If you're playing a role,
if you're wearing a mask,
if you're dressed in clothes that are not yours
then you end up living a life that's not yours.
The reason I start with identity is because I think that's the root
of all our challenges.
When you fake being someone for so long
you think it's your reality.
And that's what happens to all of us.
We play a role at work, we play a role at home,
we play a role with our family, play a role with our friends
and then we think that role is us.
And we lose ourselves.
And to me that is the core reason
why we're chasing things that are not important to us.
We're unhappy despite reaching accolades
and we feel dissatisfied.
Our identity should start with unlearning
everything that we think we know about ourselves.
So the best method of unlearning is this:
the first thing you do
is write down everything you currently are chasing in your life.
Write them down.
You can write down three, you can write down five,
you can write down 10, depending on how ambitious you are.
Second line,
ask yourself,
What is the source of that?
Where did you get that idea?
Did you get that idea from a TV show you saw?
Did you get that idea from your parents?
Did you get that idea from your mom and your dad, your sister, your cousin?
Did you get that idea because your friend just got proposed to on Instamatic?
Did you get that idea because your friend just got promoted?
Did you get that idea because you just broke up?
Or did you get an idea because you just feel it,
when you do it then you feel alive.
And then the third thing you ask yourself is
Well then, what is mine?
What is coming from inside of me?
And if you just do that three-step process,
now what you're doing is you're filtering out the noise.
And you're starting to listen to your voice.
The thing is you've got a voice inside of you but
- Yeah - it's quiet.
It's like, Jay, like take note of me. Like Lewis, like you know
and it's just like trying to get through
and the noise of everyone else's opinions is so loud.
One of the biggest mistakes we make
is that we confuse
inexperience
with being unqualified.
So because we've not tried a lot of things,
we just naturally believe that we can't be that good at them.
So if I’ve never spoken on a stage
I just think, oh, I'm probably not good at that.
Or if I’ve never played golf
I’d probably think, oh, I’m probably not good at that.
And so we start writing off things
without even trying them.
Take the next month,
take the next four weekends in the month, that gives you 8 days
and get really tactical
every single day.
Go join a course, an online course or workshop,
go and shadow a friend, go to a seminar or a conference,
go to reading a book, listen to podcasts,
go and expose yourself to 8 different things in a month.
And guess what? In a month
you will have learned what you probably would have learned in 8 years
because most of us test one new thing a year.
And this is how you have to see it.
So you gotta say, did I like it?
The second question you ask yourself is:
Why did I or why did I not like it?
And the third question you have to ask yourself really, really is simple is
Do I want to do it again?
The way I see it is that
competition
in and of itself
is not good or bad.
For me, when I was writing my book
and of course, I want my book to be a bestselling book.
Of course, I want my podcast to do well.
Of course, we don't do anything for it to be lost.
Like no one does that.
But what I do know
is that when I’m creating, when I’m producing, when I’m writing
that's all I’m doing.
See the truth is
that only 2% of the world's population can multitask.
And the truth is there is no such thing as multitasking
what it is
is fast switching between two tasks so the quality is just dropping.
And so what I’m saying is that
when you're sitting here going this needs to be number one,
you are reducing that things ability to be number one.
Because it now doesn't have your full focus.
Right.
So that's the difference maker.
That you can want to be number one, there's nothing wrong with that
but you can't keep comparing what number one is
to someone else's goal too.
Because everyone's got a different trajectory.
Like there are some people that are kind of, come in and
do really well at one thing and you're going to do really well at another.
And that's why competition has to first be in your space.
Like don't compete in a space that's not yours.
Right.
Because now you're just trying to be someone else again
and get lost in identity. Exactly.
The challenge is
that we think things come with feelings and emotions.
And guess what? They don't.
When you think that I'm chasing money, guess what? You will get money
- yeah - and that's great
money is really important.
Money is a really important resource
but guess what
money is not now gonna fill that gap
that void, that feeling, that emotion that you're missing in your life
to love and be loved.
Like that is the need of humanity.
To love and be loved.
And when we don't experience that
we then start looking for status.
We then start looking for money,
then we then start looking for recognition.
What we crave in life
is what we did
or didn't get from our parents.
What our parents did give us is what we continue to crave.
What they didn't give us
is what we continue to crave.
So you'll find that most people's love languages
that they chase
are things that their parents didn't give them.
So I talked about how we fear the wrong things.
So most of us are fearful of how our friends are reacting,
what's happening on social media,
and what's the random bit of news that we heard.
None of it is fact based
- that's one of the biggest issues. - Worry based
It's worry based and it's also imagination based.
So we become fiction writers.
We've all watched too many movies,
now we start writing the scary movies in our head
of what may happen.
So our imagination and Seneca said it best,
we suffer twice.
One in reality and one in imagination.
