Unlock Your Inner Power: How to Build Unstoppable Self-Esteem - Audiobook

How to Show Up Confident in Life by Big Abundant. What's up? I'm Big Abundant, and I love helping people show up as the best version of themselves. As a serial entrepreneur, I've run several businesses, and as a hypnotist, I've helped thousands of people overcome shitty habits like smoking, nail biting, low confidence, you name it. Over the years, I realized that confidence was at the center of every session and that all change was dependent on the person's ability to see themselves differently. The instant you see yourself differently, you show up differently. I'm writing this book to help you see yourself differently. Introduction. In my private practice as a hypnotist, I have the pleasure of helping people to make all types of changes. Every day is exciting because no 2 days are the same. As I look at my schedule for tomorrow, I'll be starting my day with a session for PTSD, followed by someone who wants to quit biting their nails, followed by someone with test anxiety and retention problems. And as different as all of these sessions may seem, step 1 in every one of them is to get the client confident in themself and their ability to make change. A process that I'm really good at because it's something I'm constantly doing with my favorite client, me. As a kid, I wasn't very confident, and the negative self-talk would constantly hold me back. I knew that I was smart and full of great ideas, but I was too concerned with what others thought to show up as the real me. People see me today on stages and livestreams talking about mindset and how limitless we are as humans, and would never guess that I used to really struggle with confidence. How did I overcome it? Hypnosis, of course. Now wait, wait, wait. Before you get all scared and get to thinking about the movie Get Out and the Sunken Place, let a certified hypnotherapist with over 15 years of experience, me, explain to you how hypnosis actually works. Have you ever seen the movie Like Mike? If you haven't, it's a movie about a kid who finds a pair of tennis shoes that makes him play basketball like Michael Jordan. Now we all know that there is no such thing as a pair of shoes that would instantly enable you to play basketball as well as Jordan, and even though we know that, we were still able to enjoy and react to the movie. The reason we were still able to enjoy and react to the movie is because when we do things like watch TV, listen to music, or converse about things that interest us, we bypass what is known as the critical faculty. When we bypass this portion of our mind, we no longer stop to ask ourselves whether or not the scenario being presented is logical. We simply react. We do the same thing when we show up unconfident in life. We go inside of our head and begin to create movies about how we aren't good enough or how we always screw things up, and we react without ever checking to see if the movie is logical. We literally hypnotize ourselves into a state of mind that produces failure. My life instantly started to change when I learned how to create movies that excited me instead of movies that put me into fight or flight. When I started to realize that the same imagination I was using to torture myself was the same imagination that would help me to live out my wildest dreams. This book will teach you to do the same. As a point of reference, how confident are you right now on a scale of 0, no confidence at all, all the way to 10, confidence through the roof? Scribble it down on a sheet of paper. We will check in periodically to notice how the number goes up as you read the book and remember who you really are. A wise man named Big Abundant once said, confidence is the sexiest outfit you could put on. Chapter 1: Lies, Lies, Lies. Everything you know about confidence is likely a lie. As you start the first chapter of this book, a portion of you may be thinking that this process will be long and hard, and I am thrilled to inform you that you are wrong. Everything that you know about confidence is likely a lie, and it's time you remember who you are. Over thousands of therapy sessions, I've heard clients from all different walks of life refer to confidence as this thing you have to build, and they believe that only certain lucky people have access to the bricks. And again, I'm thrilled to inform you that these bricks are manufactured in one place and one place only— your imagination. People who want to sell you things love for you to believe that their product is one of the bricks to the confidence that you so desperately desire. This shirt, this car, this course— with the exception of mine, which you can find at bigabundant.com— will help you to be confident. But you can have designer clothes, the most expensive car, and take all the courses, and nothing will change until you learn to imagine yourself as confident. And that's the part that most people miss. You see, confidence is the sexiest outfit that you could ever put on. In fact, it's the one you were born in. And this whole time you thought you were born naked. Nope. Babies are born dripping confidence. A baby is born with only 2 fears: a fear of falling and a fear of loud noises. Any of Many of the fears that you have were learned, and that's great news because if you can learn it, you can unlearn it. Don't believe me? I remember learning in elementary school that Pluto was a planet, and in 2006, the International