In a candid interview with Dave Asprey, actress Tiffany Haddish explains how she transformed herself into a "professional overcomer" by adopting a daily mirror‑affirmation practice she learned from Luis Hayes. She describes looking into her own eyes, reciting her full name followed by the phrase "I love and approve of you" for five minutes each day. Initially, the exercise was emotionally painful, but after four to five months it reshaped her self‑perception, energy field, and interpersonal presence. Haddish claims that this self‑approval acts like a protective armor and becomes contagious, influencing how others feel around her. The conversation highlights the role of disciplined self‑talk, the mechanics of the technique, and its broader impact on resilience and relationships.
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You know, I'd rather be a professional, resilient person or professional overcomer of things. I'd rather be telling how I achieve something as opposed to how I'm constantly being tore down.
Well, you've got some discipline that. Some self discipline there. That is. That's remarkable. If you could tell someone who hears this interview, like, what you think they could do to build that same ability, or what would you tell them?
Okay. So I think the first thing they should do is, okay, if they got that crazy talk going on in their head. This I learned from Luis Hayes. And I think it really helped me so much. And I learned it when I was like, what, 31, 32. And it really took, like, maybe it took probably four or five months for things to really change. And then the more that I did it, the more drastic my life changed. But you supposed to look at yourself in the eyes in the mirror, right? Just look at the black part of your eye or the pupil of your eye.
Yeah.
And you look at yourself and you say your first, last name or your full complete name and say, I love and approve of you. So I'll be in the mirror like, Tiffany Sarah Cornelia Haddish, I love and approve of you. Tiffany Sarah Cornelia Haddish, I love and approve of you. Do that for five minutes. You're supposed to do it every day. The first time I did it, I couldn't even. I couldn't even last a minute, like, really, like 30 seconds without crying because I really didn't feel that way about myself. And, you know, and it's like the words that you say are like magic. And it programs all the cells in your body and your whole, like, energy field to be that way. So when you start programming whatever you program, whatever comes out your mouth constantly, that's what it's going to be. Right. So if I constantly say I love and approve of myself, then I'll be able to protect myself better. And the energy that I'll be putting out, the suit of armor that I have on when I go into the world is, oh, we have. She needs to be loved and approved of. That's the one that we love and approve of. And then that's what. And then that bounces off, that goes to somebody else. They start feeling the same way when I come into the room. They feeling loved and approved, too. Like, it's contagious.
