What Are You Tolerating?

Hey, welcome to your weekly confidence boost. I have a question for you today. What's something in your life that you're just tolerating? It's not great. It causes problems. It's been there maybe a long time, but you're just tolerating it. Maybe it's a certain relationship, maybe it's a certain aspect in your work. Maybe it's your entire job. Maybe it's a certain relationship you have with food or how you treat yourself. For me, it's a certain aspect of anxiety. And I'll share what it is in just a minute that I was just tolerating. And what happens when we're just tolerating something is. It's kind of like it's a drag on your life. It's definitely a drag on your confidence, but it's not that bad. I mean, it sucks, but it's not that bad. And we just tolerate it. There's an old story I learned from Les Brown, an awesome motivational speaker. He talks about. It's a story of a man who's walking down the street and he's going on, it's a residential area. And he hears. He's like, what is that sound? He gets closer to this house and here's this like, whoa. And he looks on the porch and there's this old man sitting there in a rocking chair. And next to the man lying on the porch is this old bloodhound with those long ears. And it's just laying on the porch just moaning its head off. And the guy's like, excuse me, sir, is your dog okay? And the old man looks down at the dog, looks at the guy, he's like, yep, he's just laying on a nail. And the guy in the street's like, why doesn't he get up and move? And the old man says, doesn't hurt that bad. That's what most of us are doing in our lives with a lot of things, right? It's like, yeah, it sucks, it's hard, it's painful, not that bad. And then we complain about it and we whine about it and we tell other people about it and we feel self pity about it and we feel angry and frustrated about it. And we say, I'm gonna do something about it. But then we don't really do something about it because we don't want to go through that discomfort of really changing the thing. And so we're a little bit committed, but not really committed. We're not a Level 5 commitment as I teach them. And so nothing changes. And we keep tolerating it, and then we might even get a little bit of helplessness flavor in there. Like, well, this is just how it is for me. I'm never going to be free of this. Or we get into blame about it. Like, this wouldn't be happening if they weren't like this. My boss is such a poop head, right? Whatever it is, I'm sure you use poop head all the time in your own thinking. So are you done? Are you done? No one can answer that but you. I know I'm done with something. Here's what I'm done with. So for a long time, I've had in the background a fear of failure, particularly business and finances. And it's this fear of loss. Fear of loss, of money. Not just a little bit of loss, but like fear of like, catastrophic kind of ending a business. And it was always really confusing to me because I was like, I could rationally see, like, well, hey, I'm a pretty, you know, smart, motivated guy. I could figure alternatives out. Or if that doesn't work out, or if that business thing fails, I could do this, I could do that. I could always go that. I had tons of contingency plans. But that fear was always still there. And oftentimes it would be dormant for long periods of time. And that's how it is in the shit that we're tolerating, isn't it? That relationship that doesn't work for you is like, it's not awful 24 7. If it was, you'd be out of there. It's like, pretty good. And you have this nice thing and then all of a sudden you're like, oh, God, they treat me so poorly. Oh, this is awful. And then it goes back and you work through it and it's okay for a little while again. Same thing with your work. Maybe it's like, you know, some things are good about it, but some things are awful. And they're not awful all the time. So we tolerate for these phases. And then we'll have this spike where it feels really terrible. And that's how it was for me. So everything would be going fine and then there'd just be like. But it would still be background noise. It still would be having an effect on me. And I bet if you look your own experience, it might be having an effect on you too. But it'd be this background, a little bit of tension, a little bit of more adrenaline in my system than I probably need. And then there'd be these. It would be punctuated by these periods. Like, if I took on more expenses or hired more people or did something or took a risk financially or whatever, invested in something and. Or bought a big purchase, then it'll be like, oh, my God, I'm gonna die. And I had to work through that. And I would kind of work through it and get to their side of it and be like, okay, whew, I made it. But I was just tolerating it, tolerating it, tolerating it, tolerating it. Until, thanks to this whole experience with the coronavirus and social lockdown and uncertainty about the future and uncertain economic future, that just heightened that fear for me, you know, that scared part of me that wants to look for some danger in the future just glommed onto that and was like, see? We're all gonna die. Nothing's gonna save you. And it was just so freaking unpleasant. And I got to that threshold moment and know you, and you probably know what I'm talking about. You probably had a few threshold moments in your life. I definitely have in different areas. Threshold moment to build my dating confidence, where I was like, I'm gonna figure out how to date, you know? And the threshold moment in my career as a therapist and said, no, I'm doing something different, which has led to me talking to you here in this way and writing books and coaching and just changing what I was doing. And then not that long ago, I had a threshold moment