Career Camp 2011-Redefining Success with You in Mind

There you go. All right, perfect. All right, guys. First of all, good morning.

Good morning.

I need a little bit more energy. I require energy in my room, so good morning. Good morning. There you go. Because everything in life takes energy, okay? Particularly what we're talking about today, which is— this is the topic, redefining success and what— with you in mind, okay? All right, so how many of you would like to be successful? All right. How many of you think that that's going to be a tough road sometimes? Okay, all right, that's good. All right, well, success is one of those things that's arbitrary, and we're here to help you figure out how to be more successful. But coming up with your own personal definition of success is what we're going to be talking about today. Okay, now they say that 80% of success is just showing up. So give yourself a nice little round of applause for showing up today. Lots of people could be here, but they're not. They're sitting at home, or they're talking about their problems, or, you know, resting on the fact that it's hard out here, right? So congratulations to you guys for coming today, all right? Now, the important thing about success is that, I mean, the dictionary defines it as a favorable outcome, okay? So we want a favorable outcome today of success. But society defines it as something different, all right? So would it be all right if I told you a little bit about myself? Yeah, all right, great, thank you. Well, my name is Bryn, I'm a life coach by trade, I'm also an actress, Speaker. But I'm not here to talk about me, but I'm here to tell you a little story about me. Okay? So years ago, I moved to Los Angeles and I thought, you know, I'm going to get on this personal development kick. I'm going to go to these seminars, I'm going to have these experiences. So there was a particular seminar I went to and they had a special breakout session at lunch. You could stay and have a shorter lunch, or you could go and just have a full lunch. Well, the speaker on the stage, a man of many millions of dollars, made a statement where, you know, the people that are going to stay for this talk are this, and he's listing criteria of who should stay because basically he fit this criteria. So he said, I'm looking for successful people. So the minute he said that, I said, well, I don't have any money, so he's definitely not talking about me. So I was like, yeah, I guess I'm not going to stay for that. So I went to lunch. Came back later that evening, and one of my friends who did stay for the breakout session, I said, "So, you know, how was the talk?" And he's like, "Oh, you didn't stay, you went to lunch?" I'm like, "Yeah, I went to lunch." And he's, "Oh man, after you guys left, the speaker on the stage said, 'That's why I'll never do business with those people.'" And I said, "That's not fair. He said he was looking for people that were successful." And I, you know, and then it hit me like a bolt of lightning. He never said anything about money. I equated it with money. I took myself out of the game at that moment because I was like, wait, so if I'm thinking this, other people are thinking this. And this is how we rob ourselves. So the reason I came up with this talk is because I realized that While we're here at Career Camp to talk about getting new jobs and different directions in our lives, there's a lot of us that don't really acknowledge our success. And we don't know the right way, not that there's a right way, but the best way to go about defining success so that we can then go, I'm successful. I, it's okay to say that I'm successful no matter where I am. Okay? So what— so, I mean, how many of you have heard where, you know, success or thought of success in terms of money? Or status? Anyone? Okay. So if you don't have those two things, you now define yourself— well, we could say the antithesis of success is failure. So you could say you might be defining yourself as a failure, which— how many of you have found difficult times when you think something's— you're a failure to be motivated to do anything. Anyone had, you know, struggled with that? Like, what was it? Oh, okay, I'm sorry. All right, so obviously having those moments of, well, if I don't have this, I don't have that car, I don't have that great job, I don't have that great relationship, then what am I even doing here? What's my purpose? I mean, so the key is, I've discovered for myself, was I gotta figure out, wait a minute, what am I successful at? What is a success? So what I would like you guys to do, if you have a piece of paper, I want you to right now write down your definition of success. Just anything. Please. I'll give you like a few moments. I'd play Japanese music if I had it. Okay, as you guys are wrapping up, just wrap up real quick here. All right, so in my room when I'm speaking, I have a rule, and that's where participation equals value. Okay, so I would like a volunteer that would like to read their definition of success to the rest of the class. And say your name, please. I'm Mitch.

Success for me is achieving what you set out to accomplish and accepting praise for it from others.

Nice. Would you like to share?

Mine was more having a purpose in life.

Okay. Did you have one? Knowing what you wanted to accomplish and what it is you want to do. Nice.

Great.

