Most people assume that working twice as hard will make them twice as productive.

But this isn’t true.

Here’s why…👇 People tend to think productivity exists on a linear graph like this.

But actually, the only type of work that is linear is basic, repetitive stuff. Like hauling bales of hay. Or obnoxious data entry. Or operating the fryer at McDonald’s. Double your input, double your output.

Here are the life lessons I know at 40 that I wish I knew at 20: 1. The older you get, the more you realize it's less about what you want, and more about what you're willing to give up.

2. Success never feels as good as you had hoped; failure never feels as bad as you had feared. Don’t be ruled by either.

Over the past 5 years, I’ve completely changed my relationship to my health.

Prior to that, I was overweight, pre-diabetic, & having chest pains in my mid-30s. I thought maybe eating a salad once a week and going for a run every now then would take care of it.

I was wrong 👇 Since then, I’ve lost 60 pounds (~30kg). I now enjoy regular exercise and I eat healthy and nutritious foods.

My daily life is much more physically active and I get way better sleep. I’m happy with my health now—but it took a long time to get here.

I see way too much emphasis on what people do for morning routines, and not nearly enough on what people do at night.

Here's the real personal growth habit that no one's talking about: Creating good habits in the evening improves every area of your life: mood, productivity, physical health, longevity, happiness, creativity. The list goes on.

Mess with your nighttime routine and your entire day takes a hit to the face.

In 2022, I decided to give up alcohol.

I started with two months, and it’s turned into two years.

Here are 7 unexpected benefits I got from quitting alcohol👇 1. I’m more emotionally stable. When I was drinking, I’d get crankier, more excited, more embarrassed or feel more guilty for the 2-3 days after. Even if it was only a couple. I’m way more chill now.

On the surface, the rise in workplace burnout makes no sense.

Despite choosing our hours, working where we want and taking meetings in our underwear, we're suffering burnout more than ever.

Are we just whiny & weak, or is there something deeper going on?

Let’s investigate👇 Burnout is defined as chronic workplace stress, or constant feelings of energy depletion & exhaustion.

In a recent Deloitte survey, 77% of workers said they'd experienced it in their current job—yet, this is despite the majority saying they're passionate about their current job.

When I was young, I dealt with serious social anxiety. Then I got over it.

Since then, I’ve spent 15 years working with 1,000s of people who also struggle with anxiety.

This is what works (a thread) 👇 The increase in adults struggling with Social Anxiety Disorder is out of control. It’s the second highest diagnosed anxiety disorder, affecting 15 million Americans each year.

That’s 15 million people giving way too many fucks.

Here’s a comparison between one man—who survived four Nazi concentration camps—and today’s young people, who seem barely able to survive anything 👇 According to a recent Harvard study, 50% of the mental health challenges suffered by young adults come down to a lack of direction. Or, in simple terms, people don’t know what to give a fuck about.

Why you shouldn't necessarily take life advice from rich people (a thread)👇 Have you ever noticed how many rich people advocate for a balanced, healthy and happy lifestyle—after they’re rich?

You know, after they've spent 10 years grinding, failing, suffering and eating Big Macs for breakfast?

Today is my 40th birthday. Here are all the things that I know at 40 which I wish I knew at 20.

Starting with…

1. Your relationship with others is a direct reflection of your relationship with yourself. If you treat yourself poorly, then you will unconsciously seek out and tolerate others who treat you poorly. If you treat yourself with dignity and respect, then you will only tolerate others who treat you with dignity and respect.

Get right with yourself. Get right with the world. 2. The only way to feel better about yourself is to do things worth feeling good about. Respect is earned, not given.

3. The only failure is not trying. The only rejection is not asking. The only mistake is not risking anything.

Success and failure are fuzzy concepts that only exist in your brain before you do something, not after. After the fact, everything will have some mixture of both success and failure within them. And the only real failure is doing nothing.

What I’m about to tell you is going to help you stop caring what people think so you can get on with your life and start being awesome like this guy 🧵👇 There's a concept in psychology known as the Spotlight Effect. Now, the Spotlight Effect says that we all tend to assume that people are paying far more attention to us than they actually are.

