People who you hate who've had success if
You refuse to learn from them. You've boxed yourself in if
You only learn from people who look exactly like you or doing exactly what you're doing. You're losing all
Of that stuff is the best right all of the early failures. I'm so proud of the videos that I put out
However, many years ago you go back watch my channel. I'm super boring. I'm on I have a suit and a tie on
I'm sitting down
I'm trying to memorize a
Script and so I'm always like looking up in to the left a little bit to trying to like remember. What did I say?
It's super awkward people still go back and and like the content was decent
but the delivery was terrible like its cringe-worthy to watch but it also shows the
journey
Right. I don't want to just come out of the gate and be perfect
And part of part of being a great thought leader is sharing the vulnerabilities
Sharing what your weaknesses are sharing if you're nervous are sharing. Nobody wants to learn from somebody was perfect
They want to learn from somebody who is like them who is either on the journey to figure it out or has figured something out
So if you're on the journey to find something you haven't found it yet
Don't pretend like you found it because then you won't connect with people
But just you taking the step and going on a journey is inspiring because a lot of people want to take the journey
But they're too afraid so saying you go often do something will inspire them to do something in their life as well. So
I see really kind of want all of you to make a video
That really sucks and post it just to have the recall in three years to look back like holy cow
Look would I look at that in Toronto? That's the best but but I'm I'm a weird kind of
Masochist or something like I like I like I like the suck like I like I like the pain in the struggle
I think it's the best like if there's something that is
Challenging or difficult or judgment that I have to run towards it and I think that's how you end up growing
I would be proud of a post
Like that's that's a game. I tell myself. I'm proud of a terrible post
right Tony and I were talked in the car on the way back yesterday and I challenged him to do a
freestyle rap in a way that hadn't done it before and
I called him out on Instagram stories to just to like double make sure that it happened
And and I told like even if even if it's a total fail, even if like you have to post something
Post if it's garbage posted something you need to build the momentum
You need to feel what it's like like
Press post and if you're super anxious and nervous and afraid of judgment
Like then you have to do it if you're afraid of judgment
They have to go up and do that thing just to release the fear of judgment
My we had a dance team that won a local competition. And so we took them out to a nail salon as a celebration
And Alex and I went along because he was you were in it, right you were in the group
He was in the performance group and I was just going to support and then one of the one of the ladies a joke
that's like hey, are you guys gonna get your nails done, too and
The initial the initial replies. No, I'm not get my nails done
But the only acceptable answer is that's not an expression of me. That's not how I express myself
but I caught a little moment of I could get my nails done because I have
meetings and I have YouTube videos to make and I'm speaking at an event and I'm gonna have my nails painted that's ridiculous and
because I was afraid of that judgment then I had to go and do it just
To release it just to feel it just to walk around with my nails painted
just because right because like you guys don't own me right nobody out there owns me and
so if you're feeling
That's the way like I tricked myself if I ever feel that I'm playing small
Because of somebody else's opinion then I have to go and do that thing even if I didn't want to do the thing
Because releasing the fear of judgment serves me, so we got our nails painted
Alex went blue and then had to go teach that night or the next day at class and I went orange with racing stripes
and I felt I felt awkward for the first day, but also just feeling feeling the
Feeling the judgement rights like going to pick up a package for my concierge and wanting to hide my nails like no
I'm not hiding my nails. I'm gonna show it off
proudly
Just because just because like I will eat the judgment all day long because it makes me stronger
Brahim has a great story. We're into Walmart and he was flying a hair dryer hair dryer a
Blow dryer for his hair and he d-ends me to tell me the story. Will you tell the story?
So I caught myself for the first time being scared of judgments
But this pink hair dryer
Walking around look at me in my pink hair dryer, right and the point isn't a show-off or getting in anybody's face
It's just to not be afraid of the judgment and I think we play small by default
I think by default we just go in and play small because of other people's judgments
And so it's when you can catch it, then you have to go up and do something like bruh
He might have walked into Walmart and added to his collection of pink hair dryers
And just like walk out normally by default, but when you can catch it that's when you have to do something about it
so
Where this really sunk in for me was when I was walking down. I was walking on the street coming to walk near TDS and
I was listening to music and I had my headphones on and I'm
Bouncing, you know, I got my music on and I live I live close to here like a 15 minute walk away
And as I get too young and Shepard the major intersection there there's tons of people so I owe those people. Yeah
Go small, right and then I caught it
Like why am I dancing smaller? Who cares because of
Because I add one, you know
Well, I mean like who cares there's a bunch of strangers and so because of that then I had I had to make it even
bigger
I'm dancing there on the street corner not to get into anybody's face not to show them up not to not to say hey look
at me but just to release the
Judgement, and the thing I think of is how many times have I walked to that street corner?
