Ask Jack #5: Conquer Fears of Being Judged! | Jack Canfield

Hey, welcome, everybody. It's Jack Canfield here. And I'm really excited to be here today answering your questions on how to create more success and fulfillment in your life. This week, I'm going to answer questions from two people who are in a very different situation but are still struggling with the same big problem, the fear of being judged. You see, when you let the fear of other people's opinions hold you back, you can never discover what you're truly capable of achieving. So let's take a look at today's questions and see what kind of advice we can offer. Now, the first question is from Stacy, and the bottom line of it is, how do I overcome my fear of being judged? Stacy writes that she's a psychotherapist who has written a memoir about childhood sexual abuse and has a breakthrough goal of selling 1 million copies and being on Oprah's Super Soul Sunday to share her story and help victims of sexual abuse heal. But she's scared of putting herself out there and being judged. She says, I thought writing the book would be the hard part, but now I'm seeing how scary it is to actually put myself out there in order to sell 1 million copies. And more importantly, give me a launchpad for speaking about this important topic. How do I overcome the fear of being judged once I start putting myself out there? Well, first, let me say this is not an uncommon problem for writers in terms of being vulnerable and not letting fear of judgment stop you. You know, I've mentored at least 10 authors with this issue of having sexual abuse, one who had been a prostitute, people that have been victims of rape, people who have been homeless. This big issue of what will people think of me? And then it's just the fear of being seen being public being not good enough. All these things show up. Now, I could tell you a couple of stories out of my own experience with this. There was a guy named David Pelzer. He wrote a book called A Child Called it, and it was about growing up. And his parents referred to him as it. You know, he had brother and sister.

Had names, but they always referred to him as it.

And it was a terrible, terrible childhood. And when he wrote it, obviously his parents, his brother and sister, everybody was very upset about it. But he felt it was really, really important to go and share that. That book went on to sell millions of copies and help a whole lot of people confront and look at and become vulnerable and talk about their own abuse as being children. And so it really made a big difference in their life. So I Think you want to look at what's the opportunity here to make a difference that goes beyond my own feeling of discomfort. Now, my son Oren wrote a book called Long Past Stopping, and it was a story about his drug addiction. You see, when he was about three years old, I got divorced from his mom. His mom was a little bit crazy. That's why he got divorced. However, I did not win custody. And so he grew up with this mom who was not the perfect mom. And as a result of that, as he got into his late teens, he became a drug addict. And when he was writing the book.

It was a big concern he had.

About how I would feel, how his mother would feel, and I encouraged him to write it. Now, it didn't make me look particularly good because I had left him when he was 3. Didn't make her look good because of the things she had done over the period of time that made him feel like he had to do drugs to deal with the pain. But the reality was, I encouraged him to do it.

And as a result of it, our.

Relationship actually deepened because we got to know each other a little bit better, and I got to know more about his experience. And that book went on to help a lot of people overcome their unwillingness to talk about their addiction, to look at their addictions that they had that they'd not yet overcome, to take the.

Map that he left and take that.

And use it in their life.

So, again, the value way outweighs.

You have to think about, what's the why. Now, it's interesting that the things you fear most often end up being the.

Things that heal you.

So we make up stories about how people are going to respond. But often those stories don't reflect the reality at all. You know, your fear of being judged is holding you back from serving others and possibly saving lives.

Imagine this. If you had the cure for cancer or a map to a buried treasure, wouldn't you just want to tell everyone about it, no matter how awkward or uncomfortable you felt? So the truth is that when you're vulnerable and when you're transparent, what I.

Find is that people love you more.

You know, I spent a lot of money working with a coach, how to do TV interviews and radio interviews.

And he taught me this model.

