SOLVED with Mark Manson Podcast By Mark Manson cover art

SOLVED with Mark Manson

SOLVED with Mark Manson

By: Mark Manson
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Summary
 New episodes every month. Life advice that doesn’t suck by a 3x #1 NYT bestselling author. I’ve spent two decades calling out everything wrong with the self-help world: the bad science, the guru nonsense, and the advice that preys on people's insecurities. This podcast is my no-BS, research-backed answer to all of it.Copyright 2026 Infinity Squared Media Personal Development Personal Success
Episodes
  • Manipulation, Solved

    Manipulation, Solved
    Nov 4 2026
    You’ve probably lied to someone today. You also probably think you lie less than everyone else. Welp, I have some bad news. We all manipulate, we all get played, and sometimes, the smarter you are, the easier you are to con. In this episode, Drew and I get into what manipulation is, why everyone does it, and how to keep from getting fooled. We tell the story of how Freud’s nephew turned bacon into a doctor-approved breakfast, and how the TSA spent nearly $1 billion training officers to spot liars, with nothing to show for it. We walk through the one test that shows when persuasion crosses into manipulation, and the tactics advertisers, propagandists, and con artists have been running on you for a century. Then we cover why skeptics make some of the easiest marks and the only defense with serious evidence behind it. We also spend a good chunk of time on the manipulator you know best (or least)... yourself. You can’t fully escape influence, and you might not want to. But once you know the playbook, you’ll spot it, even when it’s coming from inside the house. Get your free Manipulation guide: https://mrk.mn/bpxozoh3 CHAPTERS Chapters 00:00:00 Introduction: Are You Being Manipulated Right Now? 00:05:21 CHAPTER 1: Everybody Manipulates (The Water We Swim In) 00:11:14 How to Spot a Psychopath (It's Not What You Think) 00:18:42 We're All Manipulators: The Social Brain Hypothesis 00:21:50 The 6 Manipulation Tactics Couples Use 00:32:11 White Lies & Subconscious Manipulation 00:37:57 The Spectrum of Manipulation 00:43:27 Why We Believe Our Own Bullshit 00:52:58 The "Virtuous Victim" Red Flag 00:57:46 Is Self-Help Manipulation? 00:59:01 Can You Actually Spot a Liar? 01:11:55 CHAPTER 2: The Morality of Manipulation 01:21:15 The Murderer at the Door 01:29:59 Nudges: Is Good Manipulation Okay? 01:43:12 Kant vs. Machiavelli: The Angel and Devil on Your Shoulder 01:54:19 Family Secrets: When Is Lying to Protect Okay? 02:05:37 Consent: What Kind of Support Do People Want? 02:14:21 Power, Parenting & Manipulation 02:27:50 CHAPTER 3: The Practice of Persuasion 02:39:32 Robert Cialdini's 6 Principles of Influence 02:40:52 Principle 1: Reciprocity 02:45:16 Principle 2: Commitment & Consistency 02:49:57 Principle 3: Social Proof 02:56:29 Principle 4: Authority & the Milgram Experiments 03:02:39 Principle 5: Liking 03:04:09 Principle 6: Scarcity 03:10:25 Advanced Manipulation Tactics: Anchoring, Framing, and the Exposure Effect 03:23:18 CHAPTER 4: How to Resist Manipulation 03:28:35 Crypto, Madoff & Complex Schemes 03:33:30 The Teeth-Brushing Experiment 03:44:22 Practical Defenses Against Manipulation 03:51:50 Why You Need Diversity of Thought 03:57:47 Check Your Own Emotions 04:00:21 Conclusion: Living in the Age of Manipulation Check out our sponsors AG1: Visit https://drinkag1.com/solved and get a FREE Immune Support Bundle with your first subscription of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro. Plaud: Get 22% OFF with code MANSON22 — before the Black Friday rush! Exclusive offer: November 4–19 only using my link: https://www.plaud.ai/manson | Available on Amazon as well: https://amzn.to/4zfE0pq MacroFactor: Start your 14 day free trial at https://app.macrofactor.com/mfmark and use code MARK Quo: Try QUO for free PLUS get 20% off your first 6 months when you go to https://quo.com/solved Cozy Earth: Cozy Earth's biggest sale of the year ends December 3rd. Head to https://cozyearth.com and use code SOLVED for 35% off home and sleepwear. Ethos: Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/SOLVED. Application times may vary. Rates may vary. Quince: Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns at https://quince.com Tello: Check out Tello Mobile using my link and start saving today: https://solved.deals/tello Notion: Learn more about how Notion can support your business, at https://notion.com/solved Momentous: Head to https://livemomentous.com code: SOLVED for up to 35% off your entire first order. Shopify: Stop waiting for permission to build something. Main character energy only. Free trial at https://shopify.com/solved Purpose: Start for free at https://mark.deals/purpose ⇨ Sign up for my newsletter, Your Next Breakthrough. It will help make you a less awful person: https://go.markmanson.net/cdi1xzha ⇨ Get clarity on what actually matters. Try Purpose, Mark's AI mentor app that learns your patterns, challenges your blind spots, and helps you take action. Get started at https://go.markmanson.net/217i5ys5 FOLLOW MARK Mark's IG:⁠https://www.instagram.com/markmanson⁠ Solved IG:⁠https://www.instagram.com/solvedpodcast/⁠ Twitter:⁠https://x.com/markmanson⁠ LinkedIn:⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmanson/⁠
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    4 hrs and 6 mins
  • Failure, Solved

