Why You’re Not Changing Even Though You Know What to Do | Mark Manson - EP 808

26:39I think the line you said was insight is the smart person's favorite form of procrastination. Yes. And sometimes I also say research or learning more is a smart person's favorite form of procrastination. It's tricky, and it's like one of the things I try to remind my audience all the time is that for you to actually change, right? Para un humano a ser diferente de lo que antes, requiere a hacer una de dos cosas. Es requiere a hacer una de las cosas que son muy nuevas y no es muy fácil, y resiste eso. O sea, requiere a hacer una de las cosas y las percepciones que tienen sobre ti, Which is also not fun because that's a form of grief, right?

27:29You're losing something. You're losing a piece of your life or you're losing an assumption you had about yourself. There's a sadness that comes along with that. Sometimes an anger or guilt that comes along with that. That's also not fun. So by definition, change requires either a destruction of former behavior or former identity. Both of those things suck. Las mismas las ambitions. Seguroו. Reg Melvin. Ya sabes que ,solas, duro de forma, O final. Si hasvadido algo invadido, ya no ch makes lo más so crank. Chau. C normas los que al canal de Mayo que Emma hus y participamos llanes de sue cognitive.

28:10Lotos hanเพicillas la música. Hlan piramide Radimatedral, per 요 cop weil, qué Together Quasi quiereupa que el tuyo es cambiar tu propia belief y el sistema de comportamiento. Y es totalmente sucede. Sí. En realidad, todos los cuatro años en algunos casos realmente sucede porque están tratando de mind warparte en un completamente diferente. Así que es cuando me piensan lo que change es realmente sobre. Y es extremadamente uncomfortable. Y a mí, cuando se siente en esa discomunidad, es cuando se sabe que se está haciendo lo que está haciendo. Y el problema es que la gente nunca ha llegado a ese punto.

28:45Y, por ejemplo, mi wedding. Mi wedding fue un increíble día. Es una de las mejores días de mi vida. Sí, creo que, objetivamente, mi wedding cambió mi vida. Pero es interesante porque no es solo joy y parties. Es el proceso de estar en la vida, de estar en marido, de hacer que se convienta, de figuring si es la persona. That was a messy, anxiety-ridden process, right? That also had stretches of self-doubt, feelings of inadequacy, sometimes questioning of, am I doing the right thing? But then, of course, you end up with this joyous day and it's amazing and everything. So I think what people miss is that they only see that peak experience.

29:31They see that one moment at the end where everything's amazing and they just want to recreate that over and over again. Whereas what they don't realize is that what allows that peak experience to happen is this elongated period of struggle, questioning, doubt, frustration that enables the peak experience to emerge. And I think a lot of what the self-help industry does is it markets that peak experience without that struggle, that period of struggle and doubt and frustration. I really agree with you here. One of the things that I often talk about is this concept that I picked up in the military called transition points.

30:11And as I experienced when I served, I saw the most mishaps, whether that was people getting injured, losing their life, bad things happening during the transition points, which I describe is there are these long periods that you're training or you're on the way to a mission or on your way back from a mission. donde no es en la peak moment donde se está hyper concentrado en todo el otro y tendo a let tu guarda, otras cosas suceden y no se payan atención a mucho. Yet, I think most of our change happens in micro-choices, micro-changes que nos hacen en esos puntos. Y, para mí, es tener esta awareness o esta intención de que que..

30:59online y y domes period that lead you to that peak experience, rather than making poor ones. I agree. One of the things Mark I saw is, you talk a lot about personality adaptations, behavior, value systems, and you talk about them almost as distinct operating systems. Is there a layer in those operating systems people misunderstand the most? That's a great question. I think the biggest error is that people conflate all of those operating systems. Yes, absolutely. Assume they're all the same thing, that it's your personality and your values and your identity. These are all the same things. I like to kind of divide them up into three layers.

31:48And the bottom and most foundational layer is, in the psychological research, is what's referred to as personality. And personality is, it's largely fixed. It's largely determined. You don't really get to shape it or consciously alter it. By the time you hit puberty, whoever you are is kind of who you are. And it's interesting because, first of all, I think a lot of people don't even recognize that there are aspects of our personalities that are fairly fixed and immovable over a long period of time. But secondarily, the goal with personality is simply to understand yourself and then accept yourself.