You know, you start up here and say, well, you probably know me as Jack Canfield, the very successful Chicken Soup for the Soul author. But it wasn't always like that. There was a time when I was down here where I was poor. I was living on, like, $79 every couple of weeks working this really terrible job, eating a 21 cent dinner some nights, which was, you know, tomato paste and water and garlic salt and spaghetti noodles. And people relate to you because you're telling the truth about where you are, because that's the people you're trying to help. So if you're way up here and you don't share your vulnerability, you don't share what you've gone through, you're not able to really help them identify with you and walk that path with you. So make sure that you're willing to be vulnerable. Now, will there be some people who judge you? Yeah. So what, you know, what other people think of you is none of your business. I like to tell people that. Now, I suggest you do this, Stacy. I want you to suggest, and anyone else who's listening to this, that you commit to telling at least five people a day for 100 days in a row about your book so that you can become comfortable talking about it and owning your truth. You know, John Assaraf, my friend who also teaches this kind of work, says if you're not willing to commit to 100 days of doing something new and uncomfortable, then don't even start because it takes 100 days to kind of reprogram your consciousness to get comfortable with this new habit. Now, also, I encourage you to look at something called EFT Tapping Emotional Freedom Technique. And if you don't know about that, you can check out my YouTube video called how to Use EFT Tapping to Accelerate Healing. And what you would do is you would tap on this fear of being judged. So you would tap on these nine acupuncture points. I'm not going to try to teach it to you here. And each time you're saying this fear of being judged, this fear of being judged, this fear of being judged, and what it does, it literally collapses that fear and disappears it from you, sometimes in as little as a couple of minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes max. So you don't really need to be living with that fear. Now, finally, I just want to tell you I'm completing a book called Living the Success Principles. And it's stories of people who've either read my book, the Success Principles, taken a workshop like Breakthrough to Success, and then what they do is they talk about how that has changed their life. And a few weeks ago, I received a story from Rina Romano. And the story was called the Missing Receipt. Now, Romina was a victim of childhood sexual abuse and almost committed suicide as a result of all the pain she was experiencing in her adult with that, her life, adult life with that. But she was saved by a man on a suicide hotline that she called. And she writes that during the financial crash in 2006, she was laid off and unable to find a job. And at that same time, she saw the movie the Secret, which I was featured in, and she started to think about pursuing a career in public space, speaking now, not being able to find a job and having a lot of free time. Her husband convinced her to write her memoir, which she did, which is entitled His Puppet no More. And later she joined the National Speakers association and she attended her first conference. And she writes, and I quote, because of my deep shame, I did not dare tell them my desire to talk about rising above sexual abuse, but I was determined to learn as much as I could about the speaking business. While I was at the conference, I shared with a couple of women my fear that not having a college degree would keep me from being hired as a speaker. One of the women suggested she read my book, the Success Principles. At first she said she was reluctant, thinking that my book couldn't help her because I didn't know anything about sexual abuse. But nevertheless, she did order a copy from Amazon, and when it arrived, she couldn't find a receipt for the purchase to give to her accountant to deduct as a business expense. But flipping through the pages, she did come across a piece of paper stuck between pages number 44 and 45 of the book, and it was the missing receipt. And then what happens stunned her. The bold header on page 44 read, in all caps, don't assume you need a college degree. And the page goes on to talk about how Bill Gates and Vice President Dick Cheney and a lot of other successful actors, musicians and entrepreneurs and CEOs had not graduated from college and had gone on to make millions of dollars. And then on page 45, the bold header again in all caps, read, what others think of you is none of your business. And she goes on to write, the following year, after meeting Mr. Canfield, I was able to speak at a TEDx conference. And my talk, healing from Sexual Abuse can start with one word, is now listed on the main TEDx channel. And I've received testimonials from male and female survivors around the world thanking me for my message. I even received an email from a former gymnast and survivor of Larry Nassar thanking me for my talk. And she gave me permission to use her testimonial, and it's listed on my website, renoremono.com now my TEDx talk is also being used in the United Kingdom for their aces, that's adverse childhood experiences training programs. And I've been hired to give keynotes to women's groups, corporate rallies and crisis centers for their sexual abuse awareness and fundraising events. Most notably, I was hired by a local junior college to be their opening keynote speaker for the president, faculty, and college professors. And then she ends by writing. And I'm never asked if I have a college degree. So my final comment is this. Do the thing you're afraid of and the field will disappear. And again, make sure to use the EFT tapping protocol on the fear that you have. And remember that you have a lot to share that's going to make a difference in the lives of others and make that why bigger than any fear you have. And then tap away that fear and know that you have a great contribution to make.

All right, well, our second question comes from Roger, who wants to know, how.

Do I make hard decisions that I know will disappoint people I care about?

Now, Roger is a solo entrepreneur and.

A consultant in the IT finance world. And his goal is to reach a net income of 1 million Swiss francs a year and create a wonderful life with his future wife and his kids. The only problem is he's currently stuck in an unhappy marriage that's making him feel like his whole life is stagnating. He and his current wife have a kid that he loves very much, but he wants out of the relationship with her. So his question is, how do you make hard decisions when it means disappointing people you care about, such as your family? Well, first let me say I can resonate with that situation.

I've gone through two divorces.

I was married first time for five years and the second time for 20 years.

I was the one who left in both situations.

