Mark Manson

You see this all the time, like all the major seminars and gurus in this space, they're basically advertising that they can fundamentally change who you are at your core.

right so if you've always been a shy quiet person in a crowded room they're advertising to you that they can change you that you'll stop being that way that it's your childhood trauma that's made you that way and you just need to like you know heal or whatever and the science just does not back that up and what i have personally found in my own life and what i have found with the thousands of people that i've talked to over the years is that real healing quote unquote

is just accepting who you are.

It's like understanding like, I am a quiet person.

I am never gonna be the person at the center of the room.

Sure, I could maybe learn how to do that in brief spurts and moments, but this is who I am.

And so I should adapt my life to what I'm starting with.

It's like, imagine if I tried to sell you a seminar telling you that you can make it in the MBA.

Like, just follow my 10-step course, and you too will make it to the NBA, despite the fact that you're, like, 5'7 or whatever.

And, like, it doesn't matter what I teach you.

I could say to you, like, it's your childhood trauma that's holding you back.

It's the bullies from school who convinced you that you can't be an NBA player.

Like, you just weren't born with it.

I wanted to be an NFL player when I was little.

Yes, it is.

I feel like that's something that really does happen in your 30s and 40s.

It's interesting.

We did that.

We did that piece like 10 years ago when I turned 30.

Remember, we asked everybody in my audience over 40, like what they wish they knew at 30.