269. Mark Manson: On Killing Your Dream, "The Subtle Art," Anxiety & Depression

25:42Gary Brecka:You know, I think the reason for that is like we were biohackers and we, we don't know how to biohack that. How do you measure that? And what I will tell you without naming any names, some of the people I hold in the highest regard, I mean, some of the most intellectually dominant figures in this industry that are mentors of mine, I've read multiple books of theirs, have the worst relationships. Yeah. Yeah. And have had multiple failed relationships. And I would love to unpack that. To me, yeah. I mean, as a fan and a consumer, that feels like the elephant in the room to me when I watch podcasts and read these books and things like that.

26:25But so back to your question, I'm glad we're getting into this. you know the first step we already talked about kind of developing that awareness right so it's like okay what what's the story I'm telling myself here what how am I defining myself you know I I think I'm a nice guy what if I'm not a nice guy what if what if I what if I'm what if I'm actually more impulsive than I I think I am I I think the the core practice here is to look at your beliefs about the world in general, but primarily about yourself. What are the things that you assume to be true about yourself? And what if they were wrong?

27:03What if, and I think of it, I always tell people, I'm like, try on beliefs like you try on a pair of jeans. You know, it's like, see if it fits. See if it feels comfortable. See what it, how you look in the mirror when you try it on. You know, so it's like, try on that idea. What if you aren't a nice guy and you've just been telling yourself, right? Sit with that for 10 minutes and actually go through your life and ask yourself, what would that mean? How would that explain my relationships differently? How would that explain how I approach people differently? And what you might find is like, oh, that fits better than what I had before.

27:43Wow. And that becomes kind of that moment of realization. and so I kind of coming back to the the self-honesty piece I think so much of the the stress and anxiety in our lives is purely driven from an inaccurate view of ourselves and an inaccurate view of the world we've adopted beliefs we we think the world should be a somewhat we think the world should be a certain way we think we are a certain way and these things aren't true And so we spend so much of our time and energy and effort trying to square the circle, so to speak, right? Like tying our brain in knots, rationalizing, you know, oh, well, my business partner, you know, he was just really selfish.

28:29And like, I should have hired a better manager, right? And it's like, it's like, I did that for years. Right. It's like, no, there was actually, there was a personal failure going on. There was a blind spot in yourself that you weren't seeing. And so I think so much of this stuff, you know, there's all this talk about the mental health crisis and the anxiety crisis and all the kids are freaking out and all this stuff. And it's I think so much of it is just rooted in an inability to kind of investigate the reality of what our assumptions are.

29:00Gary Brecka:I find that very refreshing in fact I've heard you talk about an experiment where this guy had before and after pictures and he got in really really really good shape and they showed these before and after images to a large audience of men and women and the men all picked the image of the guy when he was jacked not when he had the dad bod Yeah. And and then the vast majority of the women picked the image of the guy when he still had the dad bod. And the way that you explained and rationalized, it just made so much sense because you were like, you know, they looked at this figure and said, he doesn't actually look like he'd be that much fun.

29:44Gary Brecka:Yeah. He's probably going to leave the party at nine o 'clock. He's probably getting up at six in the morning. He's not going to eat anything. He's not going to have birthday cake at my niece's birthday party. Yeah. I don't know if I want to sign up for that level of like discipline. The other dude looks like he'd be a freaking joy to hang out with. A blast, yeah. And I'm going to spend time with him. And I thought that reframing was really interesting. And I think it shocked me a little bit because, I mean, intuitively, I probably would have gravitated to the same thing. It's not to say that not taking care of yourself is a good idea.

30:19But it's funny. Yeah, so it was a post. It was – and actually it was funny because I think it was a coach who posted a before and after picture of a client. And he like made a kind of a joke of like, look out ladies, you know, this guy's coming or whatever. And then a bunch of women replied saying, I prefer him in the before. And then a bunch of guys replied to that saying, you're lying, that's impossible. Exactly.

30:45Gary Brecka:So then they ran the poll and it turned out, yeah, like 80, 90 % of the women prefer the dad bod and 80, 90 % of the men prefer the like the chisel jack guy. And it's just, it's interesting because I think it's reflective of like how people come to the same experience with a completely different lens. Right. As you know, the women were coming to it of like, who's, who's, how am I going to feel around this person? Whereas the men were coming to it as like, how reliable and disciplined is this person? Right. And it's the men admire the reliability, the discipline, the ability to achieve a extremely difficult goal.

31:19Yeah. Whereas the women are like, but yeah am I gonna am I gonna feel bad around him is he gonna be fun is is he gonna like pay attention and you know be present if I'm want to do something with him you know and uh it's it's uh again it's just that it's an example and of course you know both sides seem completely incapable of like accepting that there was another perspective out there but it's it's another case of, you know, just reevaluating our own assumptions about things and, and being flexible with them, you know, like it's understanding that I think that that's another piece about the ego thing that it's, it's not just that your ego needs to kind of reflect reality.

32:01You need to have a flexible ego. You need to be able, you need to be willing to change your mind on things. And, and I think it's so much of, of our stresses originates in that rigidity of, no, it has to be this way. That guy is a six pack.

