World’s fifth richest man Mark Zuckerberg opens up about toll low-integrity journalists take on his emotional health, shares secret to dealing with pain: “When you’re on the board, you’re focused on making sure you stay on the board and don’t mess something up.”

Living the surf-adjacent life.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, by all appearances, lives a gilded life. The world’s fifth richest man has a palatial Kauai spread, a best friend in Kai Lenny and a Caesar haircut that shows no sign of recession. But Zuckerberg is still human-adjacent, still leaks oil, has been programmed to feel like you or me and sometimes those feelings get hurt.

In a recent interview with Tim Ferriss, the popular podcaster and lifestyle guru, Zuckerberg responded to the question “how have you become comfortable with discomfort” thusly according to Business Insider:

The Meta CEO said he wakes up each morning to emails about what’s happening internally at Meta, along with the news of the day — all of which often includes “a fair amount of bad news and new things that I need to absorb,” he said.

If he goes straight into his day after that, “it’s almost like getting punched with a ton of new context,” Zuckerberg said.

To avoid that feeling, he’s started surfing or foiling — riding a hydrofoil board, which lifts you above the surface of the water — to take his mind off things for an hour or so.

“When you’re out there in the water, it’s pretty hard to focus on anything else,” Zuckerberg said. “When you’re on the board, you’re focused on making sure you stay on the board and don’t mess something up.”

When he returns to work afterward, he feels like the news has settled in and he’s ready to deal with whatever’s going on that day — stewing in bad news makes him less productive, he told Ferriss.

What in the world does “getting punched with a ton of new context” mean?

Mark Zuckerberg is almost people.