Yeah, I'm like so simple. Mine's just doing what I want and enjoying it. I love it. Go ahead. Oh, mine was more of having a nice comfortable place to live, a well-paying job I'm happy at, and a good relationship with someone. That's amazing. So do you see that there's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 people in the room, but yet everybody has a different or a slightly different definition of success. So that means that if I went— if I held you to his standard, right? Maybe you wouldn't be successful. Or, you know, he didn't mention the house, or she didn't mention the relationship, you know what I mean? Or having a purpose, nobody else mentioned that. So the whole point is you guys all come with something different to the table and look at yourselves in a different way. So there is no static definition of success. But I want to challenge you guys to think about a little bit more deeply about how you're gonna define success because specificity is key in life, okay? Specificity is really important. So, young lady, what's your name, I'm sorry? [Speaker] Christine. [Speaker] Christine. So Christine mentioned a house, a car, and a job, sorry, and a relationship, correct? Okay, so what I would challenge Christine to do is say, okay, What kind of house? What kind of job? What kind of relationship? And then go even deeper. What do you— what's the results of those things? So, you know, not just what kind of house, but maybe what do you want in the house? You know, I mean, there's so much necessary specificity because when we're too general, usually we get general results. So, I wanted a car, but I didn't say I wanted one that didn't have a mechanical issue and didn't break down every 2 minutes. I wanted a house, but I forgot to mention that I wanted it to be bigger or have a basement and, you know, whatever, a garage. So just for example. The other thing that's important about success is your values. What do you value? So it sounds to me— I'm sorry, is it nutrition? That's a good accent. Patricia. Patricia obviously values having a purpose, and it's not to say that no one else here does, but this is important. So having values. Now, how many of you guys have ever seen one of these things where I go, "What are your values?" and then I show you a list and I put down words like integrity, truth, valor, I don't know, just think of these really generic wonderful words What does that sound like? Whatever. And then you go, "Yeah, yeah, those are my values." But it's different in here. We're not going to give you a list. And you're welcome to put those 3 down if you'd like. But I would like you to list top 3 values. And yes, you will be encouraged to share. But top 3 values— oh no, I'm going to go 5. Let's go 5. Let's go crazy today. Because you guys look like you're in the mood for craziness. So we're going to do 5 values. So top 5 values that are really important to you. Personal-wise or job-wise? Can be however you want to define it. You can make a list of 5 for each if you want. But there's no rules in here. It's your world. That's the difference. Okay, just wrap it up. Very close. Eyes up here when you guys are ready so I don't rush you. Oh, I see you. Did anybody have trouble coming up with 5? Anybody? Okay. Can you explain to me— first of all, I need your name.

Camaro.

Camaro. Love that. Camaro. All right, Camaro. Tell me why you had trouble, or tell the class. Um, so I think that I'm a very simple person and it doesn't take much to make me feel successful. Okay. Why'd you have trouble listening? Um, I don't know, I think I was just coming up, like just trying to narrow it down or trying to figure out. Got it. Yeah, I mean, sometimes people struggle with values because they think that there's a right way to go about coming up with a list like that. And this is why I kind of want to talk about the success topic, or kind of, I do want to talk about the success topic. I believe in being definitive in your speech. I think it's important to talk about the success topic because in a lot of ways we're boxing ourselves in. We're saying, we're putting ourselves in these boxes and saying, I have to fulfill fit into what Kamara thinks is important, because everybody else, or Mitch, because that was a good answer, why didn't I have that answer? You know? Oh man, I really wish I had said that. I just have down, you know, safety, you know? I don't know, but it's whatever's important to you. And I have an expression, and I wanna say it clearly, because sometimes people think I'm swearing, but I say, don't should on yourself. Don't should on yourself. Well, I should feel the way Mitch does. I should have the same answer that Christine did because that was a really good answer and I didn't have that. But the only person that decides what happens in your head is you. Regardless of what they say out there, or they, whoever they are. I don't know who they are. Sometimes I get a little annoying they. But they're the ones that are going, "I know, you could be successful if you had your degree by now. You could be successful if you had a job that made X amount of dollars a year. Hey, success is right around the corner for you, don't you worry, man." Well, guess what? How many people got up out of bed this morning? I thought so, but just in case, I'm just checking. All right, awesome. Well, guess what? That's a success. You put your feet on the ground. There are some people that can't do that. You know, how many people drove here today and didn't get into an accident? You were driven. You were like, "Hey, I gotta get your number after this." I'm like, "I gotta figure out how you—" Carpool. Yeah, carpool. I'm thinking like I got a limo driver or something. Let me know. Let me find out. It's good stuff. But so the point is, is that you make— you determine it. I like to say something like, we're going to call— everybody says life is a game, the game of life or whatever. I mean, they actually have a board game called Life, but you know what I'm talking about. But here's the thing. We think we can lose and not be successful when we're the coach. The referee, the player, the scorekeeper, you know what I mean? You name it. We're pretty much the whole field and game, but yet we're like, it's not fair. Life's not fair. So you guys have a list of 5 values in front of you. I would like Patricia— yes, I know, I know you were hoping I was going to call you. No, you know what? I won't make you do it because we got a new girl in here the evaluation chick. So I don't know her name, so I— that is her evaluation chick. Is that not official? That's— sure, I like to define people by what they do. Evaluation chick. I'm sure you do much more than that. What's your name, I'm sorry?

My name is Komal Tejwani.

Wow, okay. So, say it one more time. Cumo. Okay, I was like, whoa, just give me the one, like a brief version of it. Cumo. Cumo, can you read your 5 values for me?

Absolutely. Um, okay, I, I listed phrases because I feel like that defines me a little bit more. Um, committed to, like, being relationship-focused. Okay, that's my top value. Um, physical well-being, you know, I, I feel like mine, um Fitness really helps me feel whole. Education and being— not just going to a classroom, but being learned and, you know, taking every opportunity to take my experiences and use them as learning opportunities. Working in a field that brings me joy and being mentally well. I like it.