32:19Gary Brecka:He has to be attractive because I want a six pack. It's like, well, maybe those things aren't true and maybe you don't need a six pack. Hey guys, let me tell you about one of my favorite new hydration drinks. Now this is for distance athletes, hits cardio exercisers, people that sweat a lot or exercise intensely. An A game is a hydration drink. It has eight essential vitamins. It has all of the electrolytes, the entire suite of B vitamins. Before you freak out and read that it has 21 grams of sugar, which it does, the sugar is coming from natural cane sugar and honey, my preferred mechanisms for getting glucose into the blood during intense exercise.

32:55Gary Brecka:It also has natural flavors, but these natural flavors don't come from bacterial fermentation. They actually come from real citrus fruits, and the color is from vegetable juice, not artificial dyes. So next time you're looking for a great hydration drink and you're exercising intensely, A-game is your choice. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human podcast. I want to get back into the relationship thing, but when you talk about the research on longevity, cardiovascular disease, first of all, I completely agree with you. If you look at big meta-analyses and blue zone data, real longevity data, there is a common thread that is non-negotiable in all of these blue zones and the big meta-analyses.

33:40Gary Brecka:and that is this sense of community and connection and but i don't think we really define that yeah right um and you know one of the longest running uh studies ever done in longevity the harvard uh longevity study um it said the number one predictor of life span was the quality of your relationships yeah um and yet you're right we don't spend a lot of time talking about it and And I think a lot of it is because, and this is a question for you, we don't really know how to define connection. Yeah. Like, what does it really mean? Like, you know, I wake up every morning and I go to my son's house and there's like a group of guys that, you know, we work out, we go through this intense workout together.

34:30Gary Brecka:And it's my favorite part of the day. Yeah. And it kind of sucks during the workout. But I do feel that sense of community and connection. but maybe you could unpack that for us. I do think this is at the heart of the issue. There's a thing in psychology called the legibility bias, which is that we tend to focus on things that are easily measurable and counted, and we tend to focus less on things that are kind of intangible and difficult to define. Legibility bias, I got to... So it kind of makes sense, right? Like if you, let's say you're really getting into longevity and health and you really want to start optimizing things in your life.

35:14Well, there's this whole nebulous area of relationships and community and feeling socially connected. And it's like, well, what does that mean? Yeah. Or I can test 500 milligrams of magnesium versus 300 and see how I feel.

35:28Gary Brecka:Yeah, I can look at these 58 biomarkers and I can try to move them. Exactly. Which is kind of the world I live in. Right, right. And there's tons of value in that. And it's, it's, but, and it's part of the value is that you, you get that measurement, right? So you can see, you can experiment, you can get the outcome, you can start optimizing and, you know, all this stuff. Um, on the relationship and the social connection side, it's, it's much more difficult because ultimately it's subjective, subjective, right? Like maybe you feel completely connected and loved with, you know, six people really close to you.

36:03Maybe I don't feel connected and loved unless I have 10 people close to me or whatever. You know, some people like to have a few really strong relationships. Some people want to have many, many, many social connections and want to be able to see a lot of people at different times. So everybody's a little bit different. A lot of it has to do also with your relationship with yourself. So what you see consistently is that people who feel a lot of shame, negativity towards themselves, low self-esteem, they have trouble feeling safe and secure in a social relationship or a romantic relationship. And so even though they might have a marriage and kids and tons of friends around them, they still feel alone.

36:47So it is difficult to measure. It's difficult to track. I mean, you can put numbers on it, like the Harvard study did. Yeah. You can, but it's short of just kind of, you know, tracking things like mood, life satisfaction, psychological well-being, you know, emotional volatility. These are all self-report metrics, right? And so you're literally just either going to people and asking them from a scale from one to 10, how loved and accepted do you feel this week?

37:20Gary Brecka:Like, you know, most people have never, you know, even considered that. Yeah. And it's and you can do this with yourself as well. You know, there are a lot of mood tracking apps and things. And you can you can actually start identifying like a lot of interesting variables if you track your mood over a long period of time. But, yeah, it's I think this is why it gets overlooked in in the longevity and health conversation quite a bit just because it's like, how do you measure it? how do you measure it in like, what are the, what are the ways to hack it? Yeah. Right. Right. I mean, we have, we have ways to hack detoxification, fat loss, muscle building, you know, we got peptides for this and peptides for that.

38:00Gary Brecka:And, and you know, the vast majority of these things work, but hacking our relationships. And when I see my peers that are, you know, in struggling with very difficult relationships because it's the one area where we haven't really developed, you know, good hacks. Like, you know, everybody in our industry is waking up in the morning, getting sunlight in their eyes, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The data's in on that. And so every one of us would be easy to put a hit on because within 30 minutes waking, we're all outside. And meanwhile, they don't talk to their wife until 12 p.m. Exactly. And that's why I'm so excited to have you on today because I find what you talk about so refreshing.

38:44Gary Brecka:I feel like I accidentally figured it out with my current spouse.

38:50Gary Brecka:Because I'm in the place where I think people would love to be with their relationships. But if you're not there, how do you go about doing it? What are the hacks? Or what are the exercises that you go through very specifically? like, you know, should I sit down with my spouse and say, Hey, what are your non-negotiables? And here's my non-negotiables. I mean, should we open that conversation? Like, and so to deepen the relationships that we have, um, because I don't think connection comes from the time you spend around people. I think it comes from the time that you are actually connected with them.

