Mark Manson
Medellin, AT
Male, 28
I am a professional blogger, internet entrepreneur, and world traveler. I've been to over 40 countries and am currently working on my second book about long-term travel and how to work/live abroad. On my blog I write about self development and creating a unique lifestyle for yourself. Feel free to ask me anything.
The biggest challenge was figuring out something I could produce that a lot of people wanted. My first 2-3 products barely sold much at all, certainly not enough to live off of. It took a number of tries, studying marketing and branding, and understanding my audience a lot better until I was able to nail something that made me a solid income. I don't think I necessarily got in my own way. I worked my ass off through 2008 and 2009. I literally had no life other than my business for those two years. If there's one thing that I think I screwed up on internally is that I didn't give myself enough credit as a writer. At the time I was thoroughly convinced that people bought from me because of my marketing and offers, not because they had built a connection and loyalty to me as a teacher and writer. It took me a long time to figure out that my writing was the driving force behind my business and not all of the bells and whistles I spent so much time focusing on. Could I have avoided that had I been a bit more confident in myself at the time? I suppose. But this stuff is all a learning experience regardless.
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Great content markets itself. Especially for a blogger. I think what most bloggers don't understand is that you're not just offering information or a point of view, but you're offering an experience in the minds of your readers. So yes, great content should come first. It should also come second, third, fourth and fifth. I actually used to focus a lot more on marketing that I do now. What I discovered is that the quality of my marketing had little effect on my sales or traffic. People who liked me liked me regardless of how I marketed myself. I'd say these days I spend 75% on content 25% on marketing. That seems to work well for me.
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Unfortunately there aren't as many crazy stories as there are facepalm stories. One thing about that job is that people always thought it was glamorous -- that I was going out with these guys and doing crazy party stuff and banging tons of hot girls. It was quite the opposite it. It was more akin to holding therapy sessions in night clubs than anything. And then hour after painstaking hour trying to get a guy over his anxieties or insecurities around women. Just a guy getting a phone number was cause for celebration. With that said, there were some cool nights... Mostly involving bringing girls back to my hotel room. There are some awkward Vegas strip club stories in there too but I don't completely recall all of those nights. But mostly just therapy sessions.
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I have a few interns that are helping me at the moment, mostly with marketing and behind-the-scenes stuff. I've outsourced things here and there over the past year as well. But for the most part, I was a one-man show from 2007 to 2011.
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Emergency Room Manager
What is the most bizarre thing you've seen in your ER?
Meter Maid
Is it tough to have a job that consists exclusively of ruining peoples' days?
Magician
How do you feel about magicians on TV who reveal how tricks are done?
I rarely do research for a specific post, but I do a lot of ongoing research in subjects I'm interested in. I read A LOT, and most of what I read is non-fiction. I try to keep up with all of the popular psychology books that are being published and as I read I make little notes on my computer of certain ideas, studies or anecdotes I'd like to use in a post. I also have a bookmark folder for articles and studies I come across on the internet that I could see myself using in a post. I basically build up a reservoir of research and credible material to fall back on when I need it to make my point. I just put up a post today about what I call "the prime belief." It relates a lot to William James, one of my favorite philosophers and someone whom I've read quite a bit of and about over the years. So when I decided to write the post, it was a matter of digging through my old books and verifying a few basic facts online before writing it. Citing stuff definitely does build a lot of credibility and I'm trying to get better about it. People take you more seriously and it helps keep me grounded and talking about what works not just some hair-brained idea I came up with on a Saturday night. It's particularly important for my industry too, because there's actually a scary lack of scientific research backing up a lot of self help. So I'd like to be the guy who actually does go through the trouble to cite a lot of research backing up my models and theories.
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I think in the early-going my readership influenced me quite a bit. Back when I started I had far fewer readers, so in a way my relationship with my readers was far more intimate. Conversations and feedback from readers inspired me to pursue a lot of various areas of interest that I may not have otherwise: i.e., feminism, self esteem, motivation, etc. These days I would say they influence me less... or at least they influence me less on a person-by-person basis. There are a dozen readers or so who I am in regular contact with, but for the most part, there seems to be an invisible barrier of separation between me and them. I suppose on a macro-level they influence me indirectly by validating my life purpose and ambitions. It's cool to write things you're passionate about and see that 10,000 other people read it and seemed to like it. That has to affect a person I imagine, even if on an unconscious level.
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I do believe in it. Although I don't believe in it in any kind of supernatural or meta-physical way. The law of attraction has been taught in self help for over 100 years and can be easily explained by some basic psychological mechanisms we all have. 1. Confirmation bias - when we believe something, we're more likely to see information that supports our belief rather than what refutes it. 2. Opportunity blindness - we're only capable of seeing the possibilities of what we're immediately focusing on. The example I use for this is that when I quit my day job and started an internet business, I believe it was all or nothing with the internet business. But in fact, not only has my business completely evolved into something else I never could have imagined, but I have encountered dozens of amazing opportunities in the past 4 years that don't relate to my business at all. As humans, there are more variables and possibilities than we can comprehend and so we're not able to see them until we take a step towards them. 3. Hindsight - As Steve Jobs, it's easy to connect the dots when you look backwards. What "feels" serendipitous to us is actually just the single path we happened to choose. One of my interns commented to me recently at how lucky he was to have stumbled across a forum where some people knew me, therefore leading him to getting a job with me and being flown to Colombia to work online. I commented back to him that he always wanted to work online, and that if he hadn't met me, chances are he would have met someone else and encountered other opportunities, just as unique. The total effect of all of this is that when you focus singularly on your goal -- whether it be make money, start a business, find a girlfriend -- you start to 1) naturally only see information that confirms your goal, 2) "stumble" onto new opportunities you were unaware existed as you pursue that goal, 3) in hindsight feel that everything serendipitously came together.
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