All right, so now, you see, here's another example of somebody— yeah, exactly, right? I wish I had done that. I mean, I was going to say, that's an example of somebody— here, she just listed off phrases and everybody's like, no, that's not what they said. I just had to write down the word. That's not fair, right? No, no, no. What is this, extra credit or something? No. Now I was like, hey, who wants to read their values after that? Me, um, I wrote down integrity and like honesty and truth. I, yeah, I mean, it's cool and everything, but I want to be what Como said. So that's the whole point. Stop measuring yourself off someone else's paper. What's important to Como is not necessarily important to Patricia. Oh, now I wish I had put that down. I just— but the whole point is that's where we get into trap of the word success being so linear and being like, well, gosh, I can't be like that. You're right, you were only put on this earth to be one person, and unfortunately, that whole phrase, everybody else is already taken, but I was gonna say unfortunately, it's you, you, you, so you get to decide what you is. And I know that sounds all like e-airy fairy, everybody, yeah, sorry, you guys were late, okay? There were other people here giving up their personhood, but you were late. So I'm sorry. That's just how it works. And you get to decide who that is. So when I said— remember what I said? And there's something you said about the learning part that I wanted to talk about. I'm sure everybody has great values, okay? And if you want, I'll let you all read them. Does everybody want to read theirs?

No, we're embarrassed after Coco.

Oh, no. Say, "I am embarrassed after Coco, Patricia." Money, a successful career, relationship, good relationship, and volunteering. Nice. Wow, I wish I had said volunteering. Damn it. All right, that's good. Oh wait, that's what I'm doing today. Yes, I'm valuable according to her. All right, your name? Marion. I love it. All right, so I have Mitch, Patricia, Como, Marion, Christine and Kamara, and I'm sorry, I don't know your name.

Lindsay.

Lindsay. Lindsay's over here.

Oh, she's Irish. Oh, Lindsay. Oh, Lindsay.

Oh, Lindsay. Well, it is St. Patty's Day. Everybody's Irish on St. Patty's Day, at least. All right, so I talked a little bit about— I'm going to get to your lifelong learning thing here in a second. I talked about you're the coach, the referee. You control everything. You're in the driver's seat. So why do you let someone else drive? Why do you— I mean, if I was in your car and every time you went to go turn somewhere, I'm like, well, you know, it's better to go down to the 105. I mean, it's fine to go this way, whatever, you know. You would be annoyed and you would probably kick me out of your car if I was like, uh, well, you know, you could go this way. I mean, I'm just saying, it's so much faster to go that way than this way. And you're like, shut up, I'm driving! Or do you want to drive? So the whole point is, why do you let someone else drive? How many of you have felt like sometimes you let somebody else drive? Anybody? I sure did. You did? Oh, okay. In a figurative way! In a figurative way! But yes! Literally, yes, sometimes we do let other people drive.

Actually, I've had, after 40 years of marriage, my wife's ringtone is "She Who Must Be Obeyed." I like it.

There you go. She who must be obeyed. Let people drive. They want to drive for you. They want to drive for you? Yeah. Okay, well, you know, I'm glad you said that, Bryn, because that goes into my next topic, or little subtopic: personal responsibility. You're right, they do want to drive. They do want to enjoy it because they're having so much trouble in their situation. They want to be all over here like, come on, what's going on? My life's kind of empty. But you know what? You could use a makeover, and let me tell you what I can do for I can do so much for you. I can make your life amazing. But me? No, no, let's not talk about me. Let's talk about you. You. How are we going to make you better? So the whole point is, what can Kamara do? Because I'm all in her face. What can she say? Okay. Really? That's what you're going to say? I came up to you and told you you needed a makeover and you're going to say okay? Okay, good. I didn't mean it like I was going to pay for a spa day for her. I didn't mean it like that. I mean, yeah, I would take a free spa day too, but what I'm saying is we're talking about literally letting someone take over your life. And they're like, you know what, I can do so much better at being Clara than you can. Just let me take the controls. You gonna let me do that? No, but I'm gonna say okay so you will go away. You're gonna say okay? You think I'm gonna go away? I'm addicted to this stuff.

I'm like, oh my God, I can fix you.

But you're not broken. That's the whole point. But I think I can fix you. Right, Mary? People think they can come in and do so much better at what you're doing. Right? So the whole point is personal responsibility is super important because we've all said— or, better question, how many of us have said, gosh, if they just would leave me alone, I could do so much better. If somebody would just give me a chance. Right? I mean, somebody here said that. But that's, okay, oh, go ahead. That's the conundrum. If someone, they would leave me alone if someone would just give me a chance. That's, no, no, no, what I mean is, okay, all right, so maybe that's bad phraseology on my part. I'm not even sure that's a word. I make it up as I go along. But okay, perhaps that is. So what, The gist of what I'm saying is if someone would just, you know how many people have been at work and saying, "I couldn't get a promotion because they just never paid attention to me. They never gave me an opportunity to show what I could do." Or how many times have you felt like, "Man, I just missed it by this much and it's not fair." How many people have said it's not fair in their life? Come on, somebody in here has said it's not fair. I know I have. It's not fair, and I'm tired of learning from my freaking mistakes. But guess what? It's kind of the only way to do it. Kind of sucks, but it's just the way it is, because when you're doing great, you're like, oh, I'm good, you might miss a whole bunch of experiences and opportunities. So the personal responsibility thing is super important because you've got to take responsibility to be in the RFC, and so So when they do want to go drive for you, Marion, you say, "No, I'm sorry. I've been driving this car for, you know, so many years. I think I got this. And I'm sure you could probably do a better job, but this driver's seat's already taken by Marion." See what I'm saying? You got a question? No, no, no. Oh, okay, okay, okay. So don't let someone else drive. Take over your own life, control.

