How to Develop Trust in Yourself & Others

In relationships with ourselves and others. Repair and recalibration is a weekly growth loop. You don't have years of trauma and go to a therapist and think it's gonna be solved in two sessions. You don't struggle with productivity and vision and drive and work with a coach and hope they fix it. And you know, four week sessions, it's an ongoing recalibration repair. Trust requires that consistency. It just does in every relationship. Is there any area of your life where you don't trust yourself? And today's momentum session is about, well, what could you set up there to help overcome that hurdle? Let me give you two really simple metaphors and examples that I know you're totally going to get. Okay? I have a friend who really struggles with their health now. I was talking to him this weekend, guys, so this is very relevant. It's one of the reasons I picked this topic for you today. I talked with this person probably about 30, 35 minutes in person about their health journey. They're really struggling with health and we're talking through it, we're talking through it, we're talking through it. And finally I realize as we're talking through it, this person just knows they're not going to show up for themselves. They're not going to show up and go to the gym in the morning, though they know they should. They're not going to show up and choose good food when they go to the grocery store. And how do we know that? Because you know, if you have bad results in your life in one area, trust has been an issue in yourself or other people. When you have bad results in any area of your life, there's some broken trust along the way. Trust in yourself to repair it. Trust in others to help you deal with it. Trust in something that happened in the past that caused the problem. There's something going on there with this big issue of self trust or trust in others. Well, this guy, trouble working out. He doesn't trust himself to show up and he knows he's not. He's just. And here's what happens when you don't trust yourself to do something good for yourself. You get discouraged. Your self esteem goes down. Your willingness, your drive, your performance edge deleted, Gone. That's how big of a topic this is. So here's this person, I mean, decades of bad health, knows he can't trust himself, but knows that's an area that has to change. So what does he do? He keeps getting discouraged on himself versus setting up habits, routines and social situations that force him to Overcome his own lack of and allow him to achieve the desired result. What does this mean basically? Well, you already know it. What would you advise to somebody who doesn't work out but knows they need to work out? And they've tried, they've set their alarm, they put their shoes out, they got up early like everyone said. They had their coffee, got ready for it. What would you guys advise? What would you tell this person to do? Right. Doesn't work out, they need a no to what should they do? Right. Have a physical trainer, get an accountability buddy. Right. Figure out their why. Schedule a friend. Right. All of these things. You're right. And this person just hasn't done it because they think their willpower one day will overcome their lack of trust in their own selves. And I'm here to tell you sometimes you need to build systems and social relationships up in your life to overcome the things that you're just not getting over. This person can't trust they're going to go do a workout. So what do we have to do? Got a guy this morning a guy showed up at this guy's house at 6:30 that I paid and rang the doorbell to get this guy up, get him in a car and go to the gym which is literally seven minutes from his house. That person's going to show up every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning. Handled. Handled. Now, will this person develop a love of routine? Absolutely. Over time? Will this person hate it at first? 100%. We all have to find a system to overcompensate to deal with this and compensate for the fact that we know we can't trust ourselves. Let me give you another example that's going to happen for this person for the first time in their lives. This person cannot trust themselves in the grocery store. I know it sounds so silly, but it's a true story. Can't trust himself in a grocery store, buys a bunch of junk. Pantry full of junk food. Dinner time. Makes the wrong choice every time. Cannot understand it. Okay. Can't trust you with that choice. I guess we have to remove the choice. It's time to get on a meal delivery service. It's time you don't go shopping anymore. Let's get your child to go do shopping for you if that's what it takes. I know it sounds so simplistic and almost condescending. It's not. It's setting up even if just for a brief amount of time architecture and routine to help you deal with something that you can't trust yourself with. Many of you Guys know, I've had the crazy blessing of coaching some incredible human beings. And these folks who I coach, you know, most of them are all like celebrity on the COVID magazine type people. And as you can imagine, a lot of them have struggled with a lot from that demand and that pressure and that success and that fame. And I've had more than a few clients who we had to get admitted into a recovery center. They couldn't trust themselves anymore with alcohol or drugs. They had an addiction and they knew they couldn't trust themselves with it. So we had to set up something to help them through it and see how in personal development or in our self reliant culture, especially in North America, how that feels so almost diminishing. I should be able to figure out myself, I should be able to handle it. I'm like, absolutely, I