39:29Gary Brecka:It's quality. You know, there, there are a lot of houses, houses full of husbands and wives and kids that don't really know each other. They coexist. It's more of like a cohabitating place. There's just a dependency. But I don't know that they're really woven that fabric. I think it's the way I would characterize it is that it's primarily a skills issue. I think it's useful to see relationship quality as the output of developing certain skills. So we've already talked about self-awareness, being, being able to kind of question yourself, humble yourself, look at blind spots. You know, I would, I would describe that as one fundamental skill of relationship quality, mental health.

40:20I would say another one is quality of communication, which is what you're getting at. And it's funny because it's, it's, it's, it's super cliche, right? It's like, Oh, married couples, they've got to communicate, you know? And it's, again, it's not, it's not just about sharing information. It's about, it's about intent and empathizing with the other person. It's understanding their values. It's understanding, um, you know, not just what happened at work today, but how do they feel about what happened at work today? How does that relate to, you know, the thing that they, maybe they've been insecure about the past couple of years, checking in with them about it, having that slightly uncomfortable conversation of, of, you know, oh, wow, it's, it's, that sucks that your boss said that to you.

41:07Like, how does that feel given that you're unsure in this new, in this new role or whatever? You know, so it's like seeing the conversation underneath the conversation, empathizing with the emotion, addressing it directly, and then being comfortable, you know, kind of playing in that more vulnerable space. That's absolutely another skill. ironically I would say the responsibility piece comes back into play here because what you see in a lot of unhealthy relationships I would actually characterize quote unquote a toxic relationship is two people who chronically don't take responsibility for themselves and or try to take responsibility for the other person so it's we come full circle a little bit here and that fix them exactly when you see a dysfunctional couple almost all in every single case, at least one of the person is trying to take ownership and responsibility for the other person's feelings and actions.

42:05They're saying, Oh no, no, no, let me tell you how to do fix this in your life. Oh no, you're angry. Let me, it's your, it's your fault that I'm angry. You shouldn't have said that. Right. It's like these things are all, uh, it's a relinquishing of responsibility over my own actions and emotions and understanding that my wife's actions and emotions are her responsibility. And so we can come together and communicate with them. Right. It's like, I can come to my wife and say, Hey, when you said that, like, I got pretty upset. Let's talk about, you know, why that happened. You know, I appreciate it if you didn't do that again versus like, appreciate it if you didn't do that again.

42:41Yeah. Versus like you made me angry. You're such a bitch, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. It's like what's subcommunicated in that ladder accusation is that my anger is your responsibility. So don't do that again.

42:55Gary Brecka:Wow. And how much of this is us setting the wrong expectation and being let down because we framed an unexpected outcome and when it doesn't happen, we're let down. You know, because, you know, in the infrequent times where, you know, Sage and I have disagreement, it's usually because um at least from my perspective that i've i've set an expectation for how she should behave yeah um that is not anywhere in line it's there's no basis for me to do that yeah like um like we have you know i have uh invited a bunch of guests over to the house that i didn't tell her were coming and they're there yeah and she's in her pajamas working on the computer and I expect her to get dressed and come out and be happy and be engaging and come out and meet these people.

43:50And she's like, no, I'm actually doing work in here.

43:54Gary Brecka:I didn't know they were coming over. You didn't tell me. And then I'm upset with her, you know? And then when I reframe it, I'm like, you know what? I don't know why I set that expectation on her. I'd be actually pretty upset if she set that expectation on me. You know, at least give me the courtesy if you're to, you know, if you, if you want me to be socially engaging with a bunch of new strangers, at least give me a heads up that they're, that they're coming to just springing on me. It's the classic relationship scenario. I, I, I often call that the, the mind reading scenario, you know, it's like where, or like my wife will get mad at me for not doing something.

44:27And I'm like, I didn't know you wanted me to do that. I can't read your mind. And then, you know, she's like, it should be obvious. And I'm like, well, it's not, you know, that happens quite a bit, right? So communicating expectations, checking in on things. The other thing that happens a lot in relationships, especially early on, is that people have the different definition for things, right? So very simple and common example. My wife and I, we have a very different definition of what a clean kitchen looks like.

45:01Gary Brecka:Oh, dude, you're hitting all the high points. So does my wife. I'm like, if there are no tennis shoes on the counter we're doing well we're doing pretty good we're doing pretty good uh you know we have we have different definition of um you know what quality time looks like we have a different definition of um what a fight looks like you know so it's people come from different families they come from different cultures they come from different backgrounds they have different personalities and so you have different definitions of all these things and it's and what's funny is that i think a lot of couples early on they get into they get into trouble because they try to change their partner's definition.

45:37They're like, no, no, no, no. This is what clean is, or this is what, uh, this is what quality time is. Right. Instead of just understanding each other's definition, like my definition of a clean kitchen has not really changed. And I've been with my wife for 14 years, but I, I sure as hell know what her definition of a clean kitchen is. Yeah. And so when she's coming home from a trip, I'm like, we got to get it. We're going to meet her definition. We got to get Fernanda clean, not Mark clean. Yeah. I love that.