I have kind of like, um, I would say kind of like the driver's seat person, right? You know, they think they know everything and you don't know nothing, you know. And I had that done 2 days ago to me, you know. I— somebody that knows their way. I don't know that way very much, you know. So, um, kind of like you're driving but the person is telling you go right, you go left, go right, go left. So at the time, you're not really paying attention to the streets, right? You're just going right and going left. And so we got into an argument. Okay, okay, we got into an argument because this person was saying, go left, go right, go left, go right.

And then, uh, he was like, don't you remember we went through this street last time? We went through that street. I go, it's dark.

First of all, it's dark. You don't pay attention to the streets because it's so dark. And I don't know if you guys know Florence. I don't know Florence that, that well, but it goes kind of like a V kind of way. Okay, it veers to one side and then it becomes one way, whatever. But either way, um, my expression was, first of all, I'm driving, and second of all, um, I'm not paying attention because you're going right, left so quick, so I'm really not paying attention to the streets.

So when he said, wow, Do you know how stupid does that sound?

You know, you're not paying attention to where you're going. When I'm by myself, I'm paying attention. It's a different story because I'm guiding myself. I know where I'm going. But when you're saying right, left, right, left, and it's so quick, I'm not really paying attention. I'm driving.

So from your experience, Patricia, from that whole experience, right, you just said that you felt like One, he didn't talk to you in a way that you were listening. Because if I call you stupid, I immediately shut down. I'm like, okay, that's it. I get defensive. No, I'm not stupid, okay? Secondly, you— but who allowed him to take control in that car? Me. Right. Me. That's why I kicked him out. Okay. But that's just exactly what I want you to do. I want you to kick him out. Because that's the point, is that when you take personal responsibility, you're no longer sitting there going in an unconscious manner, which is sort of what was happening in that car, where you're allowing yourself— I don't know, because I mean, how many times have we all had friends that were kind of like, "Yeah, do this, do that, do that," and then you wake up and you're like, "This isn't me. This isn't what I want to do." Or you seek advice from a friend and it doesn't agree with who you are, but you go and do it, and then you get the results that you didn't want, and then you're like, Why did that happen? Because you did something that didn't feel right within you. Didn't agree with your values, with what you wrote down. Wasn't about health and purpose and all that. You just said, yeah, you drive me, tell me where to go, I'll go. And then you're like, wait a minute, I'm not happy. Well, that's what happens when you take yourself out of the driver's seat, or you take your consciousness out of the driver's seat of your life, is what I'm talking about. And this is why success is so important to redefine. I'm talking about I challenge you guys to redefine your success with your values in mind. When you have that in mind, you're no longer letting someone else in the driver's seat. You're saying this— wait a minute. So you ask yourself a question, do I want to do this? No, it doesn't feel right within my spirit. So then you take an action that honors your values, honors your feelings inside, instead of letting someone do something and then it doesn't feel right and then you're mad at them. It's really you that you're mad at in the end, because you're like, well, if I would have just done what I felt like was right, we wouldn't be in this situation. Does that sound about right? Mm-hmm. So going back to the lifelong learner comment that she made about learning, it's an endless process, learning is. It is. It's not one of those things that only kids can learn, or look at all the— I mean, obviously we're in an institution of learning today. We're getting lessons from each person, we're taking little pearls and morsels, and I hope this is no exception, you're gonna take something away from today's talk. But the point is, is that there's certain people or certain times in our life where we're like, there's 3 really dangerous words in the English language, the 3 most dangerous words. Does anybody know what they are? No, but good guess. Anyone else? I know that. I know that. Every time I say to Patricia, "Well, you know, when you're driving, if you pay attention to the signs, you'll know where you're going," she might immediately respond with, "I know that," which usually means, and on some level you know it, but obviously on an unconscious level you don't know it, otherwise you wouldn't keep repeating the same pattern. Don't date people that are bad for you. I know that. But you have a string of bad relationships. Don't work in a job that you hate. I know that. But yet you hate your job. So, when— there's a saying, and I was told it was said by Bruce Lee, but you can Google it. To know and not to do is not to know. So when you don't take action on what you know, then you don't know it. You don't know it like you know your name. Because there is not one person in here that I can tell you, "Uh, come on, no, today your name's Sarah." You're like, "Uh, no, my name's Colma." "No, it's Sarah." And you wouldn't dispute me on that. You wouldn't dispute me on that. You would dispute me all day long. "My name is Colma!" But when it comes to certain things, You know, like, well, maybe I don't know that, on some kind of unconscious level. You might stand up here and be defiant about it, but, you know, so lifelong learning is important. Being open to the fact that you don't necessarily have all the answers. And then the key is not to put this word in front of any of the answers, the right answers. Because the truth and the right and wrong is only according to you. Because remember, Como's values maybe don't work for me. Christine's values might not be my thing, so I can't be like, Christine, those are the wrong values. You should totally rewrite that list because I value money, and that's way more important than, you know, having a good, you know, job. So