agree with you. But if you've tried for years and you still can't, it's okay that you need to set up some architecture to get you support to help you do the thing right. Same thing with me. I can't trust myself to write a book. Think about that. I've written seven books in my life. I can't trust myself to do it. Given the choice or given the opportunity, I'll show up so randomly to write a book. A book would never get written if I just allowed myself. I know I can't trust myself to write a book. So what do I have to do? I have to commit to the publisher. I have to block time on the calendar. I have to beg my wife to help me stay focused and get it done. I have to tell the whole world when the thing's going to come out. I have to put on this pressure socially to ensure that I get the thing done. Anyone else who knows what I'm talking about here, who knows in your heart, you like, you know, you know. So here's my question. What do you already know about yourself? You can't trust, but you haven't set up those social pressures, that social support, that schedule, that new routine, that accountability partner. You know, I have a friend who's an entrepreneur, very successful guy, but cannot break through a financial goal he wants, just can't. I mean, four or five years been talking about, talking about, talking about it and he just, he just struggles to do the outbound sales messaging and sales calls. Constantly struggling. He knows he should do them, he just doesn't do them. He just doesn't do them. So I literally had him hire an executive assistant to schedule the things to message him before and show up with him on every single outbound call. She's sitting there waiting for him and he knows she's sitting there waiting and he knows she's going to give him crap if he doesn't show up. 4x to sales in 4 months. 4 months. So it's not about a weakness to admit that we can't do these things. What is a strength is to admit, you know what? I can't trust myself with that. I don't know, there's some part of me, maybe it's discipline, maybe it's shiny object syndrome, maybe it's an addiction, maybe it's a failure that I've tried over and over and over again and it's time to go. Okay, I'm not a failure, but I'm failing that. I need some help. This is a huge unlock for you. Every result in your life is built upon the architecture of trust. And when we don't have it in ourselves, a lot of people, what they continue to do is beat their head against a wall year after year after year after year after year after year after year. And what do they do? Discouragement. Discouragement. Discouragement leads to doubt. Doubt. Doubt leads to low esteem, low esteem, low esteem leads to bad result, Bad result. Bad result leads to self hate, self hate and self hate. And they don't understand, like, why am I down the dumps all the time? Because you've been on a downward spiral of self trust and sometimes you got to go, man, I'm on a downward spiral. I can't trust myself here. I need some help. And I really don't mean to make this sound in any way condescending. This is a friend of mine, this is a client of mine. This is me with a book. So I don't want you to feel bad because as soon as you say to someone, isn't it true you can't trust yourself in some areas, they get so offended or they make the mistake that so many people do in personal development. They hear a concept that is challenging or difficult and they beat themselves up and they shame themselves versus getting curious and setting up a new action plan to make it better. You don't need to shame yourself in self improvement. What you need to do is be aware and set up a better system. Everyone got that you no longer need this. Like this person doesn't need to shame themselves that he's not working out because that's what he's been doing. Shame myself not working out, get more unfit, get more fat. His language, not mine. More fat, unhealthy. More fat. Unhealthy. Feel bad, Feel bad. Feel bad. Feel bad. Shame, shame, shame, shame. I watch all these people on Instagram. I follow all these healthy people. I've got all these plans I've downloaded. I'm not doing anything. I guess I hate myself some more. And self improvement, the concepts of self improvement should inspire you, not shame you. And you're the only person who shames yourself. And the routine that you have of shaming yourself needs to end. If I just keep shaming myself that I haven't written a book in five years, what do I do? Is that, am I more likely to write a book or do I need to go? You know what? I need to acknowledge that I can't trust myself with that process because I'm not getting the outcome. Let me set up a better system. Let me set up some habits or some routines, some social situations or obligations that will turn me over, that will help me because I know even people who like this guy. He's got his why. He's trying to get healthy for his family, and in his language, he's still fat. You can have your why. How many of you have a purpose, A clear, like, purpose, a mission and inspiration. You have a future vision. You're so excited about it and you still don't do crap. See, our world's been conned into thinking, well, if you have a why, you'll do it. I'm like, oh, no. Trust me. The only people who do that are academics and motivational speakers who write books on it, who've never actually coached and worked with people over a series of years and been responsible for their results. Like, that's why I love coaches, because coaches can't BS stuff. Because we actually work with people and we only get paid if we get results, not if we publish a book. I love knowing your why, but pretending that's the problem or the total solution is never the right answer. Lots of people have a very clear