46:07Gary Brecka:You know, and I think, you know, this, this expectation leads to a lot of apprehension. You know, you've called anxiety a crisis of hope. You know, I sat with that definition for a little while, because it makes a lot of sense to me that, you know, hope is your at least belief that something's going to turn out, you know, a certain way. And when it doesn't, or that you hope a certain person isn't at a dinner party when you arrive, or you hope that you get to head home early, or you hope that the food is good at a restaurant. And, and again, I wonder if you would like give us some context around that too, because, um, when I do stage talks and podcasts and lectures and, and, and I'll just generally ask the audience, you know, how many of you, um, suffer from anxiety?

47:07Gary Brecka:and 70 % of the audience will raise their hand. Like, wow, there can't be a condition, you know, a pathology that exists at that scale. Yeah. Right? So it must be something endemic in society that's causing people to feel anxiety. Yeah. So I have a pet theory around this, which ties into that hope thing. So anxiety, it's, I think it's the only emotion that's very future focused. You know, so fear is there's a lion in front of me. It might kill me. It's present. You know, it's, it's like this thing is happening on the edge of a 30th floor balcony and I'm afraid of heights. I mean, that's yeah. Whereas anxiety is a fear of what might happen in the future.

47:54It's like, okay, well, if I walk through the Savannah, I might come across a lion. What am I going to do if that happens? so it's like it's kind of this mental preparation for the future worst case scenario that that starts happening and i think there are a couple things that have kind of scrambled our brains around this one is that we are so overexposed to all of the possible problems in the world that could happen in the next week year five years we are constant you go online for two seconds you're getting hit with messages of like, you know, World War Three is going to start. There's going to be another pandemic.

48:34There's going to be, you know, global warming. Like there's just all of these narratives that are constantly taking place, that things are getting awful. Things are going to, you know, the world's going to end on all this stuff. And so that's, that's one piece of it. But I think the subtler piece of it, which is the crisis of hope piece, is that to really be psychologically well adjusted and happy and stable we humans need something to look forward to like you need something in your life that you wake up and you're like i'm excited for that yeah i'm i'm like i can't wait for that to happen or i can't wait to pursue that and and this is i think this comes back to where we started you know with after subtle art like people who the altitude sickness piece like people who achieve a big dream the problem is is they wake up the next day and they don't know what to hope for.

49:23Like, well, I just did all the good things I could have imagined. So like, I don't know what to hope for anymore. And so anxiety sets in, depression sets in. I think we live in a world where we're so over aware of all of the problems of everything. Like there's just anything, name anything interesting or exciting or, um, you know, whether it's a, a job or, um, a relationship or moving to a certain place or, um, a political movement or whatever, like we are so high, everything is criticized so often. And we, and we see the downside of everything so clearly that I think it's, we've, we've become a society of people that like, don't really know what to hope for.

50:11Like, I don't know what's good anymore. I don't know what a better life even looks like, much less how to get there. Right. So it's, I, I ultimately see it as there's kind of a lack of clarity of like what matters and what is, what is good and what's worth pursuing. And when you remove that from people's psyches, um, anxiety starts setting in. Right. Because it's like, well, I can't think of anything good in the future, but I can think of a lot of bad things in the future. Yeah, a lot. And the brain's a predictive machine, so that's where it goes.

50:52Gary Brecka:And all it has to predict is what's happened in the past. I mean, it only has this experience, and then it just supplants that experience in the future. Well, my relationships never work out, so I'd be shocked if this one did. And I've even heard sports psychiatrists and sports psychologists talk about how they'll work with professional athletes and a golfer will walk up to something they need to one putt and he'll just, he'll say out loud, probably going to two putt this. You know, in some ways, allowing themselves to fail by, but meeting their expectation of failure, which in a weird way makes them less anxious.

51:40Gary Brecka:Yeah. See, I told you I was going to two-put it. Yeah. And then when they fail, they've met the expectation of failure. Yeah. There's this classic saying in psychology, which is that people would rather be right than happy. Yeah, that's exactly. And that's a perfect example of that. So do you think that we frame things like that either as a defense mechanism or without even being aware that we're doing that, and therefore we're sort of subtly setting ourselves up to achieve mediocrity, to strive for mediocrity, and just stay in that comfortable soup of not taking too much risk and staying. So our life is never great.

52:23Gary Brecka:Yeah. It's just kind of, okay.

52:28It's, in a weird way, it is the comfortable, easy way.

52:32Gary Brecka:Like what they say is good is the enemy of great kind of. You know, it's, if it's good, I don't want to do anything about it. Yeah. You know, it's, yeah, there's a certain, it really, it's kind of sick, but like there's a certain psychological safety in, in underperformance. It's right. Like it's to do something truly great. You have to invest a lot of energy, emotion, effort, strain, right. And you, you still might not succeed. So like, that's a lot to give up for an uncertain outcome. Whereas if you kind of set the bar low, you're like, well, I'm pretty sure I can hit that. And I don't have to invest as much.

