you must spend a lot of time filming. I'm like, you know, I have people who do that for me. But so our team, currently, we had two new. Two new people start today. So I believe we're 22 people. 22 or 23 people. We have five or six editors. I mean, basically we're pushing content out. I think we post around 10 to 15 pieces of content per day across all platforms. We have weekly podcast episodes, weekly YouTube episodes, two newsletters a week, and then literally hundreds of pieces of social media content each month. So obviously I'm not doing all of that. And usually the way it works is it kind of starts like I create the seed of something, which is usually a YouTube script or a newsletter. I write kind of the initial content and then the team is trained to repurpose that across tons and tons of different formats. So, so it's. You take a newsletter, you pull an Instagram real script from it, you pull a couple tweets from it, you pull a Facebook post from it, and then that all gets scheduled to go out to its, like, appropriate places. So it takes it. It is, it's like a mini media company essentially. Like, you have pre production people. You have production people. We're sitting here in my studio right now, like, and then you have post production people. And it's. You go through very similar processes that people, you know, do for making commercials or music videos or. Or TV shows.
- [24:12]
A
Well, thank you for having me here, by the way. Yeah, like you said, we're in your studio. Yeah, I appreciate it. It's incredible. You. It's sad that we don't have the footage of your studio. Maybe we can add some footage here because you have the best props.
- [24:23]
B
It's a goofy place.
- [24:25]
A
It's amazing. Like, I could spend. I don't know if it's because, you know, I have like an add brain of like, yeah, I could, I could have fun in there. There's so many different things to like, we got play with oh, you have costumes. Why are we not wearing a costume?
- [24:38]
B
We could, like, do a snap edit here to, like, you in a hot dog suit.
- [24:42]
A
We might need to do that.
- [24:43]
B
And me in an eggplant suit.
- [24:44]
A
I mean, that I would do that. That's legit. My wife and I, one time, I think we were like ketchup and mayonnaise. I think I was a hot dog at some point. I like that idea. I want to go back to purpose. Okay. So thinking back, you mentioned 2020. That was an odd year for me. Like. Like most people in the world. Right. All of my businesses, everything, basically, at that moment came to a zero.
- [25:07]
B
Yeah.
- [25:07]
A
And I'm like, I don't know what the heck I'm gonna do with my. With my life. And I created a personal mission because I noticed for me before, everything I had was, like, a business mission to make money. And the moment that I, like, realized that I have no money, like, yeah, I don't know if I'll ever be able to make money. What I've been building. Right. At that when everything shut down.
- [25:29]
B
Right.
- [25:29]
A
I said, I'm going to impact 100 million people in my life, and I want to fit everything I do around that personal mission.
- [25:35]
B
Yeah.
- [25:35]
A
So if my business collapse, it doesn't matter.
- [25:38]
B
Yeah.
- [25:39]
A
Purpose is obviously very important to you. Not only it's your new app, which I use daily, but what is your purpose?
- [25:46]
B
My purpose is to help people clarify and prioritize their values, which is essentially help people give better fucks. But it's. I personally think that the. The psychological problem of our age is we are exposed to too much. Too much information, too many opportunities, too many people, too many perspectives. And the challenge that all of us face, that no previous generation has ever faced, is knowing what to cut out, knowing what to get rid of. What do I stop focusing on? What do I stop reading? What do I. What opportunities do I stop pursuing? And in many ways, that's, like, so much harder than finding something to pursue. Right. Or to pay attention to. But it's when we're so inundated with all this stuff and all this noise all the time, it's that constant pruning that needs to be, like, practiced and focused on. And so all of my work, whether it's, you know, the social media content or a newsletter or a book or the app, it's all geared around the same thing. It's like, helping people narrow their focus and, like, really just let go of the stuff that doesn't matter.