why and they don't do crap. They might have a why and a purpose and a vision, a dream. They don't have self trust or they don't trust their team, or they don't trust the people around them. And soon as that trust is eroded, you can have a compelling dream. You can have vision board after vision board, battle board after battleboard, but you don't move. The most important thing, though, is to hear what I'm saying here and not shame yourself. My friend can't shame himself for, in his language, being fat. What he has to do is recognize this Ain't working. I have an awareness this is not working and I am, am not sufficiently working on this thing. I need a coach, I need a therapist, I need an accountability partner. I need someone to ring the doorbell at 6:30, give me a coffee, put me in the car and drive me to the gym. Like that's okay to admit. That's not weakness. It's strength to set up a new system to grow. Baby, can I get it? It's strength to set up a new system to grow. It's you don't shame yourself. It's a strength. I have so many things set up all around my life to handle the fact that I can't trust myself with it. For example, there aren't a whole lot of bags of chips in my house. Why? Because I eat them. So the system is, don't buy those, don't let those in the house. It's so simple. I can't trust myself with a bag of chips, can you? I mean, many people can. I can't. I'm like, just don't even have it around, right? I just don't even want it around. I remember when I was leaving college, everybody I knew in college had beer in their fridge. And when I went to start this new job, I knew how ambitious I was, I knew what I wanted to achieve and I just knew that alcohol wasn't going to be the path for me to get there. Not that I didn't mind having socially a glass of wine or, you know, seeing a friend or having a drink or something like that. I just, it wasn't ever going to be my house. I wasn't going to have beer in the fridge because I really like it. So I was like, I just don't need to have that around given what I want to achieve. So just don't have it there. Removing things, getting them away from you, setting yourself up for success, right? This room I'm in right now, see, I can't trust myself that I would show up for you guys on a consistent basis over and over every day of my life if I didn't love the environment I was in. So in the last decade of my life, I've really focused to make sure I love wherever I have to show up all the time. That's a system, right? It's like, okay, set up and structure the room, the space that I'm going to enjoy being there. I don't get down on myself going, gosh, I'm not consistent enough. I'm like, I need to make myself love the process how can I do that again, not beating myself up. But listen, why do I bring this up in such a way? The last couple years has probably eroded your own faith in yourself or the world or other people. When you have this much change right at first with like the pandemic, when that happened, it was like shock. And so we shut down, we silo, we get into self protection mode. And when we get into that and the whole world kind of does that for a little while, our plans were broken, some of our dreams were broken, our careers, our structure, our own rhythms, things really got messed up there. And so what happens is for a lot of people, they did have that vision, they did have that why they did have that battleboard. But then when the uncertainty strikes, whether it's a pandemic or someone you know got sick or passed away or the business failed or you got laid off or something happened that you just did not anticipate and did not want, it breaks the expectation you had for the future. When that expectation of the future or that expectation for your plans, it's broken over and over and over again, your trust erodes. You know, it's like if you're supposed to go on a date with a person and you want on, you went on two dates with them and then you're supposed to go on more dates and you know, they, they, they miss every second and third time and you just like, you can't trust the person to show up. And you're like, they even like me. They even love me. Like, what is this? It creates all of this, like this feeling. You're like, I don't know where I'm at with this person. And that metaphor can be broadened out to what's happened to many of us over the last couple years. And when that expectation is broken so many times, our faith in the future is diminished. When we have expectations on ourself and we don't show up for it over and over and over again, our trust in ourselves goes down. As trust in self goes down, doubt in self comes up. As we doubt our capabilities and doubt ourselves more, we don't trust ourselves. We spin ourselves in this negative spiral all the way down to self esteem. And we're like, man, why don't I show up and get things done? Why am I not as driven as I used to be? Why do I just know what I should do? But I don't. You don't trust yourself. Somewhere along the way, some result in the past, some frustration. Recently, something somebody said made you question yourself. That belief and faith and trust are not driving you anymore. Because when you have those things, you drive like you're in the captain seat, you're good to go, right? When you trust your capabilities to show up and get it done and manufacture and build the future, like you trust yourself to meet your goals, you meet your goals over and over. That develops strength, integrity, self trust. I can do it again, but it doesn't mean it gets easy. Just like me. I've written seven books, right? Only published. What? I think I only published five of them. Yeah, I got two in the drawer. And so it's like, okay, I've done that, but I still have to