could you work on that? And Christine's like, um, okay, thanks. Didn't ask for your opinion. But that's the point. There is no such thing as the right answer. So there— like I said, success is so It's so crazy. And the information that we have today, it's changing constantly with the internet, obviously, with Facebook, everything is constantly changing. You're getting your news so fast, but that means our attention spans are even shorter. Our presence in our lives is even less. In a conversation, how many times do you pick up your cell phone and start texting as someone's talking to you and go, "I'm not listening." I gotta finish this text. Or, oh my God, so important. No, no, I totally am worried about your dad and everything and like how you're having trouble at home, but did you see this video on Facebook? It's crazy. So it's about being present in your own life, taking control, because you can't have success when you're not showing up. Remember I said 80% of success is just showing up, and we're not showing up. There's some rap song that's on the these days, I just heard it on the radio, and he says, I mean, he's quoting a famous quote, but, "Everybody dies, but not everybody lives." And it's true, because some of us are like walking zombies. Get up, go to work, eat, go to sleep, repeat the cycle. If you're not fulfilled in what you're doing, you're not honoring your values, you're not successful. And it's not because I'm saying you don't have success, Like I said, anything can be a success. Getting up in the morning, driving safely, saying hi to that person that you thought was attractive, being more social, whatever your goals are, whatever your values are, if you honor those, you're successful. But stop taking someone else's success and then judging yourself against it is what I'm saying. So failing forward is something I wanna talk about after that. So when you go to take action, how many people are stopped by the fear of failure? I might not be good at it. I might not do a good job. Or what if it's the wrong way? Wait, wait, wait. I mean, yeah, that looks cool, but what about if that's the right way for me? Because life is full of forks, right? I can go and get my degree, or I can take this promotion at work for more money. But this degree might lead me XYZ up the ladder of where I want to go. Go, right? So I was recently on a reality show. It wasn't on TV, it was online, but it's not about that. But we had a challenge called the reverse corkscrew, okay? Me and my partner, um, there was a— we had to drive backwards using only the rearview camera of a car. Nobody does that, right? I mean, you turn around if you learn how to drive, turn around, you look when you're reversing. And if you hit a cone, you got a 5-second penalty for every cone they hit. And then whoever had the fastest time at the end got, you know, won the first place. And it was first through sixth. Well, we got last. And it was like a lightning bolt of like lesson for me thinking about why we got last. We spent so much time not hitting cones that we lost. Okay, we spent 20 minutes through the course not hitting cones. One guy hit 50 cones and he beat us. 50 cones. Okay, so the point of that story is to say hit the freaking cones. Take action. Go faster. You know, do something. Don't spend so much time worried about making mistakes, going on the wrong path, because life is— life is cyclical, right? So even if I go that way, won't I eventually end up over there if that's the right way for me? You talked about purpose. So I feel like my purpose is entertaining and standing in front of people and speaking. I come alive when I see the people inspired, right? But sometimes I'm worried, like, well, what if I'm supposed to talk to this target audience or that, or what if I'm going the wrong way, or people are like, you gotta do this, and people are always telling me the shoulds and the you gotta's. The point is, is that if I take action, like speaking at Career Camp LA, for example, maybe just a little bit of that fire gets ignited some more, and then somebody sees me at Career Camp LA and goes, hey, I want you to come speak to my blah blah blah, or whatever. You know, it doesn't matter, but the point is, be get there, do something, hit the cones. Don't be afraid to make a mistake because success is not about not making mistakes. Because like they say, it's not about falling off the horse, it's about getting back on it. And that's the success. Getting on the horse in the first place and getting back on the horse after you fall. That's success. The part in the middle, that's part of success too because you gotta be on the horse to fall off the horse. A lot of people won't even get on a horse. I might fall off. I might fall off. And you know what struck me on my show was that I have a fear of heights. Like, I'm crazy afraid of heights. But we had a couple challenges. It never occurred to me not to do them. You put a challenge in front of me, I'm about to take it on. I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna do this. I mean, I'm scared, and you know, it held me back in some ways, but I did it. But in life, I would let like the smallest smallest little bug, you'd be like, "Oh, you know, I don't know. Scary, there's a spider over there. Better go this way." But I mean, can anyone else relate to that? Anyone else? I mean, you know what I mean? If I say, "Dude, we're going ziplining," and you're like, "I'm there! I'm so afraid of heights, but I'm gonna do it!" But if I say, "All right, now get up in front of this class and talk about yourself for 5 minutes," you're like, "Yeah, I'm good. I appreciate it. I'm gonna sit right here." let somebody else do it, even though there's a part of you, just a small part of you, that might want to get up, might want to do it. And maybe that's not your thing. Public speaking is the number one fear. Number one fear. People would rather die than speak in front of a crowd of people. So I'm not encouraging you to speak if you don't want to speak, that's not your thing. But whatever your purpose is, go after it because that's what's going to make you so much more. So how do you avoid the fear epidemic? How do you do it? How do you do it? Anyone? Anyone got an answer? How do you avoid fear? Yeah, how do you avoid fear? You can't. Good answer. That's right, you can't. You're gonna be afraid.