- [27:04]
A
I like that because, like, you know, I. I've struggled. So when I was 12, I was sadly diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder. And I took many years and someone telling me, like, hey, you don't need a title. Like, you can get over something. Yeah. And that's when I realized, like, I need to stop giving a fuck. But. But the way my brain had, like, become wired was like, control was a big problem.
- [27:26]
B
Right.
- [27:27]
A
Like, I. If I couldn't control other things, it really, like, created a lot of anxiety for me.
- [27:33]
B
Yeah.
- [27:33]
A
So. So I. I like the purpose. I like every. The app you have. I like your mission. It's amazing being a tech founder, though. It's not easy. No, it's not easy. We've had some amazing tech founders on the show making an app. I tried. I've done like 10 businesses that failed, maybe 15 at this point. And one of them was an app, by the way. And I realized, like, oh, wait, I have to build an app and I have to get users and I have to, like, make money. I mean, there's like, a lot of. It's like chicken and egg. You got to do a lot of things so hard. It's really hard.
- [28:04]
B
Yeah.
- [28:04]
A
How's the experience been?
- [28:07]
B
It's hard. It's like many businesses, right, like, where if you knew how hard it was going to be beforehand, you probably wouldn't have done it.
- [28:16]
A
You're too deep, man. Yeah, but.
- [28:17]
B
But it's like now you're in and you, you know, you're. You've gotten this far, so you have to keep going. Software is tough. And I would say the hardest thing for me personally was, was coming from media, where it's like, if something isn't good, like you want to change your website or there's a paragraph that needs to be cut, like, it's. It literally takes 10 seconds, right? You just go in there, you know, you're watching a cut of this. This interview, right? It's like, oh, I didn't like what I said there. It's like, cut. You know, it takes 10 seconds. So easy. Done. You move on software, it takes forever. And as soon as you cut that one little thing, it breaks like, four other things that need to be. Go. Be fixed. And so then you have to, like, go fix those things, but then fixing those things causes a bug in this completely other screen that you hadn't even considered before. And then you have to fix those bugs and. And then you have to, like, submit the build to the App Store and then Apple doesn't like something that you did. And, and so it's just like you
- [29:16]
A
don't have control over everything. No, you have little control.
- [29:19]
B
It's crazy, man. Like it, even something as simple as like removing a button from a screen, like it can be two weeks before it shows up in the app. And then you're like, oh, that hurt. Hurt our engagement. We need to put that button back. And then it's like another two weeks to bring it back. And so it's just the, I would say the feedback loop, both the speed and the friction of the feedback loop in software is extremely difficult and agonizing in a lot of ways. And it's expensive too, right? So you have, you have a run rate and you, and like you're burning through cash and you've got to go hire more developers. So I've been very fortunate. I found an amazing co founder who's been building software his whole life and he's CEO. So like, so I don't have to like.
- [30:06]
A
You are the face of the ads though.
- [30:08]
B
Yeah.
- [30:08]
A
Your ad follows me everywhere, by the way. So that's a good thing.
- [30:10]
B
Good, good. I'm glad to hear that.
- [30:12]
A
It means it's so I see.
- [30:13]
B
Made us like metal is doing his job.
- [30:15]
A
Yeah, I see you. I'm like, oh wait, there's Mark. He's telling me about purpose. Yeah, I need to go to the app.
- [30:20]
B
Yes.
- [30:21]
A
It reminds me.
- [30:21]
B
Good.
- [30:23]
A
So I love that it's. You build an audience and the good thing is you're using what you have for that audience. Because I think a lot of people, like I build an audience, hopefully I go get like a deal from some brand but not realizing it's also a big opportunity for you to build something on your own. Right.