    Failure, Solved
    Oct 7 2026
    Fail fast. Fail forward. Fail better. As a society, we’ve turned failure into a slogan to celebrate, but somehow we’re more afraid of it than ever. So what's going on? Most of us say failure is our best teacher, but I doubt many of you have ever walked away from a failure doing a happy dance. IInstead, you probably let the moment rattle around in your head at some ungodly hour, then played it a little safer the next time. Don't worry, you're not the only one. Today, Drew and I break down why every piece of advice you've ever received about failure has, well… failed you. We cover why indulging in "failure porn" is such a harmful move and what it actually takes to learn from our mistakes (it's not what you think). We explain the evolutionary reason a rejected email can feel threatening. We tell the story of how a country's inability to admit failure got thousands killed, and of a monk so tormented by his failures that he confessed them for six hours a day. We dive into the three different kinds of failure and why the setback itself matters less than the actions you take after. And we even discuss when quitting is and isn't a failure, and the five-question test that reveals the difference. Apologies in advance: this episode will not teach you how to avoid failure. On a long enough timeline, the failure rate of everything is 100%. So let's get really great at failing. Get your free episode guide: https://mrk.mn/failureguide CHAPTERS Chapters 00:00:00 Introduction: The Failure to Understand Failure 00:01:15 Chapter 1: The Most Overdone Topic in Self-Help 00:07:39 The Failure Porn Industrial Complex 00:16:06 Why Failure Worship Made Everything Worse 00:41:47 Chapter 2: Why Failure Hurts So Much 01:02:35 The Sociometer Theory: Your Brain's Status-Tracking System 01:14:28 The Ego, Original Sin, and Why You Can't Escape Failure 01:31:57 Chapter 3: When You Define Yourself, You Define Your Failures 02:07:08 Confession, Therapy, and the Technology of Atonement 02:23:48 Chapter 4: Andre Agassi and the Two Types of Failure 02:30:00 Guilt vs. Shame: Converting Your Pain Into Growth 03:04:36 Chapter 5: Amy Edmondson and the Three Types of Failures 03:19:46 The Science of Learning From Failure: Dosage, Recovery, and Extraction 03:30:37 When to Quit: The Five Questions That Reveal If You're Being Smart or Just Scared 03:38:53 Closing Thoughts: Choosing Your Failures Wisely CHECK OUT OUR SPONSORS 80,000 Hours: Go to https://80000hours.org/solved to get your free copy of their career guide and start planning a career that is meaningful. Momentous: Head to https://livemomentous.com and use code SOLVED for up to 35% off your entire first order. Shopify: The best businesses aren’t built in boardrooms. They’re built by people who just started. Free trial at https://shopify.com/solved AG1: Visit https://drinkag1.com/solved and get a FREE Immune Support Bundle, including Omega-3 Fish Oil and Vitamin D3+K2, with your first subscription of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro. Macrofactor: Start your 14-day free trial at https://app.macrofactor.com/mfmark and use code MARK. Cozy Earth: Head to https://cozyearth.com and use my code SOLVED for an exclusive 20% off home and sleepwear! Notion: Learn more about how Notion can support your business at https://notion.com/solved Quo: Try QUO for free PLUS get 20% off your first 6 months when you go to https://quo.com/solved Purpose: Go to https://solved.deals/purpose to start getting unstuck today. Waking Up: Get started at https://manson.deals/wakingup for a 14 day trial, no risk. ⇨ Sign up for my newsletter, Your Next Breakthrough. It will help make you a less awful person: https://go.markmanson.net/cdi1xzha ⇨ Get clarity on what actually matters. Try Purpose, Mark's AI mentor app that learns your patterns, challenges your blind spots, and helps you take action. Get started at https://go.markmanson.net/217i5ys5 FOLLOW MARK Mark's IG: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/markmanson⁠ Solved IG: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/solvedpodcast/⁠ Twitter: ⁠https://x.com/markmanson⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmanson/⁠
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    3 hrs and 44 mins
  • Finding Your Life Path, Solved