And then the exact same thing just never caught it like hundreds of times
I probably done that dancing down the street being super happy and then get to the street corner and then just
by default just by default and so
Because I caught it then I had to go off and change it
Even though dancing giant on a street corner is not an expression of myself
Because I was nervous of people's judgments and I had to go up into that thing
and so the more that you can catch those things and then
Do the thing that you're afraid of that's when you start to shift your identity
When you catch it and you don't do it that actually makes it worse
If you catch yourself if brahim caught himself in the walmart
With the pink thing
Crouched over and he didn't go off and then like continued and he had the awareness that makes it worse
Then you reinforce a negative behavior. Then you're teaching yourself that I'm the kind of person who when I'm faced with judging a criticism
I play small
or even the fear of judgment of criticism
I play small
So super important because if you can catch it first step is just awareness because most of the time you won't even catch it
I've probably played small a hundred times already today without even noticing it
But when you catch it
what do you do if you jump into the discomfort then you start to set that new identity for yourself if
You don't do it and you shy away then you're creating a negative pattern that becomes really difficult to break out of
So that's why I love jumping into the pain of the judgment of the frustration
Because I know something greats coming. Okay, but like any time you feel afraid then you have to do that thing
just just to just to release the fear that
Especially with a judgement, you know, if you're afraid of diving onto a metal spike. Okay, like
Be afraid of that
You don't have to go off and do it but like fear of judgment is the thing that you need to destroy
Especially if you want to be a thought leader
because you will get judged and
Not all your messages will resonate with people and that's okay
Like you can't you can't let the fear of one person's and they get a feedback prevent you from getting started you get negative feedback
one it could just be a straight-out hater somebody just
Their hater their negative and and I just have empathy for them
I think your hater makes you greater. And I think I just have empathy for them and
The best part of the day is coming to your Instagram post or your YouTube video and leaving a negative comment
Like how crappy does their life have to be for that to be the highlight of their day?
Pretty bad. And so I feel sorry for them
I
Then also try to look is there anything in this that I can learn from?
because I think being able to learn from different styles makes you better if
You can only take feedback when it's sugar-coated and really nicely
Wrapped like hey, I really loved your video and it's great that you're out doing this, but I had a little tiny
You know a little suggestion like maybe don't rock so much in your chair when you're doing your post
Right if that's the only way you take feedback you're going to lose
So somebody's yelling in your face, but there may be a kernel of truth. I don't amazing. Thank you. So
I have I have empathy for I understand that this this person's life must be terrible that this is the highlight and
Maybe there's a kernel of truth in here that I can learn from to make me
I love learning from people that I don't like I
Think your goal is to learn from
Anybody who can teach you?
So if you guys have seen my office the wall, I got Steve Jobs up there Kanye West like a bunch of people
I don't want to be a father like Steve Jobs
But I want to learn how to be a visionary like Steve Jobs
So you can learn something from one person
whether whether you're a chump fan or chump hater or Obama fan Obama haters like you should be able to learn from
Both of them. I look at someone like Trump who?
You know, what was his election promise? I want to build a wall. Okay. I want to build a wall great
You don't have to agree with the wall
But I knew what he wanted to do
Looking from the outside looking for my Canada looking down at the US like what what was happening the campaign?
What did Hillary stand for I don't know
Not Trump
so Trump is great at
Having a big idea and be able to talk about it just use yours for positivity
Don't yours don't make yours being I'm gonna build a wall and shut people out
use yours for positivity
people who you hate who've had success if
you refuse to look to learn from them you box yourself in if
You only learn from people who look exactly like you or doing exactly what you're doing you're losing
Trump doesn't care if you don't remember not
But if you could pull one thing because I think you can learn from everybody as long as it's a positive message
Everything is believed right? That's my one words what flows through all the content I make there's never a
There's never a negativity
There's never there's never like yelling that somebody's never telling somebody that they're stupid if I did the ten
Stupidest Kanye moments of all time. I'm sure that video would blow up
But if I'm doing Kanye, I'm only showing the positive side of Kanye
That's the reason why I started the top ten series was because a friend of mine
was dissing Kanye
And I'm like somebody's got to stand up for Kanye
And he was talking about Taylor Swift in the in the Kanye moment. It was like seven years later
Like why? Are you still talking about this and I think it's easy to see Kanye only for the negativity
And the the crazy stuff that he does but there's also a lot of genius behind there that people don't see, you know
He's won more
Music awards and anybody at his age
Look at someone like John Legend, you know, John Legend
John Legend, like he's he comes off as like the nicest guy of all time
His name is John Stevens
he got named John Legend because he's friends with Kanye there at a Chicago bar and
Kanye said or John's John Legend said I have a really old-school voice
I got an old soul and Kanye said you should call yourself the legend and
John's like I can't call myself a legend. That's crazy
Like no. No, you got to call it. You got the chin journey and call yourself John Legend
That's believed right like believing in the guy other would be John Stevens
And it seems weird that John Legend and Kanye West to be friends. They seem like two totally different characters
So I made the top 10 video the very first one on Kanye West just to show mark my friend
Who made the post on Kanye he's like?
even if you hate Kanye you can learn a lot from him and if you're unwilling to learn from kinda you've just
locked yourself in and
So mark saw the video and he commented on it and his comment is actually the most like plussed
Or thumbs up comment on that video and then that that started the Cascade of okay
I want to profile more people because I think you can learn from anybody who's had success
Raise your standard
Apple at the core its core value is
that
Passion
Not one drop of my self-worth depends on your it's something surreal
this interview is done as a part of my
Toronto workshop if you want more details on the next one to sign up check out the link right there next to me
Continue to believe and I'll see you there