Yeah, you know, I just read a book about—

briefly read a book, it's called "Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway." Do it anyway, that's my life motto. I was just gonna say that. That's perfect. Feel the fear and do it anyway. Because guess what? Fear doesn't go away. So now that you've jumped off this stuff and done all this crazy stuff, are you afraid of heights? I'm like, yes. There's not one moment I was up on those heights and did not fear for my life, even though I had harnesses and I knew that there was probably no chance that I could die. But my mind, which is a big problem, your mind is telling you, dude, this is high up, you need to stop. So your mind is what's stopping you, saying, Patricia, wait a minute. What are you doing? This is weird for us. There's a chance you might grow over there. I think you should stay here where you're comfortable. And then you go, hey, you're right, Mom. OK, OK, OK. You're right. I'm going to stay over here. And then you're like, well, how come she has success? How come he has success? Because they weren't afraid to let the fear not stop them. They went and did it. They were afraid, but they did it anyway. Whereas I might just go— You know what, other people are going to speak at career camp and have more credentials than me, or other people are going to go for that promotion that probably been on this job a lot more, so you know what, I'll wait until it's my turn. Hope your turn shows up someday, because the only person that decides that in the game of life is— exactly. So practice makes perfect. Amateur versus professional, I'll give you a little saying. An amateur practices until they get it right. A professional trains until they cannot get it wrong. Can you say that again? Yes. An amateur practices until they get it right. A professional trains until they get it wrong. I mean, until they cannot get it wrong. Sorry. Until they cannot I get it wrong. So in other words, you don't hear about an Olympic sprinter practicing. He trains or she trains. I'm gonna go to track practice. That's a high school student. I'm gonna go train. That's an Olympian. That's the difference. And I ran track, so I know the difference. And the point is, It's important to push yourself beyond the limits that you've imposed in your mind. Yes? Is that your quote or? That's not my quote. Do you know the source of it? I do. His name is Clinton Swain. I'm pretty sure. Clinton Swain. It's not mine. I took a course with him. I've got a whole bunch. You took a course with Clinton Swain? I took, yeah, a course. It's Frontier, you know him? No, I don't. Frontier Trainings. It's okay. He's got a great company. Company. But that's his quote, so I love it. It's one of my favorites. But that's— I like the quote, but I want to give— Oh, go ahead. Yeah, I totally understand. So you can find stuff about him on the internet. But the important thing is to push yourself. Because obviously there are times that I definitely in high school was like, I can't run any faster than that. I'm good. My coach would be pushing me, and I would be pushing back. But the difference is in a Olympian, you know, they get up on those bars in gymnastics and they fall and they get the bruises. And I mean, you know, you see these Russian, you know, gymnasts that like have trained since they were like 2 and they like don't stop, but they get success.

But the most obvious thing is how long did it take to get the 4-minute mile? Exactly. And now you can't compete. Exactly. 4-minute mile is table stakes.

4-minute is nothing, right? But the point was nobody thought it could be done, so nobody did it. But the year that Roger Bannister broke the 4-minute mile, that year, 20 other people did it. And that's probably not the right number because all statistics are made up, but you know what I'm saying. More people did it once they saw it could be done. So your job is to prove to other people that it can be done in life. That's your job. Because I'm saying you cannot be successful, and you're going, bullshit. And excuse me if you don't like swearing, but the point is, say it, BS. You can do it. You can do it because I did it. How many people have heard a rags-to-riches story of a millionaire? How many people? Right, but they go, but that was his story. Can't happen for me because I got, you know, 7 kids and it's tough and I grew up in the projects or I did whatever, but the point is, is that you decide. You decide. Somebody goes, sees the projects and sees it as a prison. Somebody else sees it as a springboard. That's the difference. Change the way you look at things. Wayne Dyer says this: change the way— change your friends or change your friends. You know what I mean? If you change the way you look at things, things change. That's how it works. It's personal responsibility. So you take personal responsibility, you hit the freaking cones, you define your success based on your values, you don't let anyone else in the driver's seat other than you. And next thing you know— and you're specific about what you want. You're specific. You're not general. You're saying, I want this kind of house. I want this kind of money. And I deserve it. And even if you don't believe it, you act as if until you do. You act as if. Because you can't— you're right. Your brain automatically says, yeah, OK. But that's what it's designed to do. Your mind is designed to keep you from walking off the top of this building without any safety. It's designed. But it's also designed to keep you in a box because you've decided. So you've got to stretch your mind just like a rubber band. You've got to stretch it so that it can eventually, you know, if you keep stretching a rubber band, what happens? It gets less and less elastic. It doesn't go back to the little tight rubber band that you had. It gets a little looser, right? Well, that's the only way to expand your boundaries. This is another Clinton-Swayne topic, but perturbation. Has anyone ever heard of that? Perturbation? Motivation plus perseverance? Kind of. No, no, it's not a combination of words. It's a real word, but it's okay. Perturbation. Okay, no, no, no, it's totally fine. I'd rather you take a chance than not say anything. I love it. I love participation. You guys are great. So perturbation is basically Let's say this is the edge of your comfort zone. In fact, we can draw it on the board. Let's say this is the edge of your comfort zone. Okay? So you're here. This is the edge of your comfort zone. All right. Anyone know how to turn a solid into a liquid? What do you need? Heat. Heat. That's right, Mitch. So here you are. Or pressure. You're right. Or pressure. You're right. So here you are. There you are. Here's your comfort zone. As you get here, closer, what happens? You get less and less, right? You start to sweat. You're like, wait a minute, wait a minute, this isn't me, this isn't where I'm supposed to be. But when you break through to the other side, you're completely different, right? Now you have a new comfort zone. Yay! But that's what perturbation is. So if you're not feeling perturbation at any point in your week, your life, your month, then you're not living. You need to feel uncomfortable to turn from a solid into a liquid or vice versa. You know, freeze it, whatever, apply extreme pressure, apply extreme temperature, whatever you want to call it. And an example of having a coach, like anybody, mentor, I want to talk about mentors. Doesn't have to be me, anybody. Find somebody who pushes you. And what you do is the same thing as jumping out of a plane. What happens? You go up to skydive the first time, they do tandem skydiving. Anybody skydived in here? Okay, I haven't done it either. I'm gonna do it one of these days. But they do tandem, because obviously they're not gonna let you jump out of a plane, you don't know what you're doing. Even though you have to sign a waiver that if you die, you know, whatever, but you know. Right, you still have to sign one that says, if I die, my family will not sue. And you're like, whatever, Mom. I better find a loophole in this. But anyway, so what happens on the tandem is you go up, you sign, you pay your money, and you're probably thinking in your head a little bit like, "If I don't want to jump, I can always back out when I get up there." Well, they strap you into a dude, okay, or a lady, some experienced person, and that guy's not going to let you not jump because he went up there to jump. You paid to jump. In fact, There'll be a part of you that'll be mad if you don't do it. So he knows that. He knows that you paid to do it. That was your intended goal that day. You said you're gonna skydive. So when it comes to it and you're like, I don't know, he's got you strapped in, you're just kinda standing on the edge of the plane, you're going, I don't know, what am I supposed to do? You're at the edge, you're at the edge, and then he just jumps out and you have no choice. You're gone. But that's why you have a coach or a mentor that pushes you to the edge of that zone and does not let you back away. Because you have a choice to retreat when you get to that heat. But then you're back in the whole process of, life's not fair, nothing ever happens for me, I'm not successful, why not? Because you retreated. But if you have a coach or a mentor that pushes you, suddenly— There's a lot of that with training. It's like, wait a minute, I had this comfort zone, now my comfort zone is like way out there. And usually your money and success and wealth in life— wealth can be defined in so many different ways as well— is in direct proportion to the size of your comfort zone.