Astronomical Union decided that it was no longer a planet. It took one article for me to unlearn that Pluto was a planet, and I'm giving you an entire book to unlearn lack of confidence. You got this. If someone was to take you on stage in front of 5,000 people as a baby, Do you think you would get nervous? Or what if that same person expected something of you that you weren't yet able to do? Would baby you feel inferior? Have you ever been around a toddler that decided they wanted something and were determined to have it? Did they ever stop to question whether they deserved it or not? Of course not. They went for it and threw a fit if anyone tried to stop them. I remember having a front row seat to an experience that completely changed my approach to dealing with confidence. One of the things that I love about my work is that I've been studying it for 16 years and I'm still learning new ways to be even more effective every single day. 2 of my biggest influences on my approach are my children, Ralph, the most charismatic person I've ever met, and Riley, the one who changed my approach to helping people with confidence. One day Riley ran up to me and asked, Daddy, will you take me to the store to pick out Mommy's birthday gift? Before I could say anything, her mom quickly replied, Girl, you aren't going anywhere with your hair like that. I was completely on board with her mom until I noticed the look on my princess's face. She wasn't upset. She wasn't even embarrassed. She was actually confused. Really confused. She quickly ran her fingers through her hair, and once she was satisfied that her hair was still on top of her head, What's wrong with my hair? And at that moment, I had a revelation. I winked at her mom and said, baby, nothing is wrong with your hair. Go get your shoes so we can go pick Mommy the best gift ever. And as we're driving to the store, I'm watching my little gorgeous princess singing to the top of her lungs as she smiles. She doesn't care that a wildfire is on top of her head. She's exuding pure positive energy. and is as beautiful as she was the day she was born. We make it to the store and nothing changes. She's smiling, waving at people, shopping, and she never once thought to stop and imagine that her appearance was a problem. In this moment, I had 3 realizations: one as a parent, one as a therapist, and one as a human being. As a parent, I realized that both of my children were born unconditionally confident. And our jobs were to keep them confident and not accidentally teach them that they had to earn the right to feel that way. That's a whole nother book. As a therapist, I realized I'm not doing anything magical when I help my clients to build confidence. In fact, I'm not helping them to build anything at all. They were born confident, and people in the environment, some well-meaning, hypnotized them to believe otherwise. My job is simply to dehypnotize them so they can remember who they are. And as a human being, a man, a father, an entrepreneur, I remembered who I was as a kid, how big I used to dream, how I never used to worry about looking crazy or being the weird one. I just knew what I wanted and I went for it. I thought about all the other hypnotists, speakers, coaches I knew and quickly realized That some of them were experiencing a pandemic while others in the same career field were experiencing a bandemic, literally making more money than they could even count. And I decided at that moment to regress back to that state of mind and live there. And my life has never been the same. My confidence shot through the roof. My business started to do crazy numbers. I started landing contracts that I never would've went after a short time ago. I wrote this book. I stopped talking myself out of things and started talking myself into things. I remembered who the fuck I was. That's why this will be easy for you. You've already experienced unconditional confidence. You were born that way. Can you remember? Chapter 2, Remembering Who the Fuck You Are. You were born confident. Let's get back to that. Most books that attempt to help you become confident do so by teaching you techniques to deploy when you can use a confidence boost. These techniques may work in the short term, and if used consistently, can get some temporary results. But the only way to get the permanent results that you so desperately desire is to remember who the fuck you are. According to the American Psychological Association, learning is the acquisition of skill or knowledge, while memory A memory is the expression of what you've acquired. Another difference is the speed with which the 2 things happen. If you acquired a new skill or knowledge slowly and laboriously, that's learning. If acquisition occurs instantly, that's making a memory. You acquired confidence at birth. Why would you go through the laborious task of learning confidence when you can simply remember it? And after you remember it, You can express it easily and effortlessly. We will get to that more in chapter 4. The latest research shows that the earliest stage of life you are able to recall is around 2 and a half years old. Take a moment right now and think back to some of your earliest memories in life. Get a glimpse of how confident you are, especially in that time when they were referring to you as Terrible Two. Now imagine what it will be like after you bring that confidence In fact, write down some of the ways in life that you will be different