Motivational talk by Brad Costanzo about overcoming self-doubt and limiting beliefs using a reframing technique: fighting small immediate fears ("Chucky") with larger motivating fears ("Freddie") tied to long-term consequences and a clarified "why." Recommends journaling, amplifying motivating fear, seeking empathy and assistance (mentors, friends, education), and uses examples including Tim Ferriss’ homelessness thought experiment and Walt Disney’s people-management to illustrate strategies.
Chapters
Fear. We're talking about a very specific type of fear. This is self doubt, limiting beliefs. Who has a goal they're trying to achieve right now? Every single hand should go up, right? And who has a little bit of nagging. That little nagging voice telling you you're not good enough to do that. Or if you fuck up again, what will people think? You're not smart enough. You don't have the money for this. Those are self doubts, limiting beliefs. They're unknowns. The fear of the unknown is really the worst. One of the best things that Tim Ferriss said in that book was imagine yourself homeless. Having to live on the street and examine your lives right now and say, if I was homeless, would I be able to call up somebody and sleep on their couch? So if so, it's not so bad. So I like to think of fear. This is what helps me get over this. I like to think of fear like this guy. I like to put a face to him. Who knows who that guy is? Chucky. He's a bad motherfucker, isn't he? Like, he's mean and he's like. If he was right in front of you, he's like cutting on your legs and doing all that crap. Well, I like to think of that kind of fear. That little fear that's like right in front of you. When you're trying to get that goal right? I'm trying to get to it and like, Chucky's right in front of me. He sucks. He's like, just like that. He's like, come and get it. And a lot of times Chucky wins. I mean, Chucky's bad. He's got a knife. Look at that. I wouldn't want to screw with him. But what if. What if your family's life depended on. What if they were on the other side of Chucky? Would you risk getting the same scars that he's got to go through Chucky and say, screw you, man. It's you and me and my family's over there. I'm not. So you've heard. If your why is big enough. If your why is big enough. There's no how to impossible. But human beings are wired more to avoid pain than we are to seek pleasure. That's very important to understand. So if your goal, it's a little goal, right? If your fear is kind of bigger than your goal. If you're like, hey, I want to make an extra thousand dollars a month, that might be cool. But if your fear is saying you ain't good enough, you don't have any money. What would people think? It's like, that's kind of more scary than that is rewarding. Well, what will happen is you'll fail. What if your goal is little and your fear is little? Who's closer to you? Yeah, they'll cancel each other out. You'll fail there too. Well, now, if your goal is big enough and your fear is small enough, you can probably withstand that and push past it. So there's a very good chance you got this. What if your fear is big and your goal's big? Depends on more than likely you fail. What I'm trying to say is the odds seem stacked against you, but what if there is another secret weapon? What if you remember this winter is coming? What if we fight fear with bigger fear? All right, let me explain this one. This is you, this is your goal. And this is a little shit, Chucky, trying to keep you from your goal. Right? I don't want to invest in myself and go to Adam's workshop because it's a lot of fucking money and I could be buying new $7,000 jacket. That shit's cool. What will happen if you decide not to do that? And let's just say 10 years from now, hey, you're good now. Yeah. You're okay in your job, but 10 years from now, there's somebody younger, hungrier, more skilled than you who wants that job. You're out of it now. You're competing with them. And now you've got a family and you've got a bigger mortgage and you got all that shit that every or 99% of Americans deal with. Now you're screwed. That scares me. That scares me of not being prepared. So I think of that as Freddie. One, two. Freddie's coming for you. Alright, so Freddie's behind you, Chucky's in front of you. Which direction are you going to head? You're in a hallway, Chucky. You think if Freddie takes on Chucky, Freddie wins. One has a one knife, one has five. So the way I came up with this this week, I was journaling because I have some big steps that I have to take in my business and stuff I want to do. And I was scared to this day, like, I'm not any different than you guys. And I was writing in my journal, I don't remember exactly what they were, but it was this. Let the fear of what will they think of you? Right? Be conquered by the fear of what will you think of you? What will your family think of you? What if nobody thinks of You. I'd rather be like, who does this guy think he is? Than just irrelevant, right? So which one of them hurts worse? Let the fear of going to the gym or the uncomfort of going to the gym be conquered by the fact that if I have a child, that maybe I die earlier, maybe I look like crap to my wife, and she turns off the fun and all this other stuff. But I dial it up, and I was like, let it be. This was the thing that kind of kept on running as a repeating thing. Let it be conquered by this other, bigger fear. So for me, pleasure and rewards don't motivate. I'm not as motivated as much to get an R8 as I am to not put my resume out there. Right? Like, thinking about that, that's uglier. It's like, all right, I'm up. Freddie's coming. I'm getting to work now. In a second, I'm going to explain Walt Disney, who had a strategy to turn Chucky into my little buddy. And I just realized as I put those up, holy shit. It's the same thing. Like, my little buddy. You guys remember that doll had to inspire the movie Chucky. Like, that's awesome. So there's two ways you turn Chucky into my little buddy, and it's with empathy and assistance. Empathy. I'll explain in just one second. This was the genius of Walt Disney. And with assistance, it simply means, God, I'm scared about this. What do I do, Adam? What do I do? Like, can you help me with this? I'm scared. I don't know how to approach this girl. I don't know if I could take this step. What will people think? I got you. That's your assistance. That's your mentor. That's your education. That's your family. That's your best friends. Walt was genius. So Walt built his empire in the Great Depression. More millionaires were created in this country in the Great Depression than any other time in history. Because people who are entrepreneurial, people who understand opportunity the way money is made, recognize opportunity, and they seize it when they can. That's not what Walt did. Walt understood psychology in a way that would make a psychology hacker proud. So one of the imagineers or animators or one of the people who worked for Walt was quoted as saying, you never knew when Walt came into a meeting who was coming in. The dreamer, the realist, or the spoiler. So Walt understood something. We have these voices in our head, but we have these voices in our life, too. So if you go to your mom, dad, best friend or whatever. Like, hey, I want to produce a short film. Whenever you come to a friend with an idea. Have you guys ever been met with, dude, that won't work. What about this? What about this? What about this? And they're not like, dude, no, I'm in a good mood. You're like, quit spoiling my party. This is bullshit. Like, okay, enough of this. I'm going to go tell this guy. And then everybody shoots down your dreams. But we do that to ourselves, too. So we think immediately. We got these three voices in our head, and it's the. Sam.
