The 3 Things KILLING Your Self-Esteem

A great director makes it his own. Think about the great narrators. They're making that character their own. And when you make it your own, it has way more success than when you copy everybody else. Your confidence goes up, your esteem goes up. Make it your own. That taps into your confidence, who you really are. Your job is to compare yourself to yesterday, your congruence, to your best, your engagement. You compare yourself to you, not to other people. And that is a shift. I want to talk about the three devils. There's three of them and they're all over us today. It's so difficult to fight and I really believe that it is a function of the selfie culture and generation. But these three things, you want to watch someone's self esteem tank increase. These three things, number one, judgment. Rapid, speedy, impulsive judgment. Not just judgment, because we all need good judgment to lead good lives. Speedy judgment. Harsh judgment. Automatic judgment, assumption, bias driven judgment. And we are being conditioned and trained with our phones to judge, judge, judge. 1,500 posts a day. You are judging worthy or unworthy and that is training your brain. Speed judgment. What's wrong with our culture today? Speed judgment. The inability to listen, to watch, to ask questions. Speed judgment. She's like this, he's like that. That group is like this. That country's like this. Speed judgment. Speed judgment. All these automatic immediate labels of worth, of value, of good, of bad. Those immediate judgments will crush somebody's self esteem, whether they're coming internally or externally. When a behavioral scientist or psychologist works with you, they'll often do processes like cognitive behavioral therapy where they're exploring the thoughts that you have about yourself. And the thoughts that you have about yourself drive a lot of your self esteem. There are more things, but a lot of it is what this is, which we'll talk about later. Well, one of the things is when you're mean to yourself in judgment, no wonder you feel bad. No wonder you don't have the drive or the focus each day because you're so mean to yourself. Well, the problem is you're not just mean to yourself, you're watching other people all day be mean to themselves too. On the Internet, that one post shows up and that person's punching that person, that one violent thing is happening, that one conflict, that one hook that they're trying to capture your attention with because if it bleeds, it leads. And all of a sudden there's just judgment surrounding you. One of my secrets to life personally of being happy and happy with myself is limiting all of that noise. Like when that noise. Who has enough noise up here? I don't need noise from external, but I also limit it. Internal meditation. If you don't have a meditation practice, start. Because your mind is in constant judgment. When you learn to meditate, you're able not to turn it off, but to decrease the noise. If you're not taking a few moments each day to get out of the judgmental mind, then it's really hard not to judge yourself. So hard all the time. So a simple meditation practice. Every day you want to meditate with me and tap into the universe with me. 1:30 every day. See you there out in the universe meditating like it's just like that midday for me. That release meditation technique releases judgment. And just like dropping that devil for a minute, just dropping that thought, dropping those thoughts about myself. Please. If you haven't ever done this before, if you really want to feel more confident and capable and strong, start writing down every day, what were the thoughts you had about yourself today? And start asking if those thoughts are going to be the thing that take you to the next level of life. And when you see those thoughts and they're unfair, you gotta question them. If they're not truthful, you gotta question them. If they're mean, you gotta question them. You gotta learn to question and observe your thoughts in meditation or as a self improvement practice. I know you know that the second big devil comparison, my self esteem has nothing to do with any of my peers who will come up here today. Ed's gonna come up here and crush it today and Ben and Trent and Lori and not none of their performances or who they are has anything to do with my self esteem. When I scroll through social media and someone has 10 million followers more than me, literally no reflection of myself. When you are comparing yourself to others, you are constantly chopping yourself down. Comparison is chopping yourself down. It's almost impossible to compare yourself in a positive way. Even if you compare yourself to somebody who's way better in an aspirational way than that can also be discouraging. Your job is to compare yourself to yesterday. Compare yourself to your congruence. Compare yourself to your best, your fullness, your completeness, your engagement. You compare yourself to you, not to other people. And that is a shift. There's nothing in my mind of anything I ever do. I'm like, ooh, she did it better. It's like, no, no. Did I do my best? And if I didn't do my best, let me live back in alignment. Let me keep it tight with that congruence. Let me do a little better. Not in a diminishing way, in an acknowledging way that says I can be better. And being better should be the most positive thought in your mind. It's like, to work on yourself doesn't mean you suck. To work on yourself means you're getting better. So listen to that self talk of comparison. Well, she's better. This is better. That's better. No, no, you do your thing and you compare yourself daily to your congruence. Being and living in alignment with the best of who you are. Oh, the third devil. I forgot the third devil. Third devil. Oh, this is good. I'm gonna offend a lot of people. I'm gonna say it all those on the Internet, forgive me a lot of offense. People are gonna be pissed. The third devil of your confidence, of your life, of the enjoyment of life, of other people's self esteem, of whether or not you're gonna contribute to people's confidence and joy and success in life is a devil you get bought into. And sometimes you espouse that third devil is called gossip. Oh, well, that hit. If you're the gossiping party in your friendship group, you're chopping them down. If you're the gossiping party at work, you're chopping it down. If you're the gossiper at home, you're chopping it down. Gossip kills. Gossip kills. Cause gossip makes everyone compare themselves to each other. Oh, she did this, she did that, and she did that, and that judgment. She did this and they did that comparison. She did that and they did that. Judgment. Gossip is just a judgment comparison