with this anxiety about the future with money. I was like, you know what? I'm done. Yeah. It's not been. It's not held me back in major ways in the sense I've still been able to be successful and provide for my family and grow a business, and it wasn't there all the time. It wasn't so bad. But you see how those are, like, justifications and excuses. Isn't that how you justify, like, an abusive relationship? Well, he's not that bad all the time. I mean, he only verbally abuses me, like, once a week. Right. It's like, bleh. That's a horrible criteria. Right? Same thing as justifications. And I got done with those freaking justifications. I was like, fuck that. Enough. This is awful. This is affecting. And I just got on a rant. I went on a rant against it. And that's what I encourage you to do, is go on a rant about the situation, not a victim Y. Like, it's not fair. And they did this to me, and it's awful. I'm talking about a rant coming from a Place of like, I am the captain of my ship and I'm gonna fucking do something about this because if I don't, no one's gonna save me. The salvation is within me. I must make this happen. And actually the salvation is within we. Because once you make this core decision inside of yourself, you're realize that resources and opportunities and people and the universe conspires in your favor to help you actually figure out how to do it. So you don't need to figure out how you're going to make the change right now. You just make the decision to make that change. And so I got to this frustrated point. I was like, this is awful. Yeah, I mean, there's these spikes of anxiety that feel terrible, but even in the background, it can affect me. I could get home from work one day and there's an up or down financial thing. I could be a little more tense. I could be less open with my kids. I could be a little less playful and it's less fun. It's just like this sucking of joy. Either 5% and at times 50% or 100% out of my life. Fuck that. I'm done with that. I'm gonna break this tether in my mind. I'm gonna reprogram this part of me. That's what I realized. For me now, the how is gonna come to you. But first you gotta make that powerful decision. So what is it for you? What in your life right now? Are you freaking done tolerating? And are you gonna step up and do something about it? Yes or no? The answer. Whatever comes out of your mouth, whatever comes to your mind, you'll know if you're kind of like, man, that's not so bad. I was pretty justified. Justified? Then maybe you're not in that place yet. And I respect that. You know, I wasn't. You know, the threshold takes time to reach. I'm just hoping for some of you and for you right now, maybe this video will push you along a little bit, because we got to get in that threshold moment. Anyway, it happened for me. And then I realized, okay, what am I going to do about this? And the answer is, the universe will conspire in your favor to help you figure it out. And you need to know all the steps ahead of time. You know, the first step. And so for me, I was like, you know what this is? I need to fundamentally reprogram some part of my mind. It's just my amygdala firing off. And so I need to have much greater control inside of there. So what it is going to be a series of practices and there's these practices I use to deal with anxiety all the time for many years, but I'm going to consistently do them focused on finances and healing. And so I started doing that, I started bringing in more tapping, more eft tapping, if you're familiar with that. I started bringing in more qigong, more meditation, more journaling, all focused on what's there, what do I is it family stuff, is it history stuff, Is it learn what I learned when I was a kid? Is it my own psychology, my own beliefs? And the answer is it's all that shit. So I started doing, I'm doing a self coaching right now and as needed working with somebody to address this, to resolve it once and for all. And I will. And the same is true for you. When you decide that you're gonna resolve something once and for all, then you will and you can start a self study with it and then you can get support. Because I believe to really change something, we're gonna need even the self study is support, right? Because who are you studying, you're reading books, you're watching videos and getting a program. So you need others, we all need the help of others. But use that and you will find a way. And if your threshold moment is about something related to your anxiety and wanting to be more confident, wanting to get a shift in your romantic life, in your social life, in your self confidence, in your career because you want to step up and speak up more, anything that's led you to my world, I want to support you in that shift. And I would be honored to be part of your coaching in that process. So whether it's with Confidence University as sort of a self study, although you're with us in the community there, or in what we have called the Rapid Confidence Immersion Program, we get to work one on one with one of my highly trained coaches that I've worked with for years to guide you through the process step by step. Or perhaps even in my Mastermind program where I work with a group of people for a year or more to totally transform their confidence in lives. If in any way you're called to that, I would love to have that experience with you. And you can click down below to find out more about the coaching and how that all works. But regardless, all of that starts with a decision that comes out of that threshold moment of I'm not going to tolerate something anymore. So I hope this video has inspired you, energized you, motivated you, agitated you to where that decision becomes clear. And until we speak again, may have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.