set up a structure and social obligations to get the thing done. I know. Even after the capability. But Brendan, you're capable as writers. I mean, you sold millions of books. I'm like, yep, still don't trust myself. Need to set up a structure, some social obligations. Because you know what? I'm just happy to scroll on Instagram, just like you. I'm just happy to do other things, just like you. I'm easy to get distracted, just like you. So no shaming. It's about structure and social obligations that support you in moving forward. And I bring this up because so many people are so discouraged right now. They're discouraged because they lost trust in the future. They lost faith. You know, they wandered the wilderness all these last couple years, and they still don't have a clear defined goal or direction. And I still don't know exactly what I want or I still don't exactly how. I still don't know if I can measure up. I still don't know if I'm capable. And in that space, as discouragement comes in, their drive goes down. And so here we are on a Monday. Did you wake up excited, willing, ready, driven for the week, or did you kind of like, yeah, honestly, you know, I don't even have a plan. I don't have any thoughts for the future. The less thoughts you have for the future, the more self trust is inevitably there. Hey, guys, it's Brandon.

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A lot of people who don't have a vision for the future, it's because they don't trust themselves. And if it's not themselves, they don't trust the people around them. You know, I was working with an incredible, incredible influencer. A woman probably about seven years ago who was really, really capable and incredible woman. And she had come up from nothing. She had four kids, she was an amazing mom, became an amazing entrepreneur. People liked and respect her and she was in a situation where her marriage started falling apart. And you know, by the time I worked with her, this had been going on for maybe three, three, four years. Her marriage was falling apart and she was just like, I don't know what's wrong with me. I used to be so driven, I used to be so motivated. And as I heard her talking, I could hear the discouragement and the self doubt coming in. And of course I tried to figure out like what, what shape, what shifted in your life in your personal mentality. And, and when you look at her calendar, it's still full. She's got a lot going on as we talk. It's like she's disciplined, she's hardworking, she's an amazing mom. She's trying to repair a relationship, she's trying to stay fit, she's doing all these things and yet something's off and she can't figure it out. And objectively, everyone looking at her life is like envious. So what's going on there? Well, as I kind of pre framed, her marriage is falling apart. And see when they were younger in the relationship, the two of them, they were together and they were swat teaming, right? She had a support system there and the two of them, they were just jamming, right? They had shared goals, they wanted that bigger house, they wanted to move into that neighborhood with the gate. You know, they knew where they wanted their kids to go to school before the kids were even alive. I mean they kind of like they had the shared vision and purpose for a lifestyle and a dream that they, that they had. And they, and they did it. They did it. They actually made it happen. They got this momentum, you know, they had, you know, four beautiful children, they made the money, they got to move in a neighborhood that was even beyond their own dreams. And then that relationship started falling apart. And as that relationship Fell apart for them. Her trust in what she had at home was so eroded that she couldn't even see a future anymore. Where she used to be so driven by a future, and now it was like it was gone. Because there's broken trust here. Trust is such an immediate thing, but it's a psychological thing. She lost social support, and so she lost vision. She lost social support, so she lost vision. That had never happened to her before. Never happened to her before. She pulled herself up by the bootstraps, she met this guy, they got married, they made magic happen. And all of a sudden, that thing fell apart. And she's stunned, stunned. And no one could figure out the craziest thing. She saw like four or five therapists. You know, I think she went through two coaches. By the time she got to me, everyone's like, I don't know, you know, they did all the things that you do when you read a self improvement book. She had healthy habits. She was working out, she was sleeping, she was trying everything. But she couldn't understand how detached she'd become from the future because she lost trust in the relationship. Now, did she need to repair that relationship entirely before getting back her drive, her vision or ambition? Not at all. What she had to do is become aware. That's the beauty of self improvement is when you become vitally aware of a truth, it kind of hits you. You know, it's just like, oh, wow, that, oh, okay, now I have a reason. I have an understanding. Even some people, they just need the label of what's going on to go, huh, that's it. I don't trust myself. I don't trust this relationship I got. I don't. I can't even see tomorrow. She didn't even realize it had been months. It had been months that she even thought 1/4, 2/4, 3/4 out in her business, months. Because she was just kind of firefighting, maintaining the things, keeping it going. But she wasn't looking out anymore because she was struggling so much in trust. And believe me, it wasn't just trust of her spouse, her partner. It was, wow, when there's distrust there. See, the problem with distrust is