53:18And yeah, it would be disappointing, but I'd rather be disappointed than give something my all and then come up short, right? So like a lot of people unconsciously, they kind of make that negotiation in their head. And it's very tricky. I think we sabotage a lot in that way without even realizing it. It's crazy. If you look at the research around goal achievement, in psychology. The number one factor of whether somebody achieves a really difficult goal is something called self-efficacy, which is literally just the belief that you're capable of achieving the goal. Yeah. It's something like if you just honestly believe that you're capable of achieving something, it increases the chances that you achieve it by like 33 % or something like that.

54:10It's so stupidly simple, but it has just a massive outsized outsized effect.

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54:55Gary Brecka:Be one of the first to experience the ultimate showerhead. Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. I meet and deal with a lot of young entrepreneurs and I love the entrepreneurial spirit. and, you know, there's sort of careless over-exuberation, right, without any semblance of a plan or this is going to be a billion-dollar company. And I'm like, okay, let's talk about how it gets to$100 ,000 first. Let's talk about your first sale. Yeah, yeah, let's talk about the first sale. And, you know, and they're like, well, Coke or Pepsi or, you know, Monster Energy has done it, and this tastes better, so it's going to be a billion dollars.

55:38Gary Brecka:I'm like, there's a lot of distance between cup and lip there. But by the same token, I feel like there's a lot of these young entrepreneurs that because everything is not mapped out and because everything is not perfect, they actually really don't believe much in their idea. You know, I went through this with, going through this with my daughter, and she's launching a chemical-free skincare line, which she's deeply passionate about. She's a nurse, she had a background in health services administration, just always been healthy, always been very, very cautious about what she's put on her skin.

56:21Gary Brecka:And when she got her medical degree, she really started going down the rabbit hole of all these things that damage your skin, thylates, parabens, polyfluoroalkyls. And she just went headfirst into starting the skincare line. It's been amazing to watch her as a young entrepreneur unpack this. But what I noticed that she does a lot of times is, you know, when I ask her if she'd shared this idea with some of the people that she holds in the highest regard in her life, she hasn't. Because she's afraid that the idea is not yet good enough. So I can see that her belief, and hopefully this podcast comes out after she launches this, sort of throwing Madison under the bus.

57:07Gary Brecka:but we talk about it a lot but it's you know is her belief in it as strong as it needs to be for someone to like lead a brand and lead a company that you passionately want to start yeah you almost have to become like an evangelist for something can I say look it can't be what you do it's got to be who you are my favorite line around this was a long time ago like 15 years ago So Elon Musk was giving a talk at a conference or something. And somebody in the audience asked him, he said, they said, what words of encouragement would you give to struggling entrepreneurs? And Elon said, none, because if you need words of encouragement, you shouldn't be starting your business.

57:56Wow. Yeah. And it's - That's really powerful. Yeah. But it's so true. you need to believe in something so deeply because it's even if it is a great idea and even if people are excited about it the process of building a business of like the amount of embarrassing launches and ad campaigns and you know mistakes fear of failure you fall on your face so many times and very publicly so yeah you need the underlying belief in the business needs to be so strong that all of that feels worth it.

58:39Gary Brecka:Yeah. You know, when we started the Ultimate Human Platform, we started this media platform with the sole intention to give without the expectation of receipt. And the reason why I did that was because I wanted to remove all of those initial expectations that would create this systemic and repeated failures. Like, oh, we didn't get enough affiliate links or we didn't put things behind a paywall or grow the Instagram account as fast as we thought. Just took all that pressure off and said, we just need to create the most intentional, authentic information and give it for free. And if we've accomplished that, we've succeeded.

59:21Gary Brecka:So that's how I'll define the success of the business. And what it allowed us to do is like, put all of the effort into the message. And, you know, since then we've monetized it for sure, but put all of the intention into the messaging and not into all of those things that create all of those landmines for failure. Yeah. And when we got to tens of millions and then hundreds of millions of views and I saw the adoption rate and likes and shares and forwards and comments, I realized that we'd done it right. And I was trying to set up the media platform to not fail by removing a lot of those expectations.

1:00:06Gary Brecka:But so for entrepreneurs, because having a relationship with your business is like having a relationship with your spouse. Yeah. And I think a lot of people need to prepare for that. I started a company with my spouse when we were dating. Then we got engaged and we got married. And if anybody tells you that you can start a company with your significant other and separate business from pleasure, that is the biggest lie I've probably ever told. Wow, man, kudos to you. I'm sitting here in awe right now. I'm like, that's a lot of stress. Oh, dude. And we had a mixed family. I had three kids. Wow. Divorced.

1:00:44Gary Brecka:She had one young daughter, divorced. We moved the families in together. Oh, man. Then, you know, we started a business together, and initially it did not go very well. So we were making like, you know, 15-year married couple with the same family decisions, like three years into our relationship. Wow.

1:01:08Gary Brecka:And my view on relationships is that the best relationships are the ones that have gone through everything that's meant to tear them apart. Yeah. And somehow they haven't given up on each other. Yeah. but that's my sort of rudimentary definition of a relationship because I experienced that because when you go through all those things that are meant to tear you apart and you somehow figure it out, then when some measure of success comes, it is such a panacea, especially if you've achieved it together. Yeah. But in any case, What are some things that young entrepreneurs and young folks in relationships, especially women, because, you know, I always quote the statistic that 82 % of all autoimmune disease is found in females.