You can look at the news right now
and you can get scared straight away
and get in complete freeze mode,
feeling stuck,
paralyzed, whatever it is
because what you're now doing is you're creating a story
of what's going to happen.
And that story again can be used positively.
So your story may actually be true
but if it's going to be true now you can prepare
and that shifts you away from being scared
- because now you're preparing. - Yeah
- and so the real... - you can be confident because you're prepared
Exactly.
And so we should be shifting our fear energy
into preparation energy
because what fear does is it keeps you locked there
right? We just feel stuck.
The thing is to get really close
to that fear.
- So what we usually do... - Embrace it
embrace it, get close to it, get intimate with it.
We run away from fear
we like to run away and go oh, it's not coming with me and...
or what we do is
we hear one thing
and we define the whole understanding of our fear
- based on that one thing - Yes
So it's like someone,
and I'll give you a normal example in a normal life scenario.
- Yeah - Someone says to you in the office
you know that- you know that they're gonna cut a few people.
And you don't even check,
- you don't even know - Is it real? Is it-
and now you just made it real
and now you're running with it and you're trying to run away from it.
So you're trying to avoid conversations with your boss,
you're trying to avoid any conflict,
you're trying to, you know, you're just- you're just trying to avoid it.
And so, actually what you need to do is go
okay, let me actually
discover that fear, let me go intimate with that fear.
Let me ask myself, where's that fear coming from?
What am I really scared of?
Am I really scared of losing my job?
Am I scared of not having any money?
What am I really scared of? And when you get to the root
and I call it The Why Ladder in the book.
So it's asking yourself
what am I scared of and then go- why am I scared of this?
Why am I scared of this? Why am I scared of this?
And when you can't ask why any longer
you've got to the answer and that's what you have to deal with.
Most of us are not dealing with what we're actually scared of.
I believe
self-doubt is the killer of dreams
and I believe that
and you have this amazing graph in here, it's about ego
versus self-esteem.
How do we build self belief, self-esteem, self-confidence
while also not allowing our ego to be so big
and think we can just do anything.
Let me balance ego
and self confidence
so they don't
hurt each other.
Yeah, absolutely and what we experience most of the time
is extremes.
So the two extremes that most of us experience are
either I have to think I'm the best of the best in the world
- You can do anything. - I can crush anyone.
Like, I'm gonna show everyone what I'm like.
Or most of us experience the other extreme which is
I'm the worst.
I'm the stupidest, I'm the dumbest,
I'm the most worthless,
I'm the biggest loser.
Notice how that's both ego
- really, why so negative ego? - yeah
So the ego
wants to be the best of the best
or the ego wants to be the worst of the worst.
The ego won't accept being in the middle.
Real confidence comes from knowing your strengths
and going all-in on them.
Your confidence does not come from
just standing up the right way
or just saying the right stuff to yourself.
Yeah, that's- and that's important.
I'm a big believer in all of that
but what I'm saying is that doesn't build real confidence.
Real confidence comes from thinking
I'm really good at this,
I know I can do this,
and I love doing it.
And really this is the most important bit,
confidence comes from serving other people,
when you see the impact you have on others
and this is the biggest issue.
The reason why we have such low self-esteem
today
in the world
is because people are not serving others.
Why is that?
Like why are we still focused on self as opposed to service?
It's conditioned.
It's conditioned, right?
I've said this before, that we're wired for generosity
but were educated for greed.
As we get older we're told
there are finite numbers
of how many kids get made on to the basketball or baseball team.
We're told there's a finite number of college spaces.
We're told there's a finite number of how many tickets there are.
We're told there's a finite number of people that are successful.
Guess what?
In the theater of happiness
there are infinite and unlimited seats,
there is a seat with your name on it,
in the theater of dreams, in the theater of happiness,
but you think
that because you think that there are only a hundred people allowed in
that if someone else makes it before you that you don't get in
and guess what?
Is there a cap on how many billionaires there are in the world? No.
Is there a cap on how many millionaires around the world? No.
Is there a cap on how many happy people there are in the world? No.
And that's why I really am encouraging Forbes
I want Forbes to forget printing a rich list.
Print a happy list, print a service list
- print a list of who is... - We should do that, we should do that
who is serving the most in the world.
Wow, there- it'll be competition based.
Yeah, yeah sure.
I gave more than you gave.
And that's why it should be service based on time, energy and money
because we should start showing how much time people give,
how much energy people give.
Mother Teresa, I don’t think she gave any money to her charities.
She gave a lot of time and energy.
You know, you look at all the people who made a change in the world.
Martin Luther King, Gandhi
like they may not have given a lot of money to stuff,
they gave time and energy.
You don’t think you have resources
but your resourcefulness, your love,
your focus, your attention, your compassion,
love that.
The resourcefulness of the heart not of the wallet.
- I think it’s the key. - Love that.
And you don’t need to have a lot of money to make a big impact.