- Here's the truth about the Met Gala,
and about any event in your life,
you make your beliefs,
and then your beliefs turn right around and make you,
and then the world begins to support
whatever you have chosen to believe.
Last week, people were fascinated by the outfits
people turned up in, some of them were very strange,
some of them were very controversial,
but that isn't the point I'm going with here.
I want to talk about the fact that whatever
those girls turned up in, they owned it.
They didn't think, "Hmm, this is controversial.
"I might get backlash. I may look ridiculous.
"I look a bit silly. I look like a cartoon character.
"I looked like a fetish person."
They owned what they wore.
They put up their head, kept their chin up,
and went out there.
And because they owned it and didn't express any self-doubt,
they pulled it off.
So, let's talk about self-doubt, because
when you doubt yourself, other people pick up that doubt.
Our thoughts are a kind of energy,
and they radiate out from us,
and people pick up how we're feeling about ourselves.
So, this is really not about fashion,
it's about you going out into the world
with a business idea, going out in the world and thinking,
"I'm going to get a great person to share my life.
"I'm going to get a great deal. I'm going to get a promotion.
"I'm going to get a great job."
When you go anywhere as yourself,
you must banish self-doubt.
"What if they don't like me? What if I'm no good?
"What if I blush? What if my mind goes blank?
"What if I have to tell them I didn't go to college?"
You have to smash self-doubt, banish it.
How do you banish it?
Well, it's like you have a stereo in your head,
and one speaker is saying, "Yeah, you can do this,"
and the other's going, "Oh, you can't really,
"you're going to wing it, you're going to fake it.
"You always mess up."
So you've got to shut down that critical voice.
I find what's very good is to put that critical voice
on my thumb and to make it sound like Tweetie Pie
or Minnie Mouse or Donald Duck and laugh at it.
"You'll never do that," in a high-pitched voice. "Watch me."
I find that you can turn down one speaker
and turn up the other.
You see, here's one of the rules of the mind,
it cannot hold conflicting beliefs.
When you're going, "I'm doing it, I've got this,
"this has my name all over it,
"no one can do this job better than me,"
when you are doing that,
you can't simultaneously have doubt.
When the English girl, Emma, just won the US Open,
you could see by the set of her chin,
that she was going to win no matter what.
And when she's focusing on winning, winning, winning,
"I'm going to ace this. I'm going to nail this,"
you can't simultaneously be thinking, "Oh, I can't do it."
So it's important just to understand the rules of your mind.
Your mind cannot hold conflicting beliefs.
If you're about to go into a meeting,
into an interview, into an audition,
maybe go on a date with someone new,
maybe get a piece of paper, like this,
and just write out the good thoughts,
and then on the opposite page, the negative ones.
"Well, you know, I've got cellulite, I've got two kids.
"Who's going to take me on?"
And then change that to, "I'm amazing,
"having two kids means I've already got love in my life.
"If I've already got love in my life,
"I can attract more love, and these kids are an asset."
So whatever negative thought you have, flip it over.
Find a positive. Focus only on the positive.
Remember, two rules of the mind.
One, whatever you focus on, you get more of.
And two, your mind cannot hold conflicting beliefs.
Think a bit about two lanes.
There's two lanes of traffic.
Here's the negative.
Here's the positive.
Get into one lane,
and you can't then go into the other lane.
Your mind doesn't know which lane to take
when you go, "I want this. But what if it goes wrong?
"I want love. What if I get rejected?
"I want a career. What if nobody likes my product?
"I want a promotion. What if I fluff it?"
Your mind can't be in two lanes, it can only be in one.
So get in the right lane,
the lane of believing in yourself,
reassuring yourself, telling yourself, "I'm amazing.
"I've got this. I've got this with bells on."
You know, I go to speak on stage, and it's very easy to go,
"Oh, look at all these people. What if I forget what I'm saying?
"What if I'm no good? Oh my God,
"the speaker before me is amazing."
But I can't afford that.
That's a luxury I cannot afford.
I have to go into it with, "I've got something to say.
"I'm great. They love me. I love being on stage."
And I say it, say it, say it,
and it becomes true, because here's the truth about
the Met Gala, and about any event in your life,
you make your beliefs, and then your beliefs
turn right around and make you,
and then the world begins to support
whatever you have chosen to believe.
So let's imagine you're someone who's going out
onto the stage of the Met Gala
wearing something very controversial,
but you've decided, "I'm going to believe this is amazing.
"I'm going to get loads of press.
"I'm going to be all over the papers. I look amazing in this.
"And this is what I'm doing to raise my profile.
"And I love it."
You've made a belief,
and now the belief is going to make you.
And then, when you go out there with that belief,
"This is important, this is amazing,"
it works. Lady Gaga once showed up in a dress made of meat.
She's worn some very interesting costumes,
but she owns them.
She doesn't think she looks ridiculous.
She thinks, "I'm getting attention.
"This is good for my brand. This is good for me."
And you know what? We all like Lady Gaga.
We like the fact that she's different,
she's out there, she owns it.
So she made a belief, "This is the right thing for my brand.
"And I'm sending a message here.
"I've got a statement about what meat means,
"and I believe it's the right thing."
And her audience tend to believe it too.
But if she thought, "Well, what if I can't pull this off?
"What if I look ridiculous?
"What if people laugh at me?"
But she didn't go into that lane.
She stuck in the lane of, "I've made a good belief
"about what I'm doing, I'm sticking with it."
So if you make your beliefs and then your beliefs make you
and then the world starts to match
what you have chosen to believe,
then you might as well make your beliefs amazing.
Greta Thunberg at 18 has a belief,
"I'm going to go out there and highlight what is going on
"in the climate of the world."
You can love her or not love her,
but she believes that's her mission. She owns it.
She has no self-doubt whatsoever.
Banish self-doubt, replace self-doubt with praise.
There is nothing in the world that will boost
your self-esteem like praise.
And there is nothing that will wither it
and diminish it like criticism.
Grow in praise and minimize self-doubt.