1:01:59Gary Brecka:Not because autoimmune disease is selective by sex. It's selective by weakness. and what a lot of the research intimates is that women have a tendency to put the needs of other people before the needs of themselves. They call it caregiver syndrome. And by slowly but consistently putting themselves in the backseat, their spouse, their kids, their career, their girlfriends, their coworkers, what have you, they haven't taken any time for like that introspection, for self-care, for like, what actually makes me happy? Yeah. And they wake up one day, they don't like what they see in the mirror, and then they also feel terrible very often because that kind of stress weakens the immune system.

1:02:46Gary Brecka:Now they end up with Hashimoto's or some other kind of autoimmune condition. So what would you say to those women? And what would you say to, you know, young, you know, young folks in a relationship or starting a business? What are like the exercises that build the mental resiliency that help you create community and connection that help you sort of honestly look at yourself to see some of these blind spots, like you say? because if I was to give any advice, and I don't give any kind of relationship or advice on success, but the exercise that I inadvertently went through in my 40s, if I had done that in my 20s, I can't imagine how much different my life would have been.

1:03:36I think the thing that comes to mind is just, and I ask, so as you can imagine, one of the most common questions I get from people is how do I stop giving a fuck? How do I stop giving a fuck? Especially how do I stop giving a fuck what other people think? And I noticed - That's a big one. This is much more prevalent in women than it is in men. And I think this is something that maybe has gotten missed or hasn't gotten broadcast. You know, it's as women have ascended and achieved more educational and professional success, there's an aspect of it that I guess was never shared with them, which is that there's a piece of, you know, kind of reaching those higher rungs is being willing to embarrass yourself, being willing to be hated, being willing to fall on your face in front of thousands of people and be judged by them and be criticized by them.

1:04:31And it's not, you know, it's historically all the great men of history who achieved all these extremely, you know, the stratosphere of achievement. It was not pleasant getting there. Right. It was not a picnic.

1:04:45Gary Brecka:Where they say nobody enjoys the climb, everybody enjoys the view. Yeah, it was not a picnic. And so I often hear from very talented, driven, ambitious women, and it's a very common question of like, how do I stop giving a fuck what other people think? And I always throw a question back at them, which is, and this relates to your daughter, first of all, you're never going to stop giving a fuck what other people think. You're a human. It's good that you give a fuck about what other people think. Otherwise you'd be a sociopath. Yeah. So let's like, exactly. Let's, it's good. First of all, let's acknowledge that, yes, you should care what other people think.

1:05:23The question is, what do you care more than what other people think? And what I, what the question I throw back to them is I say, what are you willing to be, what do you believe in so strongly that you're willing to be disliked for it? Wow. Because if you can't answer that, then yes, your default is just going to be, make people like me. Do whatever is going to get other people to like me. To really level up and just for entrepreneurs in general, it's like to get through that pain period, you have to be working on something that you believe in so strongly that it's like, yes, your family's going to laugh at you.

1:06:04Your college friends are going to stop returning your calls because they're like what is this guy doing um it's bukowski has this amazing uh sequence in one of his poems about this you know he he's like you you have to uh you know you'll be laughed at you'll be derided you'll be insulted you'll uh you'll be isolated he said isolation is the gift isolation is it's it's it's the opportunity for you to hone your craft. Um, you know, and it's, it's, it's a package deal. Um, and I think it's sitting with that question of like, what are you willing to be disliked for? What do you believe in so strongly that you're willing to embarrass yourself for it and feel like it's still worth it?

1:06:56Um, it's not easy to find that thing, but I think when you do find that thing that becomes kind of that North star. It can be that thing that you, you do wake up and hope for every day, right? It alleviates the anxiety. Um, it's, it gives you direction and it gives you, um, something to keep climbing towards.

1:07:18Gary Brecka:Yeah. You know, I, I often when we talk about community and connection, people also talk about their purpose. Um, and I get asked a lot on, on, on podcasts, even though I'm not a, uh, professed to be any form of relationship expert by any stretch. Um, how do I find my purpose? Like, how do I define my purpose? You know, um, because it is so true that when you don't have that North star, uh, it's very detrimental to your health. And, you know, we've now unpacked this in a way that we can link, um, negative of emotional states and elevated catecholamines to heightened cortisol, from heightened cortisol to adrenal fatigue, to impact on the immune system.

1:08:06Gary Brecka:So the biohackers, we can draw this biophysiological line. We can give you all of the rationale behind the cellular biology of how stress makes you sick. Yep. What we haven't figured out is how do we help people identify who they are? and how do they figure out what their passion is? Some people are blessed. They were really good at soccer. They were, you know, a talented athlete and they found that sport. They went to an Olympian level or they played professional sports and that was their calling. And then they were able to, you know, manage their way out of, you know, becoming a professional athlete into, you know, society and they did just fine.

1:08:50Gary Brecka:But for those people that are sitting around, they're an entrepreneur or maybe they're a nine to fiver. The one thing they do know is that they're unhappy with their status quo. The one thing they haven't been able to crystallize is, you know, that why am I here and what is my purpose? Do you have any ways to help people frame that? Yeah. It's, it's a difficult question. And it's funny because I often, I kind of hate how this question's off, you know, even I don't want to make it so, so, you know, kitschy because, you know, I think people stumble upon it sometimes because it's, it's, it's the most painful thing in their life.