after you bring that confidence forward. Take a little break, grab a sheet of paper, and at the top of that sheet of paper, write, now that I remember what it feels like to be unconditionally confident, and just allow yourself to fill as much of the page as you can. After that simple process, how confident do you feel now? On a scale of 1 to 10. Thanks to my daughter, I realized that the path of least resistance is to remind you of what it feels like to be unconditionally confident, rather than attempting to build confidence. Learning a new skill takes time, while remembering something that you simply have forgotten is effortless. Have you ever tried to remember someone's name or the name of a place, and it's on the tip of your tongue, but for some reason it just won't come out? And you know that it's in your mind somewhere, yet you can't seem to locate it right now. Eventually, you get distracted by another thought, and as if by a stroke of magic, the name pops into your mind. We refer to this as the Law of Reversed Effect. The greater the conscious effort, the less the subconscious response. Or understood another way, whenever the will, conscious mind, and imagination subconscious mind are in conflict, the imagination always wins. This is why none of those other processes have allowed you to tap into that endless source of confidence that is in every human by design. Learning tools and strategies at a conscious level may help you to appear more confident momentarily, but the only way to bring about the real change instantly and permanently is by diving back into the subconscious mind via the imagination and reminding yourself of who you are. Confidence can't just exist at the conscious level. We have to get the subconscious involved. How Did I Forget? So we're only on chapter 3, and we've already started to unpack that confidence that has been within you all along. Now let's talk about how you ended up forgetting how to be confident in the first When you were first brought into the world, you did not have logic, reason, or willpower. You were born with what we refer to as primitive mind, which consists of the fight, flight, and freeze mechanisms. You used primitive mechanisms to communicate and developed inhibitory processes as you got older. As stated earlier, you were only born with 2 fears: falling and loud noises. Everything else you learn through association and identification. From age 0 to approximately age 8, you develop a library of associations and identifications. You learn that some of these are good, positive, and some of these are bad, negative. These positive and negative associations form what is referred to as your life script. The life script is formed from what you know. You do not yet know good from bad or right from wrong. You are only aware of the associations and identifications. From the ages of zero to eight, you are essentially a sponge, and you allow every suggestion into the subconscious mind without testing it for accuracy. You do this because you do not yet have what we refer to as the critical faculty. You're able to believe in things like Santa Claus and the tooth fairy because you have not yet developed logic and reason. You simply accept whatever is being presented in the association process. During this period of life, you have millions of associations being made, and you believe most of them to be true. You learn a lot by simply observing, and you learn by interacting as well. If mom tells you that you are a bad boy or girl, you accept that. If you get too loud in the store and she says, hey, quiet down, all of these people are looking at you, you may make the association that if people are looking at you, you must be doing something wrong. Remember the story about my daughter and her hair? And the state of confusion she went into when we suggested that something was wrong with her hair. She was waiting to receive a suggestion that would alter her relationship with her hair for the rest of her life. Now think back to that time of your life and recall some of the suggestions that you could have taken in that led you to believe that you weren't confident. Between the ages of 8 and 12, you start to develop logic and reason. You're capable of making Making decisions and developing willpower. This becomes your conscious mind, which represents 12% of your total mind power. Your subconscious mind is made up of the remaining 88% of your total mind power. By the time you begin to develop the conscious mind, you have already made plenty of associations and identifications. Your environment and family have given you suggestions about who you are and how to value yourself. And you receive those suggestions into the subconscious mind. Now, if 88% of the mind believes you to be unconfident because of the associations made in early childhood, and 12%, the subconscious mind, tries to overpower it, what do you think the outcome will be? Exactly. That is why none of the other books or courses have worked for you. They were talking to the 12% and not engaging the 88% in the process. As a hypnotist, I specialize in the 88% Let's get to it. Chapter 4, Retraining the 88%. Hypnosis, imagination, metaphor, repetition. Thus far, I've spent most of our time explaining to you at the conscious level, the 12%, that you were born confident and fearless. Knowing that you were born confident and fearless feels good, but in order for you to actually show up differently in life, we have to bring the