it's like a. It's like a. It's like a chemical fog that just keeps expanding, you know what I mean? You lose a little trust in yourself, you start distrusting other people, you distrust other people, there's more people you start distrusting. It's like a virus that spreads like a chemical fog everywhere, and everyone gets poisoned by it, and you can't see Anybody clearly anymore with this chemical fog between you and some of you. You lost trust in your parents 20, 30 years ago, or you lost trust in that person who hurt you, or you lost trust in multiple events of struggle or failure or disadvantage. You lost trust in the world because all those politicians, all those Republicans or all those Democrats, all those people, all those rich people, all those people, you started saying those people. And the more those people you say, the more you are poisoning trust in humanity. The more you say those people, the more you're building up division, the more division, the less trust. And so most people are talking themselves into a very siloed world, and they're like, I don't understand why I hate every other group in the world. And I don't have a compelling vision and future and hope and inspiration. It's like, because you forgot the whole idea that as we learn to trust each other as human beings, we did this thing, it's called in science, evolution, that as we learn to trust each other in groups more, we evolved faster. But we're in a culture now that does everything it can do to. To quickly divide. And as we quickly divide, we erode trust. And remember, as we erode trust, it's a chemical fog. You actually trust your family less. You actually trust the teachers less. You actually trust the mentors less. You trust the bosses less, you trust your spouse less. And if you're not aware that that is happening, soon you become so isolated in your own mentality, so distrustful of everybody, that soon you're shocked that you've lost your motivation. W all the time. You didn't lose motivation. You lost trust. You lost trust in the future. You lost trust in yourself. You lost trust in the goodness of others. You lost trust in your ability to pivot, be resilient, get back up, serve others. You lost trust, you lose motivation. Come on. Motivation didn't disappear. Trust did. And motivation went out the door with it. That's what happened for this woman. This relationship ending, difficult. Trust goes away. That's what happened. And now she distrusted everybody, including herself. So I know I'm saying this very casually to you, but I hope in some way there's some aha's here, because as I said at the beginning, we have to identify, where did I lose trust? Where is that? And the hardest thing that we have to do is to learn to journal when we lose trust in ourselves and to have the conversation with others when we lose trust in them. So hard. I tell leaders all the time, half of your job is recalibrating the trust you have with your teams, it's like half the job. Because inevitably, when you're trying to do ambitious, hard things, there's fails all the time. There's innovation required all the time. There's missed projects, frustrating things, dumb things people say when they're tired or exhausted, division. That happens because there's a turf war. This is every company I've ever worked with or advised my entire life. It happens in my own company. Literally. This always happens. It's not something you get upset about. It's like this is always happening. So we have to recalibrate it. We have to recalibrate it. We have to have the tough, candid conversations with people. You know, it's okay to sit down your partner or spouse and say, you know what? I'm really bummed that we had these plans and they got broke. And I want to make sure that we're establishing trust. I want to make sure that we can trust and count on each other. So next time, how can we do this? How can we make that happen next time and have that conversation openly? Because if you never do that, you never calibrate. And so what happens is they're going this way, you're going this way. Your expectations continue to be completely divided. Two people, different expectations entirely. I promise you what's going to happen. Promise you. They're going to divide. The trust is going to go away. The intimacy is going to go away, because you don't have shared expectations. You don't trust in each other to show up for each other on those shared expectations. And it kills relationships so fast. It just absolutely decimates relationships. And most people actually see it happening like a slow train wreck. They know it's happening, and they don't talk about it. They don't speak. They don't say, honey, can we sit down? Something's going and going on, and I really want us to be happy and loving and trusting and caring. And I know we have different expectations. My hope is we can, like, just jam and talk and kind of align, but they don't. What happens is trust starts to erode. Expectations disconnect. And the craziest thing, as that trust starts separating, bitterness sets in. And now this elevated emotion and tone comes into the relationship. And you're watching two people separate slowly but almost like a rocket ship in terms of the curve, because they're bitter. You become bitter when expectations change, and you don't debrief it. You don't learn from it. You don't talk about it. You don't come back together. You have the fight, you never talk about it. You have broken expectations, you never talk about it again. Nothing to shame. You just need a new system there. You need to go, wow, we lost some trust, we lost some shared expectations. We feel divided, huh? I don't want to suffer here and let this thing become bitter and create this divide of silence