    Finding Your Life Path, Solved
    Sep 2 2026
    You've been told your whole life to explore, keep your options open, try new things. And you've done exactly that. Moved cities, pivoted careers, taken every personality quiz. But here's what nobody warns you about: all that freedom might be the thing keeping you stuck. This episode digs into a depressed 19th century Danish philosopher who diagnosed our entire modern crisis 180 years before we lived it. We tell the story of Casanova, history's most famous fuckboy, who had more adventures than anyone alive and died completely alone with nothing but 2,000 pages of memories nobody believed. We break down Dan Gilbert's research on why your brain is actually better at justifying your choices than you give it credit for. We walk through Kierkegaard's three stages of commitment, from the aesthetic life of endless options to the point where commitment stops feeling like a choice at all. And we talk about the grief that nobody tells you about when you finally pick one life and let all the others go. Get your free episode guide: https://solvedpodcast.com/commitment/ CHAPTERS Chapters 00:00:00 The Paradox of Too Many Choices 00:05:42 Chapter 1: The Prophet of Too Much 00:08:16 Kierkegaard's Crisis: The Engagement He Couldn't Keep 00:22:26 Anxiety as the Dizziness of Freedom 00:43:30 The Media Environment That Makes Commitment Impossible 01:01:00 Cultural Forces Engineering Indecision 01:11:40 Chapter 2: The Aesthetic Life: Casanova and the Trap of Endless Novelty 01:19:24 Five Predictions Kierkegaard Got Right About Modern Life 01:37:55 Why We're Biologically Wired to Keep Our Options Open 02:18:30 Chapter 3: The Ethical Life: Learning to Choose With Your Eyes Open 02:41:20 The Cold Pool Metaphor: Why Commitment Feels Like Liberation 02:49:28 Self-Concordance: Aligning Decisions With Who You Actually Are 03:14:01 The Grief of Cutting Off Alternative Selves 03:19:17 Chapter 4: The Religious Stage: When Commitment Becomes Absurd 03:30:00 Finding Your Calling: It Chooses You, Not the Other Way Around 03:50:26 Going Pro Before You're a Professional 03:57:10 The Leap of Faith: What It Means to Commit Religiously Check out our sponsors OneSkin: Head to https://manson.deals/oneskin to unlock your healthiest skin now and as you age. Get 15% off OneSkin with the code MARK. Notion: Learn more about how Notion can support your business at https:///manson.deals/notion Surfshark: Go to https://surfshark.com/solvedpod or use code SOLVEDPOD at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark! Shopify: The only thing standing between you and your own income is getting started. Free trial at https://manson.deals/shopify AG1: For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro at https://manson.deals/ag1 BrainFM: Go to https://manson.deals/brainfm to get 30 days of unlimited access, completely free. Momentous: Head to https://manson.deals/momentous to try Momentous Signature Spec Creatine, and use code SOLVED for up to 35% off your entire first order. Purpose: Go to https://solved.deals/purpose to start getting unstuck today. Waking Up: Get started at https://manson.deals/wakingup for a 14 day trial, no risk. ⇨ Sign up for my newsletter, Your Next Breakthrough. It will help make you a less awful person: https://go.markmanson.net/cdi1xzha ⇨ Get clarity on what actually matters. Try Purpose, Mark's AI mentor app that learns your patterns, challenges your blind spots, and helps you take action. Get started at https://go.markmanson.net/217i5ys5 FOLLOW MARK Mark's IG: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/markmanson⁠ Solved IG: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/solvedpodcast/⁠ Twitter: ⁠https://x.com/markmanson⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmanson/⁠.
    Show more Show less
    4 hrs and 10 mins
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Most relevant
They cut through the unhelpful self-help bs, and challenge you with harsh truths that everyone needs to hear to ACTUALLY make a positive change in your life and move the needle.

Finally something actually helpful and not just self-help fluff.

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So glad that this guy finally has a podcast! It's just as good as I hoped, nice to have more from this author!

Finally!

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take some time out of your day, while driving or whatnot, and listen to this podcast. i feel that you will benefit as much as I benefited.

worth your time

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Mark is great at simple answers to life’s issues. He often reminds me to not over think stuff.

No nonsense wisdom

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It's like getting advice from that old drunk guy that never leaves the bar but somehow knows absolutely everything about everything! And, still calls ya a cocksuc!er every once in a while. Great stuff!

Richest Man in the Trailer Park!

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