1:09:34Gary Brecka:Maybe, you know, they, they, they suffer from drug or alcohol addiction. They fixed it. Now they, yeah, their purpose is to help other people. First of all, I, yeah, I feel like purpose is, it's similar. It's similar to spouses, right? Like some people meet their spouse when they're like 15 and they're, they're just together for their entire life. Yeah. It's rare, but it happens. And I think the same thing is true with purposely, you know, there are some people that when they're 12 years old, they're like, I'm going to be a doctor. And then they're a doctor for their entire life and they love it.

1:10:01Gary Brecka:And it's like, good for you. You won. I hate you. Yes. You little nerd. You won. You won the existential lottery. You made your purpose as well. Okay. But most of us, Most of us like finding our, you know, our lifelong partner. There is a very long process of trial and error and learning from the mistakes, learning from looking in the wrong places. So to begin with, I always like, I don't even like the verb find, even though that's what everybody uses. It's more like, it's more like, it's more like develop a purpose or cultivate a purpose in your life. It's so what's interesting when you look at the research around this, it's what, like, if you ask yourself, what is a sense of purpose?

1:10:48Like what gives your life a sense of meaning? Um, it's interesting. It's kind of at the intersection of two things. So the first thing is what is unique about you? What it, what seems particularly unique or privileged or special about you or your situation or your context in life. And that could be anything from you have an extremely unique talent or skill that most other people don't have. It could be that you grew up, you had a very unique experience or came from a very unique background that most other people don't have. It could be that you have very unique relationships or connections in the world that most other people don't have.

1:11:28But it should be something that is very rare or unique that you have access to or that you inhabit. So that's piece number one. Piece number two is how do you make the world a better place? And then purpose is when you connect those two things. So you're taking the thing that is your gift that is special and unique to you. And then you are leveraging it in a way that makes the lives of other people better.

1:11:55Gary Brecka:Yeah. When you combine those two things, that's when you start experiencing a sense of purpose. Wow. And those two things are hard because the first one is that a lot of people look at their lives and they're like, well, there's nothing special about me. I'm just a guy, right? Like I just hang out and play golf and, you know, whatever, watch the movie. it's you really have to sometimes dig deep and really kind of explore your interests explore your passions your hobbies your talents um and get a little bit of experience in the world to like really start understanding like okay what do i have a knack for what what is kind of unique about me what do i do a little bit differently than most people like one question i often ask people to look at is like what comes easily for you that seems very difficult for other people because that, and it doesn't even have to be professionally related.

1:12:44It could be something that's like, I'm really great at meeting people at parties, you know? And I'm always the one introducing my friends to people and I'm always connecting people. Like that can be your superpower. The second side is also difficult because this comes back to the hope thing of like, what is worth pursuing? What is, what, what makes the world a better place? What is, what's something worth hoping for? And that really comes down to understanding your values understanding ultimately what you care about and what, what is particularly important to you. And so then you kind of get a marriage of those two things, but it takes, it takes time to find them.

1:13:22And just from what you've shared from your personal story, it sounds like you kind of went through a whole process. You, you know, you did the nine to five thing and then kind of came into this, this industry later in life and, and then probably found a merging of your talents and skills with, uh, with all of this science and all, like all these, this amazing information that you can share with people. And it's like, you didn't just wake up and do that. Like that sounds like it was a multi-decade process that you had to work towards. Um, so it's, it's, people often talk about purpose as if it's something that you like find under a rock and, you know, it's like, Oh, there's my purpose.

1:13:59Gary Brecka:I found it in the bathroom. Finally found it. But no, it's something that you cultivate over many, many years, both through that self-exploration, but also understanding like, what do I value? What do I care about? How can I make the world a better place? You know, back to how you frame this muscle of radical self-honesty, do you think that people that are generally happier, more satisfied, more content in their life, are there characteristics that they share? you know like i have one one of the i don't read a lot of business or self-help motivational books but i read um think and grow rich right and um i think the original version of that book was pray and grow rich but but but think and grow rich by napoleon hill and and when i found out found unique about that book and i think it was written in the like the 1920s yeah or 30s 30s um was that he wasn't actually looking at, um, the actions, like what did this person invest in to become rich?

1:15:11Gary Brecka:He looked at the characteristics of success, the mindsets, the mindset, they, you know, the, the like-minded people, uh, quick to decision making, um, you know, not afraid to make a decision. And, and he, he wrote a book about these are the characteristics of successful people. And And they were across different areas of success. And not all of it was socioeconomic. Some of it was religion, sports, entertainment, what have you. And identified those characteristics. Have you, on your journey, been able to sort of embody the characteristics of people that are really content and just truly happy?

1:15:52Gary Brecka:Like lives that other people would want to emulate. Yeah. It's funny.

1:16:01it's funny because like I happiness, first of all, when you ask like, what's the primary trait that drives happiness? Um, uh, the thing that no self-help book will tell you is that it's genetics. It's like 60 % of baseline happiness is genetically driven and personality driven. Wow. So it's, think of it as like, everybody kind of has a happiness center of gravity. Yeah. So like you can have peak experience. Let's say most people's is around a seven, from on a one to 10 scale. So let's say you're at a seven and then it's like you have a great, you know, you have a birthday party or a great vacation or whatever.