32:30Él communicated a y no se puede cambiar de estas cosas. Y así, simplemente ser educado en lo que es cambiable y lo que no es dentro de ti es absolutamente crucial. Y luego las cosas que no son cambiables, aprender a aceptar y adquirirlo. Porque entonces, todos nuestros personalidades evolucionan por una razón. Ellos son son son son son son son son son son son son son son son son son son son son son son. Si eres naturalmente un extremo organizado, y te lo que es el sistema y protocolo y todo, no debería ser probablemente no ser en un realmente impregnable profession. Es va a drive you crazy. You're just going to feel like you're banging your head against the wall all the time.

33:40Pero si tú put yourself in a profession como finance, accounting, o algo así, donde eres rewarded for that personality trait, vas a thrive. Vas a hacer un trabajo. Esto es true en todo de nuestras áreas de vida. Es true en nuestras relaciones, en nuestras intereses y cosas y todo. El segundo layer es la adaptación layer. Y esto es como cómo medias entre nuestra personalidad, nuestra fixed-traencia y nuestra environment. Para ayudar a la gente entender, voy a usar un ejemplo de la crudencia. Let's say you're short, pero en un ambiente donde hay que jugar a la batalla. ¿Qué es un adaptación? ¿Qué es un adaptativo para que se vea?

34:25¿Cómo se vea? Porque es, ok, no voy a ser muy bien cerca de la baca porque de mi height, así que me figure out cómo se vea en el perimetro. Eso es lo que se vea. El adaptativo es que se vea la adaptación de tu ambiente. Lo que es lo que hacemos todo el tiempo en todo lo que hacemos. ¿Vale a un ambiente que necesitas ser social todo el tiempo? Let me find an adaptation that allows me to handle this a little bit more easily. Or I'm somebody who's very creative and spontaneous. I'm in an environment that rewards certain skills and behaviors. Let me develop a skill set that can help me adapt to this environment.

35:08The funny thing is those adaptations end up becoming how we define ourselves. So it's developing those skills, habits, and mental habits as well, attitudes, assumptions. Those things end up getting clustered and we call those our identity. And the interesting thing about our identity is that we protect it emotionally. So if I develop an adaptation, which is, I'll give you an example from my personal life. So I'm naturally introverted, a little bit socially anxious, but I've ended up in a lot of situations en mi vida, donde yo tengo que ser en frente de personas todo el tiempo. Uno de mis adaptaciones es humor.

35:51Yo uso humor para difuse mi propio discomforto y anxiety. Y si me hagan a la gente, me hace sentir un poco más confortable. Que humor eventualmente se puede ser parte de mi identidad. I'm a funny guy. I walk around, es algo que creo sobre myself. Porque es algo que creo sobre myself, es algo que yo try to bring out even more and get better at. Now, if somebody comes along and I make a joke and they're like, wow, you're really not funny. Because it's an adaptation, it's part of my identity, I will have an emotional reaction to that. I will protect my adaptation emotionally and I will be like, wow, this guy is such a dick.

36:34I don't want to hang out with this guy. Maybe I'll try to insult him back. Whereas if somebody threatens something that is not an adaptation to you, you don't really care and you're willing to let it go. So it's people, the emotions and the behaviors are downstream from our identity. Our identity is ultimately just an adaptation of our personality to the environment. And what's interesting is that people spend so much time either trying to change their personality, which can't be changed, or trying to change their adaptations, which is really hard because essentially you're trying to either change a behavioral habit or you're trying to change a belief about yourself, which both of those things, as we discussed, is not fun and not easy, when actually the easiest thing to change out of all this is to just change your environment.

37:27If you put yourself in a different environment where different adaptations become useful, entonces tu adaptaciones will naturally start to shift and your military example is a perfect example of this right and you probably saw this with tons of guys that you were in the service with they come from all sorts of backgrounds maybe they were like getting in all sorts of trouble in school or grew up in a rough neighborhood or whatever and then suddenly you put them in boot camp and it's like they straighten the fuck up because they're in a new environment and it's like all of their old adaptations no fly en este nuevo ambiente.

38:04Y así, el ambiente es el mejor para cambiar tu vida. I can really resonate con eso. I spent most de mi career en muy larga empresas como Dell y Lowe's como un ejecutivo. Y yo soy como un introvert. Yo tengo muy social anxiety. Y así, yo me hechaba que ir a trabajar por años y años, trying a ser un extrovert. Y me quedó home y me quedó tan físico exhausted. Y hasta que le le Susan Cainé's book, realmente no entendí por qué. Y along the way, I became quite numb. Y, looking back, I figured it out. I was trying to do so many adaptations that I ended up wearing a mask, really around who I was. But when I switched en el ambiente y me llevó a mí me llevó a mí me llevó a mí me llevó a mí me llevó a mí me llevó mucho mejor y yo creo que la parte de mi personalidad se reemergó y me felt más como myself.