subconscious. The 88% on Board. The remainder of this book will give you a series of processes and tips built around the concepts of self-hypnosis, imagination, metaphor, and repetition. The same processes and techniques I've used on myself and thousands of clients to replace limiting beliefs with limitless beliefs. Find the processes and tips that you enjoy most and get into the habit of doing them often. I recommend doing all of them at least 3 times before deciding which ones you like and don't like. These processes were created to be simple and fun. Some of them are easy to incorporate into things you already do daily, like brush your teeth, eat, and shower. These processes are impossible to screw up. Don't overthink them, and most importantly, don't try to do it, just do it. Before we can start to retrain the subconscious, We must first get crystal clear on what it is that we want to achieve. Over the years, I have noticed that most people are really good at explaining what they don't want, but the instant you ask them what they want instead, they go silent. They've never taken the time to ask themselves that question before. I would like to pose a few questions to you. Do not skip this step. So get your same paper from earlier and just pause in between questions to give yourself time to jot down your answers. So question number 1, what does confidence feel like to you? Just simply describe what it feels like when you are confident. And you can pause right here and take a second to write. All right, welcome back. 1A, describe a time that you felt confident. Doesn't matter if it was a long time ago. Question number 2, what area or areas of life do you want to show up more confident in? Professional, social, dating, school. What area or areas of life Do you want to show up more confident in? Question number 3: How will you know when you are confident? Example: I will know I am confident when I publish this book. Question number 4: What beliefs do you need to overcome to be confident? Example: I'm not smart enough. I'm not old enough. I'm too old. Question number 5, what is the opposite of those beliefs? Example, I'm not smart enough. The opposite would be, I'm smart and capable of learning even more. Go ahead and write down the opposite of all of those things from the last question, plus any other positive affirmations you are inspired Look over your answers and allow them to sink in. Did you learn anything new about yourself? Now that we have gotten some clarity on the confidence that we desire in our life, let's begin the process of reprogramming the 88%. Chapter 5, Hypnosis. Learning self-hypnosis. In the introduction of the book, I described hypnosis as the act of bypassing the critical area of mind and simply reacting to whatever information is being presented to you, which is exactly what you do several hundred times a day. You may not notice it, but you are constantly telling yourself stories— stories about the weather, stories about traffic, stories about how you show up in the world. Your subconscious mind reacts to these stories by producing a feeling in the body. The subconscious does this automatically, without checking to see if the stories are logical. The subconscious doesn't deal in logic. This will be important to remember when reading the chapter on metaphor. Sometimes you tell stories that produce good feelings, and other times you tell stories that produce bad feelings. Whenever you are showing up confident, that means you are creating a story that is producing the feeling of confidence. Think back to what you wrote on 1A on the questions in Chapter 4. Close your eyes and notice the feelings as you remember. Notice the feeling of confidence that you have as you think those thoughts. You don't have to try to feel confident any more than you have to try to laugh when watching your favorite comedian. It's the natural response to the thought being presented. In fact, trying to feel confident would hand the subconscious mind a new thought to react to that will likely produce a result opposite of the one you are after. Pro tip #1: Remember a time in your life where you felt confident and imagine being in that moment. Notice how you feel. Notice how you're breathing. Notice the body language, the position of your shoulders, your posture. Notice what you're doing with your hands. Are you smiling? Now practice holding on to that feeling. At random points of the day, practice that feeling, and you will find yourself getting better and better at accessing that feeling every time you fire it off. Self-hypnosis. Pick one of your statements from question 5 and write it down. After you learn to put yourself into a hypnotic trance, you will allow your subconscious mind to feed you the statement that you just wrote. Read it immediately before following the steps presented below. It may give birth to images, sounds, feelings, or even movies in your mind's eye. Just relax and trust your subconscious to do what it does best. The process going into self-hypnosis. There are countless ways to go into self-hypnosis. This just happens to be one of my favorites at the time of writing. Only do this process where it's safe to do so. Obviously, driving or operating heavy machinery would not be the time to practice this. Read through all of the steps before attempting. Step 1, sit down in a chair and get comfortable. Step 2, read your statement 3 times to hand it over to your subconscious mind. Step 3, pick a spot