between each other. But rather, rather, let's talk this through sooner than later. It doesn't mean you will solve it in the first 10 conversations. It means you are doing the important work of relationships, which is repair and recalibrating. Right? Because of course you're going to change. Of course things are different. Going back to my friend and the trust she was experiencing the world. Her issue that she identified was that at some point she was so bitter with her partner for not meeting expectations as their lives changed. Four children, bigger business, bigger teams, great fame, great wealth, more opportunity. Their expectations divided so much that they divided. And because they divided and didn't talk about it, bitterness and contempt started. She doesn't understand, he doesn't understand. Over and over, she doesn't understand, he doesn't understand. But instead of coming together to get some of that shared understanding, they just decided to live in separate rooms. You know what I'm saying? I know some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. That all of a sudden there's this suffering in silence, there's this bitterness growing, there's this contempt stewing. And those emotions are like a chemical fog that blinds you from your future, blinds you from hope, blinds you from your own ambitions. And you're like, what happened? All of a sudden I just feel lost. You're in a chemical fog of distrust. That's why you're lost. And so her hope was to solve this like this in one conversation and had to realize that in relationships with ourselves and others, repair and recalibration is a weekly growth loop. It is a weekly effort. You don't have 10 years of a crappy marriage and sit down with a relationship counselor and hope to solve it in an hour. You don't have years of trauma and go to a therapist and think it's going to be solved in two sessions. You don't struggle with productivity and vision and drive and work with the coach and hope, say, fix it in, you know, four week sessions. It's an ongoing recalibration repair. Trust requires that consistency. It just does in every relationship. It's why I'm always sharing with you. Like in your relationships, you have to sit down On a Sunday or a weekend somewhere and talk about what you just experienced as a week and talk about what's coming up in this week where you'll need help, what you really think, feel desire and need and have that talking out every week. Because the more that you don't, the more this division starts happening and you didn't even know it. And one day you wake up next to a stranger, you go, I don't even know what you think, feel need or desire. Well, they didn't change in a dime. They changed over time. But there's no discussion. So it's a shock to you, it's a shock to them. So I bring all this up because here's an incredibly driven and amazing capable woman. Lost her drive. No, didn't lose motivation, lost trust. Here's this incredibly capable guy, can do lots of things, cannot get healthy, Told me, brandon, I cannot be fat for another year. I cannot stand myself anymore. I said, well, how long has it been like this? He's like, 15 years. And I said, oh, was there any year that you ever said, I can't stand myself. I won't allow this anymore? He goes, yes. I said, so how many of those years? 15 years. So for 15 years you've distrusted yourself. He goes, yeah, but you never set up a better system. He goes, not really. What he did is he set up a better shaming system for himself, make him feel self, feel less self worth, repeat the behaviors and the patterns of addiction that caused him this problem with his weight. And so notice what I said from the very beginning. Sometimes it is that outside resource that can help you. He needed a personal trainer. She needed a high performance coach. Me as an author, I need my agent or my publisher or you guys to be like, when's the next book? Where is it? Like, ah, okay. It's okay. This is what I'm saying. These are incredibly accomplished, amazing people and in no way am I shaming them. I'm saying that sometimes we need a new system or social support and you want to go fast in your life, identify where don't you trust yourself? Where do you already know you won't show up? Where do you already know? I already know I won't do this thing. I'll give you another example. Business owners. I already know that I won't get through all my emails. It's impossible. I already know. So I have to have somebody help me with that. I already know I can't do this. I got to hire somebody for that. I already know I should do this. I guess I have to hire somebody, even if I like it. But I know I can't trust myself to do it. I need some support, right? I'll give you an example. I love to mow the lawn. Like, probably my second or third job when I was a young kid, probably 14, 15 years old. And yes, that was my second or third job. My first job was painting chicken coops. Terrible job because you have to clean the chicken coop, then paint it. Disgusting. Anyway, that was my first job, first time I ever made money. But at some point, I became a landscaper. And I love it. Man, I would love to come to your house, mow your lawn. I love it. Absolutely. It's so fun. It's so fun for me. I have now a beautiful, big yard. I love it. I've been here, I don't know, a year or so, never mowed it, because I just know. I just know that I'm going to miss too many weeks and it's going to get crazy. And my wife has an expectation that the yard looks good. And instead of shaming myself or getting in a fight with her, why does it have to be mowed? I'm like, you know what? I can't trust myself to mow that dang lawn enough. I gotta hire a company. Even though I actually like to do it, I just can't trust