39:17I think that feeling of being yourself is finding an alignment between those layers, right? It's like when your personality, kind of your natural proclivities are lined up with your behavior, your identity, and that's lined up with your environment. Like when all those things are in tune, you feel, I think that that is the feeling of authenticity. And I think that's es como la gente, es también donde se vive. Y creo que lo que estás describiendo es que hay que adoptar adaptaciones que son contrario a tu naturaleza. Te endo feeling either un poco fake o just exhausted. O, como you said, numbing.

39:58La manera que yo manejo mi social anxiety y introversion por años fue que se estén drunk. Y eso funcionó por un tiempo, pero a un momento no funcionó. anymore. Or at least it's not a sustainable adaptation. I think it's one of the most useful things people can do. And it's funny too because I think a lot of people feel a little bit let down when they hear this advice, which is just put yourself in an environment that's more catered to your natural strengths. It seems obvious. It's not very sexy. Again, I think people are enamored with this idea of personal transformation when it's really like Just put yourself in a different room That makes everything easier And you don't have to work You don't have to try to change all this stuff What you're saying It's absolutely true Because the more I was doing these adaptations The more I was masking the superpowers That I had And I was not using my inherent Talents that were right there In front of me Because I was so preoccupied With trying to fix myself to fit the environment I was in.

41:09And I'll tell you, that's one of the things that brings me so much more satisfaction today is I've actually rediscovered them and get to deploy them because I've now reorganized my whole life. So it's on my terms, instead of making someone else rich, I've switched it to now I work for myself. Mark, one of the things I have studied a lot is motivation. y creo que muchos de los que son convinced que la gente es un problema de la motivación. Y yo he venido a la fundamentalmente creer que aunque la motivación es parte de la motivación, creo que es más un problema de la motivación y mecanismo. ¿Pero que resucione a todo con usted?

41:55Yo creo que el popular notion de la motivación de la motivación es la pregunta de la motivación. si te motiva, es como el poder, ¿no? Si te hagan que preguntar sobre cómo se motiva, es probablemente no es la pregunta.

42:18Porque en mi opinión, si te alignas con tus valores, si te hagan algo que se me gusta, y estás en un ambiente que es que se puede vivir en motivación debe de haber en su propio no es algo que no hay que sumin o buscar i was hoping you might be able to tell us a little bit about your new application that you felt yeah so speaking of starting companies and working for yourself so last year i started an ai so last year i created an ai app that basically helps people talk through their problems and the reason i made this es porque he visto que muchos de mis vida en mi vida que estaban en chat GPT para la vida.

43:02Y el problema con chat GPT es que es lo que te gusta. Y yo hice un research y descubrí que sobre 100 millones de personas son chat GPT para la vida. Y no es designed for it. No es trained for it. Es un problema. Así que yo fui y me found a co-founder que ha estado construyendo AI productos por la última 10 años. Y nos tratamos de construir algo que realmente te desafíe a ser mejor. que preguntar sus assumptions, que pueden pointar blind spots y realmente pueden ser un santo para lo que están en vida. Así que el app es llamado Purpose. Pienso que pueden ver. Es a Purpose. App. Y es un free trial.

43:41Pero ha sido interesante porque como tú le dices a la parte de la la show, en la parte de mi carrera, he sido un writer. More recently, I would say he's been kind of just across media, right? Podcasts, videos, newsletters. Este es mi primer foray en la tecnología de la tecnología y me ha dado mucho respeto por lo que los personas van a través de. ¿Cómo se puede ver cómo muchas veces que se ha hecho un producto y un problema o un problema o un problema o algo. Y me ha dicho el equipo, me ha dicho, nos debería cambiar esto. Y me ha dicho, ok, cool. We can have a new build done en dos meses. Y en mi mente, coming from writing y media, me ha dicho, ¿no?

44:22¿No? ¿No? ¿Puedo que simplemente delete? ¿Por qué? ¿Por qué? Oh, my God, this is so hard. So, it's been interesting. Por tu beneficio, que es mi entire background. So, I was the CIO de una de los compañías que te he contado. Y cuando personas que no entienden estas grandes empresas, no entiendo lo que un budget de un millón y un millón de millones looks like from a project perspective, because we would have literally five, six, 700 projects running at the exact same time. So there, but I have that same frustration that you experienced, especially from the customers that we were trying to serve who were like, why is it taking you so long to fix these things?