loop with a microphone. That's all it is. And if you're at that microphone, you better stop because the mind also starts playing a trick. The more you. This is crazy. The more you gossip, the more you develop narcissistic tendencies. Did you know those are correlated? Like, high? Like 0.6, I think I remember. It's an unbelievably high correlation. The more you gossip socially, the more your narcissistic tendencies go up. And remember, narcissism isn't. You love yourself. Narcissism, you usually dislike yourself, and so you act out. You put on fake facades of strength. You become oblivious to others gossip. And this is so rampant in people. Like, I literally. There's people who I love, I won't answer their phone. There's people I care about. I won't go at a meeting with them. Because if they're always there to talk about other people, I'm like, oh, something is broken. And I don't need no broke energy around me. I got a hard enough life. You know what I'm talking about? Ooh. And here's the deal. Most people gossip way more than they think. So as I ask you, could you journal about your own internal thoughts? I'd love for you to journal about the thoughts that come out your mouth. I did this in college. It was so powerful. I had a great professor ask. I want you to journal about the gossip you did each week. Who did you talk about? What did you call them? Why did you say that? Did you have all the facts? What was the result of the other person? How did they feel if you talked to them or it got back to them? When you were gossiping to this social party about this other party, how did this party feel about what you were saying about the other party? It's just an absolute promise. The more you gossip, the more, the more you degrade your own self concept. You think you're judging other people. It's tearing you down and you don't even know it because you're becoming less kind. And as you become less kind, your self esteem goes down. As your self esteem goes down, you get discouraged. You divide yourself from other people. You start feeling defeated. And that's why a lot of gossipers are gossipers. They're defeated. They had less willingness to try, started judging other people. Because you know who doesn't gossip a lot? Really successful people in the arena doing the work, they don't have time. They're just like, they're just like. Because they're busting through the willingness wall, they're not discouraged, divided, defeated and gossiping. The gossips are usually in the seats of the arena and they've never even been up there. So they're going to judge everybody else. And you have to know that as the high performers in this room, of course they're gonna judge you. Of course they're gonna compare you. Of course they're gonna gossip you. But remember, that's three devils nagging at you. You don't have to listen, you don't have to believe. When someone throws judgment or comparison or gossip at me, I don't reply. I've been on the Internet for 20 years. I don't reply, I don't engage. Half the time I don't even know that it happened. Or read. I don't even care because I'm on my path, I'm on his path. I'm in service to people. And all that other conversation is conversation. And their conversation about you has Nothing to do with your permission to succeed. Can I get an amen on a weekday? Change your life. Last big idea for me today is that you want a better self concept, self confidence, strength, esteem. You have to realize you're directing your thoughts. You're narrating your thoughts. You're directing your attention every day. Where's your attention? Because that attention is either building you up or stripping you down. Where is my attention? That means you're the director. You're the one zooming in on things. You're zooming in on your past, your present, your future. You're the director. Where is the lens of your attention going? Be careful because either you're choosing to film a horror story or you're filming a love story. You are the director. The more you film the horror story, the conflict story, the anger story, the judgment story, the comparison story, the gossip story, the more your movie sucks, the more you feel that awfulness, the more life feels horrific, the more you can teach yourself to zoom in on people who are into self improvement, people who are into service, people who are getting better. The more your life tells a different story. And you're like, you come back to life. You're directing a better movie. You're directing your self esteem, you're directing your confidence, you're directing your vibrancy. You're directing that in a whole new way. And then you're listening. You're realizing you're narrating your life. You're narrating what happened last night. Today, you're narrating what happened when you were 10 and 15 and 20. Today, you're an active narrator. So listen to those thoughts. It's so important. And here's the thing. When you realize you're the director and the narrator, since we're in la, the metaphor that a lot of big studio heads will give a new director or a narrator on a show, they'll say, listen, make it your own. When you make it your own, your confidence goes up, your esteem goes up. Don't do it like everybody else. Make it your own. Do it your unique way that taps into your confidence who you really are. A great director, when you think about Scorsese, makes it his own. When you think about the great narrators who animate the voices of Toy Story and others, they're making that character their own. And when you make it your own, it has way more success than when you copy everybody else. When you copy everybody else, the movie gets no plays. Your life doesn't feel real. I don't know if you all know this. For those who are new, I know, our altar members know. But you're sitting in the historic Alex Theater in Glendale, California, right now. In these seats. Walt Disney himself sat here and screened all the great Disney cartoons and movies while he was alive. Right where you're sitting. In that chair. In that chair. He brought his company, his team, his advertisers, his producers here to watch the cartoons. He saw a different vision. You gotta see a different vision for yourself. Some of you are still waiting for some kind of epic permission or day or chance or break. And then, oh, then I'll feel good about myself. Then I'll start directing this attention. Then I'll start chasing that wall of illness. Then I'll start bettering myself. You gotta do it. Make this choice. You gotta say, I'm here. Say, I'm here. I'm here. I'm ready. I go in strength. If you're still that person, you're like, I'm still waiting for permission. I need the world. Hey, you need that permission. Permission granted. I'm Brandon Burchard. Thank you, guys. Sam.