near where the wall meets the ceiling. Step 4, stare at that spot. Step 5, in your mind, slowly count from 10 down to 0 while staring at the spot. Step 6, imagine that every number Relaxes your body more and more. Step 7, notice how the eyelids become heavier and heavier with every number. Step 8, when you make it to 0, allow the eyes to shut completely if they haven't already. Step 9, focus on the tiny muscles in your eyelids. Step 10, imagine that those muscles are so relaxed that the eyes can't open. Step 11, try to unstick your eyelids and notice that they are too relaxed. Step 12, you have successfully entered hypnosis. Step 13: Let go. Don't attempt to do anything, just relax and trust the subconscious mind to work your statement. Step 14: You may hear sounds, feel sensations in the body, or even see images or movies as the subconscious mind works on your statement. Step 15: After a few moments, Say 1, 2, 3, eyes open, wide awake, and notice as your eyes begin to flutter open and you come back into the room. The more you do this process, the better you will get at going into hypnosis. With enough practice, you will become familiar with this state and be able to go into it just by deciding to. Remember to be responsible and only go into this state when it is safe to do so. Contrary to popular belief, hypnosis isn't sleep. You still will be able to hear sounds that are close by, and you may become aware of other things going on around you. Just continue to focus on the steps and you will be successful. At the time of writing, I also have a self-hypnosis package on my website where I meet with you for 45 minutes, help you to craft dope affirmations, and teach you to go into trance. Chapter 6, Imagination, the Only Place Confidence Is Built. Oftentimes as adults, we forget the power of our imagination. As children, our imaginations take us on journeys around the world from the safety of our bedrooms. As we get older and smarter, we learn how life really works and begin to imagine ourselves stuck. If you've ever seen any of my YouTube videos, you may have seen me put people into light trances and tell them that your eyes are stuck shut. Imagine that it's happening and there's nothing you can do about it. Go ahead and try to open them. When they try to open their eyes, it doesn't work. The eyes weren't glued or taped shut, but if you bypass the critical area of mind and imagine something, the body is going to react I also say try to open them instead of just open them. The word try implies failure. Pro tip number 2, don't try to be confident, be confident. Imagine if you were to pay me for a session and I tried to show up rather than showing up. You would likely be upset and expect a refund. Then imagine how you would feel if I tried To give you a refund rather than doing it. Of course, I would never do that, but as you read that sentence, you imagined it, and as you imagined it, you couldn't help but create feelings that aligned with those thoughts. I wonder what would happen if you just started to imagine yourself as being confident right here, right now. What would that look like? Stand up. Come on, right now. Stand up. Unless you're driving or something. But imagine yourself as already successful. Imagine yourself as a happy person. Imagine yourself as capable. Imagine what it would feel like if you were already rich. Imagine being great at public speaking. Imagine walking through life confident. Imagine moving through life as you Pro tip number 3, imagine anything that feels good. Feeling good is a part of confidence. Imagination plus self-hypnosis. Using your imagination is a great way to practice and maintain the feeling of confidence, and combining your imagination with the power of self-hypnosis will supercharge it. The process of going into self-hypnosis for imagination. Read through all the steps before attempting. Step 1, sit down in a chair and get comfortable. Step 2, decide what you want to imagine. Step 3, pick a spot near where the wall meets the ceiling. Step 4, Stare at that spot. Step 5: In your mind, slowly count from 10 down to 0 while staring at that spot. Step 6: Imagine that every number relaxes your body more and more. Step 7: Notice how the eyelids become heavier and heavier with every number. Step 8, when you make it to 0, allow the eyes to shut completely if they haven't already. Step 9, focus on the muscles in your eyelids. Step 10, imagine that those muscles are so relaxed that the eyes can't open. Step 11, try to unstick your eyelids and notice if they're too relaxed. Step 12, you have successfully entered hypnosis. Let go. Don't attempt to do anything. Just relax and imagine. After a few moments, say 1, 2, 3, eyes open, wide awake, and notice as your eyes begin to flutter open and you come back into the room. Now notice the feeling of confidence that you have just from imagining. You're able to access those feelings because your nervous system cannot tell the difference between imagined experiences and real experiences. We never react to reality; we react to what we imagine to be true about reality. Even when you were showing up unconfident in the past, it wasn't the people or the situations causing you to be nervous; it was what you imagined about the people, the situations. and yourself that made you nervous. Start practicing daily what I call the art of positive imagination. Positive imagination is simply deciding how you would like to show up in the world and imagining