- [30:39]
B
And this is, this is the thing that's, that is new and I think very exciting and I think we're going to start seeing a lot more of this. Like there are some creators that are experimenting with this, but this is from what I, from what I can tell, it's like relatively new and new territory, you know. So as a creator, right, like most of your revenue is either coming from brand deals and sponsorships, right. So Hawken, whatever element or AG1, you know, whatever the hell, or you are selling some sort of back end course, consulting or workshop, whatever, and you've got some sort of product funnel that you're putting, pushing people into and you know, that's all fine and great. If you do the brand deals and the sponsorships. That's a bit of a treadmill, right. Like you've, you've gotta close new brand deals like every quarter and you know, convince the, the old brand, make sure you're converting for them. Just make sure they come, keep renewing and coming back year after year. And then on the product side, it's in my experience, you know, I've sold back in courses and products for 15 years now. You can make good money, but there's kind of you, they kind of run their course, you know, so it's like after three, four years, you kind of squeeze all the juice that can come out of that certain product funnel and then you've got to start over and build another one and that. So that also feels like kind of a treadmill. And I like the idea of like finding it. Whether it's co founding a company, which is what I did, or simply partnering and taking equity in a company and kind of having them as a mainstay sponsor of like, okay, you know, I own a piece of this business. It aligns super well with my creator brand and so I'm just going to promote it forever. And incentives are aligned. You're not like renegotiating IO invoices like every quarter. You're not getting angry emails that your last YouTube video didn't convert for them. And like they want to make good and all this stuff. Like it's just like, I own a piece of the business. We're, we're aligned philosophically. I'm just gonna like promote the crap out of it.
- [32:51]
A
I've been doing that lately. More.
- [32:53]
B
Yeah.
- [32:53]
A
Like I wanted just a piece like bring our expertise in the ability to do what we can do.
- [32:58]
B
Yeah.
- [32:59]
A
Versus like you paying me for the service.
- [33:02]
B
Yeah.
- [33:02]
A
I feel like there's something to be said because failure rate is quite high as we know of many things, tech things. So it's almost like the, you know, if you could invest across 100 and you maybe 10 hit or 5 hit or 1 is a massive hit. AI is fascinating right now.
- [33:19]
B
Yeah.
- [33:19]
A
There's something I'm very scared about and I want to, I wanted to hear your thoughts and I heard you talk a little bit on this AI companions. So there's a lot. I was just watching this show yesterday and it's almost as if it's not real, but it was real.
- [33:35]
B
Yeah.
- [33:35]
A
And it's a media outlet. They did a documentary for the last year. They followed a person around with his AI companion and it, the finale is him telling his mom that he is in love with this AI companion.
- [33:50]
B
Yeah.
- [33:51]
A
And it almost seems like it's a joke because I was laughing While watching it, then I realized, like, this is real and we're seeing a lot of this. I don't know if anyone in the future will even have kids. Like how, like humanity. I don't know what to think. What's going to happen to humanity now that people are like, falling in love with AI? They're taking AI's advice. AI guru, right? Like, they're listening only to AI, as if it knows everything, as if it's a human. What do you think about that?
- [34:23]
B
I think, okay, I think I'm less worried about this than most people, simply because I think when you look at any technology, there's always edge cases of people who are, for whatever reason, psychologically susceptible to being diluted by that technological innovation. And there's going to be problems. And those problems, because it's a new technology, those problems are going to be completely novel and scary and like, oh my God, we're never seen this before. So, I mean, it's, you know, when cars were invented, you started getting car accidents. And when television was invented, you started getting couch potatoes. And you know, when the Internet was invented, you started getting like child predators
- [35:10]
A
in chat rooms and remember those meals? What is like TV meals? TV dinners?
- [35:14]
B
Yeah, yeah. TV dinners, man.
- [35:16]
A
Yeah.
- [35:16]
B
Hell yeah. The. So in social media, obviously, like, you get these, this social media addiction and anxiety and depression and all this stuff. So I think in many ways this is just AI's version of that. And I think if you look at the statistics, it's a relatively small sliver of the population that is really developing unhealthy, I guess I'd call it use cases or behavioral patterns with AIs.
