Book Review: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck and the Iron Mindset of Resilience

Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck has been sitting on bestseller lists for years, and for good reason. It’s irreverent, blunt, and refreshingly countercultural in the world of self-help. But beneath the humour lies a powerful argument: life is short, your attention is finite and resilience comes not from caring about everything but from caring deeply about the right things.

For me, this message resonates strongly with my own journey through endurance sport, consulting, and culture change. And nowhere has this been clearer than in my experience of training for, and completing, a Double extreme triathlon at Kiwiman. 3.6km swim, 204 km bike, and 46 km run across some of New Zealand’s toughest terrain, a total of 5000 metres climbed. That was day one. The next day I did it all again.

Manson’s Core Message

Manson’s premise is simple: you can’t care about everything. Most of what happens in life doesn’t deserve your emotional investment. Instead, resilience comes from focusing on the few things that matter most, and letting go of the rest.

His argument has three parts:

1. Choose your struggles wisely. Happiness doesn’t come from avoiding problems; it comes from solving the problems you choose to carry.
2. Take responsibility, not blame. You may not control what happens, but you always control how you respond.
3. Remember death. Accepting mortality forces us to prioritise and gives life meaning.

It’s part Stoicism, part tough love, and entirely pragmatic.

Resilience in Theory vs Resilience in Practice

Manson’s reflections are compelling and are most alive when you put them to the test. For me, resilience has always been forged in the crucible of endurance sport. Completing one Ironman race teaches you grit. Completing 25 of them teaches you identity. But completing a double extreme triathlon like Kiwiman forces you into a different dimension altogether.

At Kiwiman, resilience isn’t about slogans or motivational quotes. It’s about making peace with pain. It’s about deciding, hour after hour, which discomforts are worth caring about — and which ones you must simply let go.

• Blisters? Don’t give them a f*ck. Keep moving.
• Weather turning savage in the mountains? Don’t give it a f*ck. Adapt your pace.
• Fatigue screaming at you in the early hours of the second marathon? That one matters manage it with fuel, breathing, and focus.

In this way, the race becomes a live laboratory for Manson’s thesis. Not everything is worth caring about. But some things, the right things, demand everything of you.

The Four Japanese Anchors of Resilience

Where Manson frames resilience as choosing what to care about, I ground it in four interconnected Japanese principles I’ve lived and taught:

1. Ishi (determined intent): You must begin with clarity of purpose. In Kiwiman, my intent wasn’t to “just finish”. It was to test my limits with dignity. In consulting, intent means deciding what really matters to a team before drowning in competing priorities.
2. Kaizen (continuous improvement): Massive challenges are solved by thousands of micro-improvements. The extra rep in training. The 1% gain in sleep. The slight refinement of a leadership habit. This echoes Manson’s argument: resilience is not one grand gesture, but compounding marginal gains.
3. Ikigai (reason for being): Habits and resilience are sustained only when tied to purpose. My Ironman career wasn’t about medals; it was about living as an endurance athlete. In organisations, culture change sticks when people feel their work matters.
4. Gaman (resilience, enduring with dignity): This is the closest cousin to Manson’s philosophy. Gaman is about holding the line enduring hardship calmly, without complaint, until you emerge stronger. It’s the practice I leaned on when facing 32 hours of Kiwiman’s brutal course.

Kiwiman Double XTri: A Case Study in Gaman

Let me be clear: the Kiwiman Double was not just physically demanding, it was existential. There were moments on the second day when I could barely stand on the boat ramp after the swim, when my body begged me to quit I had to not give a f*ck and get on my bike. My mind presented me with a hundred reasons why this was enough, it was cold, I was tired no one would blame me for giving up. What kept me going, back then was my mission to build a compelling story. Yes, I realise this is circular, but I write the book to inspire reslience and ishi, and I wrote the story in person, on the bike with no pen just a pedal.

Resilience is not about erasing doubt. It’s about choosing your response in the face of doubt. At one point, I found myself repeating a simple mantra: hold the line. Don’t surge, don’t retreat. Just hold steady.

That’s Gaman. That’s resilience. And it mirrors exactly what Manson argues: life becomes bearable when you stop caring about everything and focus instead on enduring the right problems.

Resilience in Leadership and Culture

This lesson applies as much to organisations as to athletes. In leadership, resilience is not about bravado or endless positivity. It’s about identifying the right problems to care about culture, trust, purpose and letting go of the noise.

Too many organisations spend their energy reacting to the trivial: the latest distraction, the newest management fad, the quick political win. But true resilience comes when leaders say: This is the line we hold. These are the values we will not compromise. This is what we will endure, even when it hurts.

That’s how cultures shift. Not by chasing every problem, but by choosing the right ones and committing to them with patience and dignity.

How I interpret Mansons Work From my Own Perspective.

Manson’s work is a powerful reminder that life is finite and resilience requires prioritisation. But where I would extend his thinking is this: resilience is also a skill you can train.

Every Ironman session, every karate kata, every disciplined morning routine is not just an event. It’s practice. It’s Kaizen. It’s embedding resilience into your nervous system until it becomes identity.

When I stood on the start line of the Kiwiman Double, I wasn’t drawing resilience from nowhere. I was drawing on 15 years of practice, of deliberate intent, of Kaizen compounding. That’s the Iron Mindset.

Closing Reflection

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck* is not really about not caring. It’s about caring selectively, caring deliberately, and letting resilience grow where it matters most.

For me, the book isn’t just something I read; it’s something I’ve lived, in endurance sport and in leadership. Resilience is not a personality trait. It’s a choice. It’s a practice. It’s a philosophy.

In Ironman, in consulting, in culture design and in life the truth is the same:

You don’t need to give a f*ck about everything. But you do need to care deeply, relentlessly and with dignity about the right things.

That’s resilience. That’s Gaman. And that’s how you build an Iron Mindset.