45:08Which they don't understand all the spaghetti architecture that a company like Lowe's has developed in 60 plus years that you have to contend with as well. as you're breaking things along the way. I've become very accustomed to the term tech debt, which I'm sure is the story of your life for a long time.

45:28Mark, I want to talk to you about Robert McNamara for a second. Because as I was reading your sub stack, it really fascinated me that we independently landed on him, but for very different reasons. And I'll let you expand on this, but you use them to show what happens when our models become disconnected from reality. I use them in my upcoming book, The Mattering Effect, to show what happens when organizations optimize what they can measure and lose sight of the humans inside the systems that make companies what they are. It made me wonder if we're actually exposing different expressions of the same problem.

46:08It sounds like we are. So that piece from the Substack is called Why Intellectuals Are Fucking Idiots. Y es cierto. Es un clássico, spicy título para mí. Pero el punto de la parte de ese es que hay un clássico de la palabra, que es el mapa es no el territorio. Y creo que puedes adaptar a decir que la mentalidad de la mentalidad no es realidad. Estamos a hacer las prácticas de la realidad como una reflexión de realidad posible, pero no modelo es perfecto. Hay otro que dice que no modelo es perfecto, y que son modelos son usos. Y usé McNamara como un ejemplo. Él fue broughtado en el Departamento de Defensa durante la Vietnam War para modernizar y revolutionizar el deporte de defensa industria y el militarismo y realmente build todo lo que era metrías y una producción line de cómo la militaría era run.

47:03Y, de hecho, tenía spreadsheets y dashboards y was tracking all the numbers on everything. Y el fascinante es que que encontraste desde el mundo.

47:41las cosas que se puede medir, que es, por un, la libertad de la vida de la muerte de la muerte. Es algo que no puede medir, pero se puede medir mucho más importante que lo que se puede medir. Y yo uso esto como un cuestionario de que todos tienen un bias towards legibilidad, que es que todos tienen un bias towards cosas que podemos ver, que podemos ver, que podemos ver, y porque es fácil de ver y track de los cosas, es fácil de convencer a nosotros que son mucho más importantes que las cosas que no pueden countermecer. Pero yo diría que las cosas más importantes son las cosas que no pueden countermecer.

48:24Y a un resultado, a veces tienes que tener un montón de situaciones donde las cosas de la mentalidad no matcha a la realidad y luego las cosas de la gente endanando como los idiotas. I listened to the interview you did on Modern Wisdom and you guys were talking about significance and it got me thinking about, I've been exploring this idea whether people defend their beliefs, not simply because they're right, but because those beliefs protect their sense of significance and belonging. Do you think for a lot of people that's part of why change feels so threatening for them? I do. Coming back to the adaptation thing, let's say you develop a skill como adaptación.

49:08Y esa habilidad es muy difícil y realmente saved tu vida en muchos de los años. Es que es un montón de significado y significado en tu vida. Y así, vas a sentir extremadamente attached a eso. Voy a dar un ejemplo de un ejemplo. Mi esposa grew up muy pobre en Brasil. Estamos hablando leaky roof. Ella no tenía un phone until ella era un teenager. y a poco de tiempo. Y como una adaptación, se desarrolló una habilidad increíble para plan, trabajar muy difícil, y se ha hecho muy bien académicamente. Se ha hecho un saludo de la escuela, y se ha hecho un trabajo de pobreza, y se ha hecho un trabajo muy bien, y fue muy frugal con dinero.

50:00Entonces, se desarrolló un adaptación que literalmente salvó su vida. y se fue en un lugar completamente diferente de donde se creó. Pero lo interesante es que adaptación, que era esta constante paranoia y miedo a la dinero y esta casi neurótica necesidad de plan, se empezó a llevar her back. Once you reach a certain lugar de seguridad y comfort, no necesitas plan a la situación de worst-case cada día, y no necesitas tener la pena a la fin de cada día. Pero ella estaba haciendo esto, So she felt like she had, it started to hold her back, but she didn't want to let it go because it was so important to her and she was so proud of her ability to do it.

50:40And it meant so much to her that she resisted it for years and she still struggles through it quite frequently. That's what I mean by our adaptations become our identity. And the more useful, the more embedded those adaptations are, the more we protect them and the more we hold on to them. y es difícil porque como la vida cambia la vida cambia la adaptación que se sirve pueden empezar a hurt y si los adaptaciones son extremadamente significativo y no vamos a dejar y no vamos a dejar y esto es y esto viene full circle a la pregunta que te preguntó sobre cómo mi views han cambiado en la subtle art creo que en la subtle art realmente espoused meaning y valores como un desigualdito como un desigualdito donde ahora creo que hoy I realize that it's a little bit more nuanced in that sometimes you can find a lot of meaning and value in something that's not good for you anymore, that it's an adaptation that's not helping you anymore, and that you'd actually be better off figuring out how to let it go.