- [35:47]
A
Maybe it just meets the news. Maybe I see it more because it absolutely does. It's the news is promoting it as if it's everyone almost.
- [35:53]
B
And as a founder of an AI product, like I, I did do research into AI psychosis to see how prevalent it is. And it is. I mean, yes, there are some very scary cases of it, but if you look at it statistically in terms of like, how many people per 100,000 users
- [36:08]
A
are actually, like, marrying their AI, it's small.
- [36:11]
B
It's, it is, let's just put it this way, you're more likely to develop psychosis from smoking weed or taking psychedelics than talking to an AI. So statistically speaking, it is safer than the drugs you did last weekend. And so I, I, for now. Yeah, for now.
- [36:30]
A
I'm, I'm interested when it goes into robots. Yes. Like when you have AI and robots and they're walking. I just had this woman on. She lived with a robot for the last year because she does. She does research for eu.
- [36:41]
B
Yeah.
- [36:41]
A
About how it is to live with a robot.
- [36:43]
B
Okay.
- [36:43]
A
She was telling me, like, she has to take the robot with her on the train. She has to take the robot. She has to do everything that you would do with the robot to. To. They're documenting it and finding out, like, she had to call insurance company and add her robot on because what if the robot slaps somebody? That's what she was saying.
- [36:59]
B
Wow.
- [36:59]
A
Who's at fault?
- [37:00]
B
Yeah.
- [37:01]
A
Like, I'm. I'm like, what?
- [37:03]
B
Never thought about this.
- [37:04]
A
What? This world that we are entering. It seems very rapidly that we are going in there, which, I mean, that's amazing. But when you think back, like, you sold over 20 million books, right? Like I said, I'm a new author. I think I've sold like a thousand books at this point. 20 million seems incredible. What, what feelings go through your mind when you HEAR you've sold 20 million books and by the way, 10 years. Yeah, it seems maybe 10 years is long, but it's not that long of a time to sell 20 million books.
- [37:35]
B
Yeah, it just kind of becomes like this big abstract number at a certain point in terms of, like, what it feels like, you know, when you hit a million, it's a huge milestone. So, like, that's obviously, I would say selling a million copies is kind of. It's like the next level of being a New York Times bestseller. Right. It's the sort of thing that you can slap behind your name for the rest of your life, for the rest of your career, and it's always going to be there. Once you get past that, it just kind of becomes gratuitous. Like, it's just. And it was the same thing with, like, I guess my lived experience of it, you know, like that. That first takeoff when the book blew up was really incredible and disorienting and exciting and scary and surreal and all of the different feelings mixed together. I would say everything past that first year or two was just like a number that came in the mail or showed up in my bank account and
- [38:37]
A
it was like, oh, so 18 was the same as 19, the same as 20.
- [38:41]
B
Honestly, like, you. You stop caring or tracking at a certain point. You know, do you.
- [38:47]
A
Do you stop at bookstores? Because I do that now. But do you stop at bookstores or. That's kind of like, occasionally.
- [38:53]
B
I mean, I stop at bookstores just because I love books, but. And I also stop at Bookstore. So here's actually why I stop at bookstores. So, yes, early on, it was always to see if my book was there and if so, which books were there. Now it's more just, like, curiosity about the market. Like, I'm always like, I was just. I just flew back from Austin a couple days ago, and I stopped in the bookstore in both the Austin airport and the LA airport, mostly just to see who's hot right now, what's kind of like, who's getting shelf space, what's taking off. And the other fascinating thing about bookstores, especially in airports, is so it's very different from city to city. So, like, it actually is kind of a reflection of that city's culture. And so you'll see books that are, like, super hot on the east coast or west coast, but then you fly to Texas or you fly to the middle of the country, and like, you won't see them anywhere.
- [39:40]
A
I spend a lot of time in the Philippines.
- [39:42]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [39:42]
A
And Southeast Asia.
- [39:43]
B
Okay.
