Solved, Answers: Finding Purpose, Failing Better, and the AI Future

SOLVED with Mark Manson

Mark Manson

Education, Self-improvement

4.9 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 15 December 2025

⏱️ 86 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This one’s different. In this special year-end episode, I answer your questions—from the deep stuff about purpose and motivation, to the uncomfortable realities of change, burnout, failure, and dealing with unsupportive family. I also share the behind-the-scenes chaos of building SOLVED this year, what I learned about making massive, meaningful content, and what’s coming in 2026 (spoiler: boundaries, ego, and maybe some live shows). This is part personal, part philosophical, and part therapy session disguised as a podcast. If you’ve been wondering what’s next—or why you feel stuck—this one’s for you. See you in 2026. Ready to stop listening to podcasts and actually start taking action? Join the Solved Community, a group of like-minded people who are taking small steps every day to make big changes in their lives: https://solvedpodcast.com/qa Sign up for my newsletter, Your Next Breakthrough. It will help make you a less awful person: ⁠https://markmanson.net/breakthrough⁠ 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 7 days free at ⁠⁠purpose.app/solved⁠ Chapters: (01:13) Recap of 2025 (03:42) What if I don't have a single purpose? (12:34) I'm having issues on getting motivated on one thing (23:15) I'm struggling with the idea that purpose must be bigger than yourself (26:04) How Mark got Purpose AI to work (32:55) Questions from YouTube (1:05:55) Goals for 2026 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/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@IAmMarkManson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Think about cheese.
0:02.0	Make your thoughts cheesier.
0:04.2	Now add 100% chicken breast fillet, Chipoplae sauce and amadea cheese melt.
0:08.3	And it's giving the new cheesy chicken stack at McDonald's.
0:12.0	Did we mention it's cheesy?
0:13.9	Cheese.
0:15.8	Availments with the 4th of Jan, 2026 from 11 a.m.
0:18.1	Plus and participation may vary.
0:19.2	Subjects availability.
0:20.3	What's up, everybody, Mark Manson here for a very, very special end of year episode of Solved, the most
0:26.7	thorough and over-research podcast on the planet. Now, this is the last episode of Solved this year.
0:32.8	It's a very special episode. It's going to get a little bit personal. We're going to go deeper on some common topics that have been coming up quite a bit.
0:40.3	And I'm going to share a lot of the future plans for the podcast coming up in 2026.
0:45.3	But I do want to put it on your radar that the next solved episode is going to come out on January 1st.
0:52.3	So it's going to be new year, new you, new solved episode. Definitely don't want to miss that. So be sure to check that out. But for this episode, I want to do something a little bit different than what we usually do. As most of you know, solved episodes, we dive super deep. We get way into the weeds. We over-research everything. And then we end up delivering a like four to five-hour mega episode on a single topic.
1:17.1	Today, I would like to, A, go a little bit more bite-sized and then B, jump around a little bit more just to kind of cover everything that's happened in this past year.
1:30.3	Also connect a little bit more one-on-one with you guys, and then also just keep you updated on what's going on.
1:33.3	So very quickly, a 2025 recap,
1:36.3	this podcast is only seven months old, which is kind of crazy to think about.
1:40.3	We had over 13 million downloads across platforms, which is insane. Not bad for a podcast
1:46.8	with only eight episodes. We peaked at number eight in the world in September with our shame
1:52.0	episode, and we have charted in 13 different countries worldwide. We were also the most listened to
	...

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