One of the corollaries of that though is your social opinion. For example, using the project as Prison or Springbrook, right? If you try to bust out of the projects and all your friends in the project want to hold you back, right, you are not going to bust out. You're going to have to think about people in the place you want to be that will be like you. You love the people that you grew up with, but you've got to let that go and say, I'm going to now move in another place. And that's more difficult. Your personal attention is— there are people around you, are you nuts? Right.

I'm jumping out of a plane with a guy who's here on my level of skydiving, right? I'm not going to the guy that's down here and like, "Yeah, I thought about it once, will you be my tandem?" No, you would never ask that. You would never put your life in the hands of someone who didn't know what they were doing. So you always choose a mentor who's here, okay? Who's where you want to be. And when you get here, Then you get a new mentor. You keep moving. You climb up. Because the problem with that is you are the direct result of your 5 closest friends. If that's the future you want, look at your 5 closest friends. If they're not where you want to be, then change— like I said, either change your friends or change your friends. And you can't necessarily make someone want what you want. So better to have a mentor, somebody outside your circle. I mean, you don't have to use your friends. I mean, I have friends, I have lots of friends, and they don't— they're not all living the life that I want. But the people that I would share my dreams with, the ones that I would let, you know, be like, yeah, I need to do this, or whatever— those kind of— be careful who you share your success with, who you share your hopes of success with. Share— treat it like a treasure, like those values you talked about.

So there'll be people gonna push you up, people gonna shut you off. Exactly.

And some people get very jealous. Some Crabs in a barrel, you've heard of that, right? In a lot of communities, there's a lot of crabs in a barrel. Oh, really, you think you're too good now? You're too good for us, blah, blah, that kind of talk. That's not anybody you need to ever share your treasures with. So if you wouldn't trust me with your money, then don't trust me with your dreams. Period, point blank. So what time is it? Anybody give me a time check? We've got 10 minutes, okay? Uh, let me make sure I covered everything. Oh, standard of excellence. I did forget something. All right, so— oh, also, I do have something on here to go back to fear real quick that I missed. There's only two innate fears: falling and death. Those are the only two you're born with. Everything else you can learn. So just know that you were taught at some point today to be afraid of these things. So I'm not saying go play with a lion but just know that lions are not put on this earth to harm you unless they feel threatened. You know, bears are not put on this earth to harm you unless they feel threatened. So maybe just don't go be in a bear cave. You know what I mean? Don't bother them, they won't bother you. I've yet to have a bear come bother me at my house. "Yo, what's up? How you doing? I just wanna let you know I'm here." They don't do that. So, you know, bugs. I mean, I know they're creepy and everything, but I'm just saying, you know? These are fears that we've learned or conditioned ourselves for. Fear of failure, fear of success. Sometimes people have a fear of success, guys. Has anyone here ever been told that they were really powerful? Anyone? Okay. People who are powerful are more afraid of succeeding than they are of failing. Yep. It's a common problem. So, The thing is, and that's where the Cohen thing also hit me, is that, you know what though? The more you do something, the less you are afraid of it. So if you string together a whole bunch of little successes, you won't be afraid of the big success because it'll kind of hit you. It'll just happen. But when you start looking at, well wait, I'm really powerful and I could be standing in front of a stage with thousands of people and that's— ah, I can't handle that. I'm not ready for all that. Well, most likely no one's gonna call you tomorrow and say, will you please speak to these 200,000 people? You start with 5, 6, whatever, and then you work your way up to maybe 10, 20, 100, 1,000, whatever. And then 1,000 is nothing. And you fill a room like there are 1,000 people in here. That's it. That's what you do. So, Don't be afraid of success either. Just start where you're at. Don't worry about the mountain. Because when— I don't know, anyone else look at the mountains in California and ever thought— because they're like hills, right? Sometimes you look like you can walk them, right? From far away, they look like I could just keep walking and I could get up that hill. Now, once I get kind of to where the, the grade has changed, it's going to be a little more difficult. But if I never started walking, if I just looked I look at what I'm dealing with at the far away view, I'm like, I can do that.