that you are already showing up that way. Eventually, you forget that you are imagining, and this becomes the real you. Pro tip number 4: The best time to imagine is right before bed. And within the first 10 minutes of being awake, you're already in hypnosis and fresh out of the dream state. The subconscious mind is wide open to taking new suggestions. You have to imagine yourself anyway. You might as well imagine yourself as you would like to be. Chapter 7, The Power of Metaphor, the Language of the Subconscious. As a hypnotist, metaphor is one of my favorite tools to bypass the conscious mind. and give the subconscious mind new instructions to follow. We've been learning from metaphors since we were kids. Even Jesus taught in parables when speaking to groups because people love stories, and they begin to work below the surface of the conscious mind and meet people where they currently are. Unlike the conscious mind, the subconscious mind doesn't care about logic. It just reacts to whatever is being presented. I use metaphor in sessions to help people with things like weight loss, quit smoking, setting boundaries, and yep, confidence too. I also use metaphor when doing self-hypnosis on myself, as well as find ways to use metaphor throughout my everyday life. Every morning as I shower, I imagine the water coming out of the shower as hot confidence. I imagine the hot confidence cleansing my mind and body of any self-doubt or limiting beliefs. I imagine a feeling of confidence spreading throughout my body and even imagine negative feelings going right down the drain with the water. As I dry off, I give gratitude for every part of my body. I take time to moisturize my skin, and I imagine the moisturizing cream as a liquid confidence, and I moisturize my body from the top of my confident head all the way down to the sole of my confident feet. Now, as crazy as this may seem, to the subconscious mind, this makes absolute sense. The subconscious mind is childlike, and with repetition, will respond to these types of exercises. I encourage you to adopt similar processes and work them into your day. You will be blown away by the difference it makes. Think of the things you do every day and link them to the process of growing your confidence. Imagine that every Maybe that every sip of water you take makes you more confident, or maybe that your favorite food makes you more and more confident with every bite. Remember that the subconscious mind doesn't work on logic, it thrives on metaphor, so get as crazy with this as you would like. In fact, the crazier and more extreme, the better. Chapter 8, Repetition, Repetition, Repetition: The Second Language of the Subconscious. The law of repetition states that repeating a behavior makes it more powerful. Each suggestion acted upon creates less opposition to successive suggestions. In hypnotherapy, I will often say the same thing to a client in several different ways to take advantage of this law. Over the course of this book, I have given you several tools and tips to uncover and maintain your confidence. Use them and use them often. The law of repetition will take over and make confidence your automatic behavior in situations that used to produce anxiousness and nervousness. The subconscious mind, the part of you that controls your breathing, heartbeat, body temperature, and so much more, cannot tell the difference between reality and something that you vividly imagine. Have you ever woken up from a nightmare in the middle of the night, sweaty with your heart pounding. Imagining yourself confident repeatedly will make an impression on the subconscious mind in the same way, and you will begin to physically, mentally, and spiritually react to what you imagine often. I kept this book short and to the point on purpose. Read it several times to allow the law of repetition to lock the concepts in. Doing that will lock the concepts into the subconscious, and you will begin to accidentally develop new ways to work these ideas into your life. How often should you run these techniques? As often as it feels good. These techniques should never feel like a chore, so get creative with them and work them into times of day that are convenient and fun for you. Remember that the most effective times to rewire the subconscious mind is right before going to bed And immediately upon waking up. Use that to your advantage. Also, remember these processes aren't set in stone. Get creative with them and make them your own. If you do any of these processes just one time, you will feel the immediate effects, but to get that long-term, automatic confidence that you desire, repetition is the way to go. When you start seeing the changes, Do not stop doing the techniques. I've been running these techniques for years and still continue to do so because life is constantly presenting us with stories. Some of these stories enhance our confidence while others dilute it. Doing these techniques daily keeps your confidence up as you encounter things that are out of your control. Some of the techniques may feel weird at first, like anything else that you're doing for the first time. Stick with it, and you'll be killing it in no time. Enjoy that newly discovered confidence. P.S. You will find whatever you are looking for in life. As you start to utilize these tools, look for evidence that they are working, and I promise you will find it. Look for evidence that the tools aren't working, and you will find that as well.