There’s an amazing concept in psychology that might explain why you’re not making progress on your problems: Years ago, researchers at Harvard sat people down and showed them a series of dots and asked them to identify which ones were blue.

It’s the middle of the night and I'm in some cheap bungalow accommodation in rural India.

I’m having cold sweats. My head is throbbing. I’m dehydrated. And there’s no access to clean water.

Then, suddenly, the whole room becomes infested with thousands of giant buzzing mosquitos.

This was actually one of the best nights of my life 🙏

Not the situation itself. That sucked. But the experience. Because when you go through that sort of hell and return home, having an awkward conversation isn’t a big deal anymore. Feeling a little hungover will never make you cancel brunch with your friends again. And getting out of bed early for the gym is a breeze.

My experiences traveling have without a doubt been the best part of my personal development. Here are just a few of the lessons I took from 10 years overseas, which I get into in this episode:

✴️Every culture around the world has a trade-off of values—which positive systems it chooses to prioritize or what expectations it chooses to put on its people end up being at the expense of something else.

✴️Happiness is the wrong question. The human mind is incredibly resilient and the happiness found in children playing in ditches and watching their siblings get typhoid doesn’t eliminate their general suffering.

✴️Most people are good and it only takes hanging out with the people of any country you have a strong political view about to realize that most people are cool, and it’s only the system or the government that’s being obnoxious or murderous.

✴️If you value minimizing human suffering, prosperity, health and mental well-being, some country’s systems work better than others. I think it's really important to not make that a taboo statement.

✴️And much more…

This episode was a team favorite because there’s something for everyone, even if you can’t travel right now. So get into it, like it, review it, share it with someone you want to inspire the hell out of. And stay fucking frosty.

Link below 👇 Get in on YouTube:

I just optimized the most efficient morning routine ever, based on theories and knowledge that no one is talking about.

It goes like this:

1. Wake Up
2. Walk to My Office
3. Start Working

"Mark, but how??!?" you ask. Follow along as I break it down, step-by-step. 🧵👇 Step 1: This is the first step. Next to my bed. I step here first.

My wife is usually asleep so I try to be quiet and not to fart. But if you're single or hate your partner, you can be noisy or fart.

5 Truths That We Don’t Want to Hear, But Need to Hear: 1) Pain is inevitable.

We falsely believe it’s possible to get rid of the pain in our lives. We think, “If I could just have a jet ski, everything would be grand,” while not foreseeing the pain we'll feel when our drunken sister rides away on it, never to be seen again.

6 Books That Will Help You Grow From Your Pain: 1) The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts

Watts is one of the most popular pop-Buddhist writers from the 1960s and 70s. And his clarity on the fundamental tenets of eastern philosophy is still unmatched. There’s no better book for a quick and dirty introduction to it.

Most people suck at reading.

Here are my five rules to help you become a better reader: Rule #1: Cut the inner monologue.

When you read, there's a voice inside your head talking out each and every word. The problem with this? It's slow and you don't need it. Practice reading without it. Don’t make every sound of every word in your head. Weird, eh?

There’s no such thing as a “good” or “bad” emotion—there are only “good” and “bad” reactions to your emotions. Here’s why your emotions might confuse the hell out of you: Anger, for example, gets a bad rap for being a “bad” emotion, but it isn’t necessarily so. While anger is often mismanaged and results in things getting ugly pretty fast, it does a lot of good for us and the world too.

In 2018, I was fortunate enough to stumble into a small room with Pele in it. I sat down next to him and began speaking Portuguese. He said, “Who’s this American guy and how does he know Portuguese?” He had never heard of me but he also seemed relieved to speak to someone in his native tongue for awhile. So we spoke.

I explained that my wife was Brazilian. He quipped “makes sense, the best way to learn a language was between the sheets.” We laughed. The ice was broken.

7 Realizations That Changed My Life (a thread): 1/ Nobody is paying attention to you as much as you are to yourself. That thing that mortifies you? Other people probably don’t even notice.

Here are some of my most popular tweets from 2022 so far, in one thread…⬇️

https://twitter.com/IAmMarkManson/status/1477427168103776262