And I can tell you my wives were disappointed. My ex wives and my ex in laws were disappointed, Some of our friends were disappointed. And it was that public perception. I was certainly concerned about that. Here's this guy teaching success and he has two divorces. What's going on here? But the reality is I'm now married the third time. It's been 21 years. Actually. We're coming up on celebrating my 20th anniversary. Now, the thing I want you to realize is that your needs are just as important as other people's needs. In other words, your needs are just as important as your wife's needs, her parents needs, your friends needs, whatever it might be. And also to realize that other people's disappointment is not your responsibility. You know, When I do our Breakthrough to Success workshop, I often do an exercise where I have everyone stand up and they mill around, and they go up to people one at a time and say, hi, my name is blank. So he said, hi, my name is Jack, and my needs are just as important as your needs. And then the partner responds, yes, they are. And then they say, hi, my name's Bill, and my needs are just as important as your needs. And I would say you, yes, they are. Now, they'll probably do that with 25 to 50 people before I end this milling exercise, we call it. And here's the deal. I want them to get comfortable acknowledging that their needs are just as important as anyone else's. And notice we didn't say more important. Your needs aren't more important than anyone else's, but they are as important. And too often we make the needs of other people more important than our own. And in that process, we become codependent. We are not getting what we want. We are empowering other people. We're disempowering them, really, because they think that we're responsible for how they feel, so they're not taking responsibility for their own feelings. And I want to unpack the word disappointment for a minute. It's really two words, disappointment. It's like I've made an appointment for the future, and then you dis that appointment. You don't show up the way I want you to show up. Now, what I want you to realize that disappointment is each person's own responsibility. If I'm disappointed because you didn't do something I want you to do, I'm the one who was holding the expectation that you should do this. And when you don't do it, I get to feel bad. But it's not you're doing that that makes me feel bad. It's my belief that you should or should not do the thing you're doing. So again, you are not responsible for how other people feel. They are responsible for their own feelings. Now, this doesn't mean you don't be sensitive, respectful, compassionate, fair, all those things, but you're not responsible. Now, here's another important principle. When you do something like get a divorce or quit a job or end a relationship of any kind. I had a great spiritual teacher once, tell me, if you're going to cut the tail off a dog, don't cut it off one inch at a time. I mean, that's really cruel, right? There's going to be a lot of pain if you're going to cut it Off.

Cut it off at the base.

Do it once. So if you're going to get divorced from your wife, basically tell her, I've decided I want to no longer be in this relationship, and here's why, and here's what I'm going to do, and here's where I stand, and blah, blah, blah. Don't start hinting toward it and doing all that kind of stuff, because then it's going to be pain, pain, pain, pain, pain.

Now, the other thing I want to.

Share with you is there's never a good time to do that. In other words, you don't want to do it at the beginning of summer vacation because it's going to ruin the kids vacation. You can't do it in September. The kids are going back to school. We don't want to upset them. Then her birthday's in October. The family's coming for Thanksgiving. Can't do it at Christmas, can't do it in February. It's Valentine's Day. That'd be cruel.

And then a whole year's gone by.

And you still haven't done it. So it's always going to be uncomfortable, awkward, painful, messy. That's just the reality of it. So just get it done. And remember again, your job is not to fulfill other people's dreams. Your parents, your spouse, their parents, whatever it might be. And if you don't do it, this is what happens. I had an anesthesiologist. He was a doctor. He was an anesthesiologist. He was in one of my seminars. And when he stood up to share, he said that he was having migraines all the time. Could I help him with that? When we began to look at it, I had him close his eyes and have the pain speak. And what the pain said was, I don't like the job I'm doing. And what happens was, he grew up in a family of doctors. Everyone was a doctor. His father was a doctor, his mother was a doctor. His older brother and sisters were doctors. All the aunts and uncles were doctors. Everyone was a doctor. He was expected to be a doctor. He didn't want to be a doctor. He wanted to work on cars. He loved mechanical things. And his family thought, well, that's below our station. You know, we don't have mechanics in the family. We're all professionals. We're doctors. Well, eventually what happened is he did decide to quit being a doctor, and he opened up a shop to work on exotic foreign cars. And his headaches totally stopped and never came back. Now it's Funny. I was doing some work in India recently and someone told me, in India, there's only three things you can grow up to be. That's a doctor, an engineer, or a disappointment.

I thought that was kind of funny because everyone's literally saying, okay, this is what you have to be, but maybe.

You don't want to be that.

And so you have to literally follow.

Your own heart, follow your dreams, follow what's emerging in you that you need to do. Now, another thing about this, the Law of Attraction. The Law of Attraction says nothing is more important than that you feel good. Why is that so? Because when you are wanting to create what you want, you have to create a vibrational match for the thing you're attracting into your life. Which means you need to be in a state of joy, you need to be in a state of happiness, you need to be in a state of appreciation and gratitude. And so if you're not, if you're in a state of judging, you're unhappy in your marriage, you're resentful, all that stuff, you are literally pushing away the very things you want to be attracting into your life. And I have a final thought for you. My friend Brian Tracy says there's a word we all need to understand. It's called Widdits W D I D T S. And that stands for why didn't I do this sooner? And he said, and I agree with him, that anytime that you do something you've been putting off, the only thing that happens after you do it is you go, why didn't I do this sooner? I feel happier, I have more energy, my life's working better. There's a sense of peace, relief, space expansion, etc. So I encourage you to take that action and realize that you are not responsible for the other person's feelings. They will probably be in some pain for a while and they will get through it and they'll move on. All right, now, I want to thank you today for watching and if you have a question you would like us to answer in a future episode, please post it in the comments below. We definitely want to hear from you and make sure we're helping you overcome your challenges so you can get better results in everything you do. And if you found this video helpful, make sure you like it, share with a friend who may need it, and make sure to subscribe to this channel. For more videos like this one, and for additional tools and videos on how you can overcome your obstacles and thrive in life, check out the resource page on jackcampfield.

Com.

There's a ton of great resources there. So thanks again for watching and have a great day.