- [39:44]
A
You're huge there.
- [39:45]
B
Yeah.
- [39:45]
A
Because I told the community that. That we're going to be talking today.
- [39:49]
B
Yeah.
- [39:49]
A
They went bananas. I see your book everywhere, though.
- [39:52]
B
Yeah. Philippines is a big market for.
- [39:53]
A
It's amazing. You and James clear.
- [39:55]
B
Yep.
- [39:57]
A
It's wild. Every bookstore I go to because I want to see my book too. It's always you and James Clear.
- [40:02]
B
Yeah.
- [40:03]
A
Always at the top. I'm fast. I'm like, that's amaz. Like, it's. It's wild to think, like, how you resonate with a certain group of people.
- [40:09]
B
It. Yeah. Honestly, I. I haven't talked to James in a couple years, so James and I are like, we're old friends.
- [40:15]
A
You call him Jim.
- [40:16]
B
Jim. Just laughing, thinking about calling him Jim. I should do that next time I see him.
- [40:23]
A
See what he tell him I said it.
- [40:25]
B
What's up, Jim? No, James and I are like. Like, we go way back. He started blogging, like, a year or two after I did. And I remember discovering him. I want to say, like, 2012 or so. And I remember being like, oh, wow, this guy's really good. Like, he's doing some really cool stuff. And then he and I think he and I started corresponding around 2013. And then we. He and I actually joined a mastermind together when I was writing Subtle Art and he was writing Atomic Habits. So we were actually part. We were like accountability buddies during that period. And it's just so weird because back then we were both these, like, blogger Internet guys that nobody in publishing really seemed to take seriously. And we had both just gotten these, like, really nice book deals, and we were super insecure and nervous about, like, is this even gonna work? What are we doing? Is anybody gonna read this thing? And it is. It's pretty crazy, actually, like, the staying power of both books, isn't it?
- [41:29]
A
Why they think, like, you're just a blogger. Like, you, like Mr. Beast, he's just a YouTuber.
- [41:34]
B
Right.
- [41:35]
A
It's funny how we bucket people. Like, just a YouTuber. Like, he's worth, like, $5 billion.
- [41:40]
B
Arguably the most famous person in the world.
- [41:42]
A
Exactly. You're just a blogger. Yeah. Like, people could say that. Yeah. I don't know why they put us in buckets.
- [41:47]
B
It's. There's almost this weird, like, parallel universe right now where. Where it kind of comes back to that the. The two types of authority I was talking about earlier. Like, there's. There's, like, credibility. You know, there's like, the classic credibility markers, so credentials and, you know, being a movie star or getting some sort of, like, code conventional award or whatever. And then there's just being Internet famous. There's, like, proof in the market, you know, so it's like. And it's. I. I've always felt it's kind of awkward as, like, an Internet guy who's like, basically, my credibility is just, like, tens of millions of people listen to what I say. But I don't have. I don't. I'm not. Like, I don't have a psychology degree. I didn't go to business school. I, like, you know, I didn't go to Ivy League. I've never been on a board of anything. Like, just feels awkward. And then you get some guy who does have all those credentials, like, conventional credential markers and, like, no audience. And. And in many cases, it's like, it's.
- [42:49]
A
Maybe they want to be a YouTuber, and they'll never. Like. Maybe they want to be titled a YouTuber. Yeah. Because that's better now. And they will never be. They're like. They're just an educator.
- [42:57]
B
It's becoming more lucrative. I'll just put it that way.
- [43:00]
A
It's becoming way more lucrative than being. My dad was a teacher. Teacher. He retired, I think I always told him, you should go on YouTube, but he never. He never listened to me. Final two questions. Okay. Fame. How has fame changed your mindset? Or has fame not changed you at all?