1:16:35So it goes to 10 for a few days. It's eventually going to come back and settle at a seven. Similarly, like something bad happens in your life. Maybe, you know, a friend passes away or, you know, a business goes under or something. It drops to a three or four, but then over the course of weeks and months, it comes back to a seven. So researchers call this baseline happiness. And what they find is that about two thirds of your baseline happiness is just kind of genetically set. Wow. That doesn't mean that you can't manipulate it. There are things you can do to increase it. But it's funny because it's just some people are just more predisposed to be cheerier and in a better mood than others.

1:17:19I personally come from a school of thought. Like I actually have a chapter in one of my books called the title is Happiness is Overrated.

1:17:29Gary Brecka:because it's, it's, don't get me wrong. Happiness is great, but it's like, it's ultimately, I argue that it's, you want to live a meaningful life. You want to have a impactful life. It's happiness is great, but it comes and goes. It's like any other emotion. It's, you can feel happy today, but like tomorrow you might feel like shit. And then the next day something else happens. And it's, you know, it's, it's just this, it's this rollercoaster ride. Um, but meaning and impact is permanent. Like that's what sticks around forever. Um, but in terms of like what can actually raise baseline happiness reliably, um, there's, so there are a few mindsets and attitudes that can have an effect.

1:18:07Um, self-efficacy is one of them, which we talked about, you know, just a belief that generally I'm a capable person. I can do the things that I want to do. Um, and also that a belief that I can handle whatever setbacks or obstacles come, come my way. um and then the other one we talked about which is is strong social connections it's again it's like the number one the number one driving factor of of happiness and happiness research is quality of relationships and it's uh and again it's it's something it's it's it's not a say it's a it's like it's the relationship thing i feel like in my industry is probably like the in your industry it's like, oh yeah, you should just eat less and exercise more.

1:18:54Right, right, right. Everybody knows and everybody's sick of hearing it, but it's also just, that's the 80-20, you know?

1:19:02Gary Brecka:Really? Yeah. It's just deepening your relationship. Have a good relationship. Get out, meet people, have a few good friends. On the romantic relationship, it's interesting. So no romantic relationship is better than a bad romantic relationship. but a good romantic relationship is significantly better than no romantic relationship. No romantic relationship is better than a bad one. Yeah. Oh, meaning, okay. Yeah. Being single is way better than being in a bad relationship. Exactly. I would have to absolutely agree with that. Yeah. And I think so many people get into relationships to fix somebody else.

1:19:45Gary Brecka:And I see it all the time with our friends, even with our families. I mean, you know, with calling out any of my family, but there are members of my family that have been married for very, very, very long periods of time. And the conversation is always centered around fixing the other person. Why don't you eat this? Why don't you? Like, he hasn't eaten that for 40 years. He's not going to start today. He's not going to start today. You know, like that hanging your head against the wall. but then they're also you know going on 60 years so but they come from a generation of you know if something was broke you fixed it you didn't throw it away which is like my parents generation they're coming up on 60 years more than half a century there's something to that you can problem solve that's for sure because it's and also a lot of problems right relationship a lot of fights are not significant like they're not so not significant it's just you're just arguing about how to load the dishwasher like who cares you know and it's you know there's no reason to like start excavating all of this you know like deeper emotions like oh that's my childhood trauma because my mom never let me load the dishwasher it's like you can overdo this stuff to quite a degree and I do think there's a lot of wisdom and it's actually like so John Gottman from the University of Washington is like the leading relationship researcher in the world he says this he says every happy couple has unresolved fights and recurring fights um he says completely normal it's usually about stupid stuff it doesn't matter it's like oh he watches too much football on weekends and like they've been fighting about it for 25 years you know and he said it's completely normal and he's like it's only a problem if you let it be a problem.

1:21:42Yeah.

1:21:42Gary Brecka:So just maybe just relax. Yeah. Yeah. Let it go. Um, for my audience that, uh, would like to find out more about you, obviously we've got the book here. I'm going to link it into the show notes. Where can they find you? Uh, you can go to markmanson.net. I've got a free newsletter. I've also got a podcast called solve, um, which is available everywhere. Um, yeah, I'm on every platform. I'm like you, I'm everywhere. Okay, so they'll find you. I'll link it in the show notes. So I wind down all of my podcasts by asking my guests the same question. And there's no right or wrong answer to this question.

1:22:16Gary Brecka:But what does it mean to you to be an ultimate human? I'll give you a t-shirt if you get it. If I get the right answer. Yeah, if you get it. Oh man, the pressure's on. The pressure's on. 100 % cotton fits the night. I would say being the ultimate human is to live in alignment with your full potential, both physically, psychologically, and emotionally. Wow. Full potential, I love it. You think most people reach their full potential? No. Yeah. neither do I that was powerful great answer you got the t-shirt I'm not even throwing a trucker hat too I'm feeling generous today hell yeah hey guys we're heading over into the VIP room so there's VIPs waiting in there they have a ton of questions but thank you for coming on the Ultimate Human Podcast and until next time that's just science