51:40Mark, one of the essays that I wrote, and you'll have to let me know if my memory is correct, your father gave you some incredible advice about becoming the goose instead of fighting over the golden eggs, if I have it correct. Looking back, how much of your career has been para ser el gozo.

52:00Para los listeners, I've often said in interviews that I think the best piece of advice I ever got was from my dad. Early in my career, I was a struggling blogger. I had a couple online businesses that weren't making any money. And I remember I wrote a piece that I was very proud of. And then a week later, a much larger person in my industry essentially just plagiarized what I wrote y me gustó todo a mi Twitter y me gustó con tanto og Kita esto y estaba a precio de efecto, y me dice esto y唸 aquella diferente me ha gustado lo que viene. He's like, oh man, been there. But I remember he told me, he said, Mark, there's kind of two ways to make it in the world.

52:57There's, you can either spend your whole life looking for golden eggs and getting good at finding and accumulating golden eggs. Or you can just figure out how to be a goose that lays golden eggs. And if you figure out how to be the goose, then you'll never worry if somebody comes and takes one of your eggs from you. y lo que me enseñó es que si te ha sido para realmente innovar y find un único un gran valor si te hagan el skill de finding un gran valor para el mundo entonces no te preocupes sobre esos en la long run y no te no te no te no te no te no te no te no te no te no te no te no te no te no te no te no te no te I really try to push myself to do things differently or look at things differently or try to be unique in some way.

53:51And not because I'm paranoid that people are going to come take my golden eggs, but it just seems like the better way to live from a mental health and a well-being perspective. Amen to that. Mark, very discoverable person. pero si un listener quiere ir a la epicenter para encontrar lo que está en la parte de la gente, ¿está bien para ellos para ir a su personal website o somewhere else? Estoy en el lugar de todo, en cualquier plataforma. Just look for Mark Manson. Go to markmanson.net. Mi libros probablemente está en el lugar. So, sí, just Google me. Y luego, check out el app. It's purpose.app.

54:35Let me know what you think about it. I can't keep your books in my house Every time they're there, one of my kids Finds them and takes them to read And I never get them back Thank you so much for doing this It was really an honor to have you on the show Thanks, John I hope today's conversation with Mark Manson Gave you something to think about For me, one of the biggest takeaways was this Sometimes the thing keeping us stuck Isn't that we need more information It's that we're holding onto an identity A habit o en un ambiente que no longer fits who we're becoming. Mark made another point that I really loved.

55:10He talked about the difference between chasing the golden eggs and becoming the goose that lays them. In other words, instead of constantly trying to protect what you've already built, focus on becoming the person who can keep creating something valuable. That's a very different way of thinking about growth. If something from today's conversation resonated with you, I'd love to hear about it. Send me a message on LinkedIn, Instagram or Substack or share this episode with someone who might need to hear it and if you haven't already make sure you're following PassionStruck on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube channels so you don't miss what's coming next because in our next episode I'm joined by number one New York Times bestselling author Dr.

55:53David Perlmutter whose new book Brain Defenders explores something I found absolutely fascinating the immune system inside your brain. David explains how these cells called microglia can either protect your brain or become destructive and how the environments we create through our sleep, exercise, diet, metabolism, and even our relationships can influence which direction they take. And here's the question I want you to carry with you into that conversation. What if the choices you're making today aren't just affecting how you feel tomorrow, but helping you determine the future of your brain? I think you're going to want to hear this one.

56:29We're going to call those the microglial cells, and they are very sensitive to metabolism. When our metabolism is doing what it should do, keeping our blood sugar in check, our weight in check, our blood pressure where it needs to be, reducing inflammation, then these brain immune cells are supportive. They're nurturing our synapses. They're nurturing the blood-brain barrier. They're doing their best to keep our neurons functional and firing pero pueden cambiar en nosotros. pueden cambiar en nuestra cabeza y convertir en el libro la espalda, la espalda. La misma célula. pueden cambiar cuando están desafiando por la enfermedad o la metabolismo de la cuerpo.

57:09Y ahora, están destructivas. Hasta luego, recuerda, no necesitas tener alguien más para cambiar tu vida. A veces, necesitas entender lo que está en la vida. Decide lo que no longer serves a ti y tener la courage de elegir diferente. I'm John Miles, and as always, stay curious, stay intentional, and stay passion-struck.