- [43:22]
B
I don't think it's changed me much. First of all, I'm not that famous. I. I like the joke that I'm, like, the perfect Level of famous. I'm. I'm famous enough that I will get stopped and recognized a few times a week. And it's always a fan. And they're always like, love your dude. Oh, so cool. Can I get a selfie? You know, it's like, they're very respectful. They don't. They're not creepy. They don't do weird stuff. So it's honestly, like, my relationship with fame is. Is I just get this ego boost every few days.
- [43:51]
A
No stalkers.
- [43:52]
B
Yeah, well, not recently, but like. But like, it's just. It's like a. It's a periodic ego boost.
- [43:58]
A
Now. That's just. Okay, sorry, continue. I know that was a joke or not, but that's another podcast. Okay. There's a whole episode. Did you ever go up to someone when they're. Have you ever had someone reading your book that you saw and you just walk up next to them and just stand there for a couple of seconds like, hey, I like that book. Or, what do you think about that? Would you ever do anything like that?
- [44:19]
B
I've never done that. There was one time I was on a plane and the guy across the aisle from me was reading my book, and I. I actually got so nervous. I felt like. Like a schoolboy, like, watching a girl. He had a crush. I was like, how many pages is he going to read? Is he. What face is he making? Did he just laugh? I think he laughed. You know, like, I was so insecure watching him read my book. And then I was like, I need to just, like, turn the other way and pretend this isn't happening over here.
- [44:49]
A
Okay, well, one day I want to videotape you watching somebody watching someone, like, going up to someone. Just stand there for it. Be subtle.
- [44:56]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [44:56]
A
The subtle art of standing next to somebody.
- [44:58]
B
Okay. Okay.
- [44:59]
A
Then maybe that's the next book title.
- [45:00]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [45:01]
A
And you just say something like, hey, what do you think about that book?
- [45:04]
B
Yeah.
- [45:04]
A
You know, So I wrote the book Unlimited Possibilities, and it was all about breaking through barriers that I didn't think was possible. My wife and I wrote it together. Cool. I want to know what is your unlimited possibility? So it's that moment that maybe you broke through something that you never thought was possible.
- [45:20]
B
Unlimited possibilities. I mean, the funny thing is I never intended to be a writer. I never thought I was going to be. I didn't even think I was good at writing until I started writing online. I had been blogging semi professionally for three years before it finally occurred to me of, like, I could do this for a Living. Like, I actually might be good enough at this to make a living doing it. So that's the first thing that comes to mind for me is just like, as somebody who never made good grades in English class, never wrote good papers in school, never aspired to be an author, the fact that, like, you can just get online and start sharing things that you care deeply about and ideas that are really important to you and have thousands, millions of people respond to it and then turn that into an entire career as a. As an author, it's still mind blowing.
- [46:24]
A
That's your. That's your moment. If Universal Basic Income comes in, because AI is taking over everything. I want to be a dj, and I want to make funny skit videos.
- [46:34]
B
Nice.
- [46:35]
A
So I'm hoping that I really. The DJ thing, I think, would be pretty amazing. So if you ever DJ anywhere.
- [46:41]
B
Okay.
- [46:41]
A
Can you invite me?
- [46:41]
B
Yeah, sure.
- [46:42]
A
Because I'll stand next to you. Because I want to live vicariously through a dj.
- [46:46]
B
The subtle art of standing next to somebody.
- [46:48]
A
Oh, there's something here. That's gonna be the show. You just stand next to people. That's. I think we come up with something.
- [46:56]
B
Million dollar idea.
- [46:56]
A
There we go.
- [46:57]
B
There it is.
- [46:58]
A
Mark, this has been great. I mean, amazing. I love the studio. The opportunity to come out here and do this in your. In your home court. Your place is amazing. And you've changed my life 10 years. And I know you hear this all the time, but I just want to say I super appreciate all the energy and effort that you do, because I know it's a lot from the writing to the content to everything that you do. And I just want to say thank you.
- [47:22]
B
Awesome, man. Thank you. I appreciate that.