Mark and Jordan discuss how they evolved beyond their roots in the seedy pickup artist (PUA) scene to help people from all walks of life transcend insecurities and discover their true potential — or at least derive entertainment from some books and podcasts.
Mark experiences the ups and downs of becoming a viral sensation: from seeing his book publicly enjoyed by Congressional representatives and Hollywood movie stars to discovering that Putin's using it as an excuse to tighten Russia's censorship laws.
The dangers of delusional positivity — just because believing something makes you feel good doesn't make it real, which means you're going to be especially disappointed when it's time to acknowledge what is real.
Our brains want there to be an easy, fix-all formula for happiness that we can get from attending a self-help seminar or reading a stack of personal growth books, but the principles we learn from them are useless until we go through the effort to apply them to our lives in the outside world.
There's no such thing as bad emotions — there are only bad reactions to emotions.