Business Book Club: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***
I've set myself a goal to read one self-development book per month. To make sure I really reflect on what I'm reading I'm going to extract the wisdom from the best business and personal development books and share it with you.
This month I’ve been reading The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*** By Mark Manson
I can’t really remember what made me buy this book. I think it was because the author is a marketing expert and figured I could learn a thing or two about communication. The book certainly has an arresting title and the chapters within it have attention-grabbing names like ‘You’re not special’, ‘Victimhood Chic’ and ‘ Rejection makes your life better’. My interest was suitably piqued but is not giving a f*** really what it’s cracked up to be? I was keen to find out.
The book:
The book promises to be ‘a counterintuitive approach to living a good life’. It was created to be an antidote to the cult of positivity, self-help messages and the constant barrage of success stories we are exposed to multiple times every day.
The author, Mark Manson, is a self -professed blogger, author, thinker and life enthusiast promising ‘personal development advice that doesn't suck’. His aim is to show us how to stop trying to be "positive" all the time so that we can truly become better, happier people. The idea is that once we embrace our fears, faults, and uncertainties and start confronting painful truths, we can begin to find the courage, perseverance, honesty, responsibility and happiness we seek.
Spoiler Alert: it’s not about not giving a f***
It makes for a great title but it isn’t a fair representation of the ideas contained within the book. Manson explains in the first chapter that in modern society it is easy to become overwhelmed by all the messages we see telling us to aspire to the flashy car, the ideal home, the perfectly toned body etc A quick look on social media will show you hundreds of your nearest and dearest living their best life. Comparing ourselves to others is easier than ever and it’s difficult not to focus on what we lack. He describes philosopher Alan Watts’ ‘backwards law’, wanting positive experience is a negative experience, accepting negative experience is a positive experience. Or to put it another way, by pursuing something it highlights how much you lack it in the first place.
So is the answer to just not give a f***? We’ll no. It’s about not giving a f*** about all the unhelpful stuff but still giving a f*** about what’s really important. I guess it’s more of a shifting of f***s rather than not giving any at all.
Here are some of the key messages (using the titles given in the book) that resonated with me:
Emotions are overrated
Mark explains that the purpose of emotions is to help you live your life better. This is not a new concept to me or anyone familiar with the field of self-improvement but it’s a message worth repeating again and again. Emotions are a call to action. They are not there to be suppressed, managed or wallowed in. They are a signal that you need to pay attention to something and act differently. Feel bad because you screwed up? That’s a sign you fell short of your own expectations or of those of others. What’s the takeaway message? What’s the learning point? Emotions are a signpost pointing to the need to dig deeper. Once you’ve understood what it is you need to know in order to be wiser in future, the most important thing is to take action and do something different. That’s it. Understand the emotion, do something and move on.
S***ty Values
- What measures are you using in your life?
- What do you value?
- Are those values and measures working for you?
If you value being as rich as the millionaires you see on TV and are constantly striving to have as much money as them, you could earn 6 figure salary, have pretty much everything you want and it wouldn’t make you happy because you’ve chosen to measure yourself in comparison to people who will always be richer. The trouble with this measure is that you might not be rich enough, despite having everything you need.
Other examples of s***ty values given in the book are things like pleasure, being right and even positivity (if it means never allowing yourself to acknowledge disappointment of constructive feedback). These values are great in small doses but when we place too much value on them they can make us miserable or deny us life affirming-opportunities.
In the book, Manson outlines his criteria for both good and bad values:
Good values are:
- Reality based
- Socially constructive
- Immediate and controllable
Bad values are:
- Superstitious
- Socially destructive
- Not immediate or controllable
The responsibility/fault fallacy
People hesitate to take responsibility for the bad things that happen in their lives because they think that accepting responsibility is the same as being at fault. In fact, they are very different things (a point wonderfully illustrated in a Will Smith video I saw recently)
If someone left a baby on your doorstep, it’s not your fault that the baby has been left there but it is now your responsibility to decide what to do next.
Fault is attributed to what happened in the past. Responsibility is completely separate, it’s about taking ownership of what you do next. Even if someone else is at fault, you can still be responsible for what happens next.
We are always choosing. Even when we chose to do nothing, or when we choose to blame someone else, we have choice. Focusing on who is at fault might make us feel better temporarily but it leaves us feeling victimised and helpless. Focusing on what we are responsible for gives us the opportunity to influence our direction, creates options and give us a feeling of hope.
Spiderman's Uncle Ben (or French Philosopher Voltaire depending on how cultured you are) once said: “ with great power comes great responsibility”. It would seem that the opposite is also true, with great responsibility comes great power.
There is no how
To quote Yoda: “Do or do not, there is no try”
As a coach, this is a lesson that resonated with me strongly. People often ask me, “I know why I do this self-destructive thing but how do I change it”. I often get the impression that they are looking for a step by step guide or a process to follow in order to change things.
It’s understandable. As Manson points out in the book, behaving differently creates uncertainty and therefore feels scary. Ditching a coping strategy that has been familiar to you for so long will be disorientating and you might feel nervous about the potential consequences. In the short term, you might even have to deal with feelings of failure or rejection that you’ve been trying to avoid with your current behaviour.
But if you’re going to change your habits, at some point you’ll need to commit to (in Manson’s words) ‘giving a f*** about something more important’. You’ll need to choose better values to measure your life by. Is it easy? No, in fact, it can be a struggle but it really is that straightforward. There is no magic technique or process to follow. Sure, you’ll need an element of soul searching and reflection but after that comes the uncomfortable task of making the leap and committing to change.
The ‘do something’ principle
This is a piece of advice a good friend gave to me a couple of years ago and it is one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever received. Whenever you’re stuck just do something.
A former teacher of Manson’s explains:
"If you’re stuck on a problem, don’t sit there and think about it, just start working on it. Even if you don’t know what you’re doing. The simple act of working on it will eventually cause the right ideas to show up in your head"
This is so true. If you are setting up a business, starting a project or solving a problem. If you just sit there thinking about the problem, weighing up the options you can easily become so overwhelmed by the possibilities you end up doing nothing at all. When you get started you'll notice two things. First of all, you’ll get feedback about what the answer isn’t. So if you start and you’re not making progress at least you know what not to do. The second thing you’ll notice is that action causes motivation.
Most people think motivation works like this:
Emotional Inspiration-Motivation-Desirable Action
In reality, it works like this:
Action-Inspiration-Motivation
(repeats in an endless cycle Action-Inspiration-Motivation etc)
Manson describes a novelist that had written over 70 novels. When asked how he wrote so consistently he replied that he set himself a goal to write 200 crappy words a day. That’s it. Just write 200 crappy words. He found that once he got going, the very act of writing gave him inspiration
Conclusion
I was slightly disappointed but not surprised to learn that the book is not really about not giving a f***. I mean, not giving a f*** about anything sounds like a terrible way to live.
Clickbait titles aside the advice in the book is all useful stuff. I’ve been fortunate enough to be on the receiving end of some fantastic personal development and coaching so little of the advice in the book was completely new to me, it simply reinforced many things I already do or believe. However, the advice in the book is the kind of stuff that is so important that you wish everybody on the planet knew it so it bears repeating. This is a refreshing take and Manson has a style of delivery that might just reach beyond the usual self-development enthusiasts.
What should I read next?
Have you read the book? What did you think? What shall I read next?
If you have any recommendations let me know below or via Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn
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