Have you ever been to the Las Vegas Strip? Yeah. You go, well, that's not that far.

It's so far. I just walked it, actually. Yes, I was like, I was recently, I was just there, and I was like, I can walk to the Luxor. I was at the Stratosphere. It was ridiculous. Guy's like, yeah, just go down there 5 miles. I was like, 5 miles? I've already walked 2. I'm like, I gotta get on a bus. Yeah, from a plate it looks like nothing. But yeah, it's high heels. So the whole point is change your perspective. You know what I mean? Look at things as they are, but don't get— don't take off, don't chew off the whole, you know, when you bite into a hamburger, you don't put the whole hamburger in your mouth. Start with one bite. I'll speak for you. Oh, right, that's true. It's true. Some people do. But the point is, you see what I'm getting at, okay? And the last thing I want to talk about is your standards. Standards of doing. First of all, I have another expression for you. This is not a Bryn saying, but this is a quote I'm going to give you. The highest standard of excellence is doing. Perfection is the lowest. Perfection is the lowest because perfection keeps you from taking action, like not hitting cones, right? So all I can ask of you, if I say, "Kamarah, would you please get up and sing the national anthem for us?" which I'm going to ask you to do in a second. That would— all right, so— she was like, "I'm ready, I've been there, gosh, I've always been— ever since I saw Whitney do it, I've been waiting for somebody to ask me to do it." But, because I know I can do it as good as her.

But you have to imagine her walking to the stadium with 15,000 people standing there.

Right? I know. Well, because it's the national anthem. You get applause no matter what you do. But those are funny.

So you sing it, right? Jose Canadá.

But if I ask Laura to get up and sing it, if, you know, all I ask her to do is do her best. Somebody's going to be a critic. Like Patricia might be like, Please, man, I can sing that with my eyes closed. I don't even know what she thinks, she's just sitting down, you know what I'm saying? But see, that's because Patricia isn't up here. It takes a lot of courage to get up and sing in front of a group of people. It takes a lot of courage to take risks in your life, what other people won't. And just think, every time somebody tells you don't do it, it's because they wouldn't do it. And so you've got to do it. Success is doing The things— successful people do the things that unsuccessful people won't, okay? So just remember it, and that's doing. That didn't say successful people make money and unsuccessful people don't. Usually, yes, that's a correlation, but the whole point is you did something. You took an action and you achieved a result, hopefully a desired result, because you took an action that was congruent with your values and what you wanted, what you set out to do. So all I'm saying is the best standard of excellence is just doing your best, but doing, doing, not doing the best without a mistake, 'cause that's not life. I'm sorry. Good luck if you can do it, guys. If you can go out and be a gymnast on the first do and get a 10, a perfect 10, or, sorry, I use a lot of sports analogies, so if you don't watch sports, okay, so you can go out and sing the national anthem and you can sing it pitch perfect like Celine Dion could, then that's great. If you don't need any training, that's fantastic, and God bless you for that talent. However, most of us, and I believe even Celine does rehearsals, right? So if everybody that is better at it than us practices or trains, right, consecutively and got better over time, why would we be any different? And I know a lot of this that I'm saying is an I know that response. But clearly if we knew that, we would have different results. For sure. That's all I'm saying. I'm not calling anybody out, myself included. We would all have different results if we knew that like we said we do. So just refrain from saying, "I know that," and next time somebody says, "Well, you know, if you do blah blah blah," if there's somebody who you want to listen to and they're saying something that's right with you, go, "Hmm." 'Never thought about it like that. Let me see what happens if I do something different. If I take an action instead of going, "Well, I know that, and I'll get to it next year, next week, next month," or whatever.' Any questions? Alright, well, thank you guys so much. I hope you enjoyed this.

I don't think Bryn would have done it today.

I don't think Bryn would have done it today. You know, a funny story about that. I was talking about a story executive called Bryn all day. A lady came into my job when I worked at Enterprise Rent-A-Car, I was a manager, I had my business cards on the thing, and I don't know if anyone has been in an accident where your insurance pays for a certain amount of money, and Enterprise specialized in that anyway, so she wanted a special kind of car, but she wasn't willing to pay the difference, and I was telling her what her options were, and she did not like the answers. And this was clearly one of those women that likes to get things from men, like knew that she could use her feminine wiles So she grabs my card and she goes, I bet you Brian can give me good service. And I said, it's Bryn and I am giving you good service.

Can everyone please fill out their evaluations?

She's only here to give