myself to do it often enough. All right, let me get some help. Notice no shame and notice no blame. I'm not blaming my wife for having different expectations than me. I don't get mad at her. Everyone has different expectations. The job is to share them, to calibrate, what do we really want? And sometimes setting up a better system, setting up better social support. It's okay. I meet so many parents who are so scared or frustrated to ask for help around the house with their partner, with somebody else. I worked with a client one time. She was so mad at her whole family because she was so busy doing the laundry all the time. True story. And this was something I couldn't understand at all. I was one of those things in a moment when you're a coach and you're listening, like, I gotta really think through this because from my perspective, I don't understand. And I couldn't understand why she's so mad at them for having to do this laundry all the time. Because this particular woman, she had five children and a loving husband. And so I'm listening how upset she is, and I cannot understand. And by the way, these kids are now teenagers, and I'm just floored And I just couldn't understand. I was like, have you asked them for help before? She said, of course I did. I said, okay. Oh, great. Okay. Did they not help? She said, no. I can't trust them to do a good job. You can't trust them to do a good job with the laundry? Nope, nope, nope. I got this one son. He will shrink all of my underwear or something like that. And it's like, aha. Okay, so he can't learn to do that. Nope. I told him once. Okay, so how many times? You told him once, and he failed at it. How many times since then have you done the laundry so that you could trust that you, you know, you were going to handle the underwear well? And of course, I'm joking with her a little bit, but it was seven years ago. It had been seven years. So for seven years, she's carrying bitterness around the house about laundry, working her tail off, not getting help from the family because one time somebody shrank the underwear. This is the dumb stuff we do as humans. We carry distrust way too long and make our lives way too hard. It's a stunning result in our lives. One thing someone did. We hold on to trust for years without repairing, recalibrating, retraining, and then we're bitter about it, as if we're so righteous, as if so many people are incompetent. It's like, oh, Lord, what is going on with people's minds? This is why this important topic I felt like was warranted for this session with you. I feel like we have to root out and understand where do I lack trust in myself or other people, and what difficulties is that causing in my life? Maybe the difficulty is you just, you know, after all this change in society and all these layoffs and all this pandemic and all this economy, I don't know. I can't. I can't trust It's a good time to start a business, Brendan. I can't trust It's a good time to ask for, you know, a new job or a raise. I can't. I can't trust it's time to roll out my new product. I can't trust, you know, this new team because, you know, four other guys, they got laid off, and they were the good ones. And so what do we do? Lack of trust, lack of drive, lack of results. Over and over and over again. Lack of trust, lack of drive, lack of results. You can literally look in any area of your life and identify it. For example, why haven't I published a book in five years. Let me think about it. Lack of drive. Why? Lack of trust that I have the time. Why? Don't trust myself to do it. Let me set up a new system. Let me tell everybody I'm going to write it. Let me get the agent on board. Let me set up the system. Let me clear the calendar, okay? Because otherwise I'll wander around the house doing research for the next 150 years. Because that's me. I don't know about y'. All. I can want. I can just read. I can research all day and do nothing. Oh, I can just keep reading. I'm a learner. Any learners out there, you just keep learning and learning and learning, but you're not doing and doing and doing. Why trust? Need a new system. Need new social support. It's inevitable. Every person. That's how I knew where to go with this woman. I could just hear it in her. It's like, okay, she thinks she's lost motivation and drive. She thought it was because she was in her upper 40s. I guess I'm getting old. Menopause is setting in. Of course I've lost my ambition. I'm like, oh, lordy, lordy, lordy. This is what we do when we don't know where the root cause is coming from. Often from trust in this situation, her relationship with herself and her spouse. Suddenly we start thinking all these other wild things because we don't want to face a hard truth. We lost self trust. We lost trust in the other people around us. There's only two ways through it. One, new systems, new social support, awareness. All change begins with awareness. So today I want you to make sure you don't just listen passively. You capture in the journal, you where am I? Lacking results or drive or trust. Where what's happening? What is that thing? What do I know about myself? Honestly, without shaming yourself, just like I can go, why haven't I read a new book? I know I can't trust myself. Why? Because I love to just read. I love to just learn and research. I'll do that all day long. But you know what? That's not going to lead to the book. Let me not hate myself for not writing and just set up a new structure, system or social support. You can journal about those things without getting mad at yourself. If you journal and it makes you feel bad about yourself, don't blame journaling. It's your mindset. It's how you approach yourself and think of yourself. It's important to think about.