Here It Is Finally
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This year has been one of the most important, yet challenging years of my life. And as we’ll see, that might not be a coincidence.
As you probably know, I’ve been calling out some of the shady dealings and worst practices of the self-help industry for my entire career. Whether it’s slimy sales tactics, unrealistic and unscientific advice, or promising results that simply aren’t possible, I’ve dedicated much of my adult life to “cleaning up” this space as much as possible.
You could even say that I have come to see this as my purpose, my calling in life.
About a year ago, a number of people I know started asking me about using ChatGPT as a therapist or life coach. Turns out, millions of people were doing this.
I was intrigued, so I tried it out. The results were… mixed.
Very mixed.
On the one hand, AI has access to all of the known psychological research, is trained on thousands of hours of clinical transcripts and possesses pretty much all of human knowledge within it.
On the other hand, it often has no clue how to use it.
ChatGPT, in particular, seemed to just want to validate me, tell me how great I was, reinforce any bad beliefs I might have had, and avoid saying anything uncomfortable.
This, I saw, was a huge problem.
So, I started researching how to train an AI to challenge you, to look at your underlying motivations and values and adapt to your personality. This led me down a rabbit hole, as I studied prompt engineering, LLM models and eval systems. I built AI agents, pitted them against each other, and organized them into “councils.”
I got so into it, that I eventually began talking to professional AI engineers, technical geniuses who have built AI systems that have been used by tens of millions of people. Pretty soon, we found ourselves working together. They too, saw the problem and were energized by the mission.
So, at the beginning of this year, we started an AI company. And this is what was either the smartest or stupidest thing I’ve ever done. I poured all of my extra time, energy, and not to mention my own money into it. All year, I worked nights and weekends, skipped vacations, ditched friends and family, sacrificing health, relationships and sleep to get it over the line.
And this is the paradox of purpose: you give up so much… yet, it somehow feels worth it.
We like to imagine that living with purpose is fun or euphoric. That we wake up every day with a smile on our face, even before the caffeine hits.
That’s bullshit. Because when you believe in something, when you become obsessed with something, you sacrifice yourself to it. And that sacrifice actually feels like pain and stress and doubt. Not fun.
Oh, that’s the name of the AI we built, by the way… Purpose.
It is an AI designed to go deep, to understand your values and needs within minutes, to be there at all times of the day (or night), to push you to be better, to challenge your assumptions, to point out your blindspots, and to compassionately nudge you back into alignment with what you really care about.
In short, we built it not to make you feel good, but to help you find a greater purpose.
And I’m extremely proud of it. I do not exaggerate when I say it may be the best thing I’ve ever done… but only time will tell.
I would love for you to try it. It is free to sign up and use it. We have a free personality assessment that you can take where the AI reads your soul within a few minutes of meeting you, and then if you want to continue the conversation we have a free trial period.
And, if you love Purpose as much as I think you will, then I’ll urge you to grab your annual subscription between now and December 18th. Not just because you’ll save $90 per year, but you’ll also get bonus access to this month’s Solved course on Finding Your Purpose, for free ($99 value), as well as an exclusive webinar later this month.
I will be talking more about Purpose and the experience of building it this month. In the meantime, give it a shot. And let me know how it goes.
See you Monday,
Mark Manson
#1 New York Times Bestselling Author
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