From Doubt to Dominance & The Science of Cultivating Confidence EP 1482
11 Aug 2023 · 59 min
Lewis Howes talks with Stefan, Eddie Jaku, and Ben Smith about building confidence and overcoming self-doubt. They explore how service to others shapes personal growth and what psychology reveals about the mindset of successful leaders.
Chapters
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The physical appearance of that laziness, of that dullness, of that heaviness, it's apparent. But why is it there? You are not creating any identity of yours in order to harm. If this is what your initial intention is, then I think the penalty will come.
Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome to this special masterclass. We've brought some of the top experts in the world to help you unlock the power of your life through this specific theme today. It's gonna be powerful, So let's go ahead and dive in. What was your biggest weakness that you had to overcome as you started to grow up, you know, studying martial arts, living in the modern world and then becoming, you know, a teacher, a student in the temple. What was the biggest inner enemy that you faced and overcame or you're still in the practice of overcoming.
It seriously is still the five hindrances because it is just something common.
Yeah.
So for example, one of the next hindrances is laziness.
Yes.
Very easily. The lack of energy, meaning you have great ideas, you have great plans, All of this, but the spark to put you under fire is just not there.
Why do so many people lack the spark to act, to launch, to build momentum, to be consistent? Why do so many people lack that energy, desire, and stay lazy or dull?
I think it's a combination of the way of life people have lived before. and the lack of vision, what lies in front of them. So both of these things. So what I mean by that is not always it's just like a, let's say, the physical appearance of that laziness, of that dullness, of that heaviness, it's apparent. But why is it there? And this has so many different variations now when you look into the past, it can really be because of the food that you're eating. Because the lack of movement that you're having. Because of your habits, whatever type of habits it is that caused you to now end up in that body, which is at the moment pretty inefficient.
Yes.
To generate fire. You know, I have to say, sometimes in my spare time, I like to build engines. I built engines. I built race engines. And there for me, if I look at it, I really like that similarity. You want that engine to perform well. One of the things that then normally needs to be optimized is number one, airflow, the intake, and then also the amount of the air that gets in there, the quality of it. That's why on the engine we filter it. But now it comes to us. What are you breathing in? How is it with your lung capacity? How much of your lung capacity are you able to really use? How clean are you inside of it? Because what is it eventually that with that oxygen that we are taking in, what is it that you are burning and try to make into energy? There are a lot of things that you can eat and try to burn, but the quality of this energy is very little. There is other food, they have a very, very high amount of energy once you burn them. So that means, of course, these things, the diet has an effect also on the dullness of the body. This is the one thing. And now looking into the future, well, if you are expecting fast results, this is, you know, looking out into the.
World.
What comes fast goes fast. And especially something that is changing the status quo. of your life, your lifestyle, let's say something that is changing it too quickly. It is like, let's just say, no, no, at the moment I visit you, I see you like this. In one month I come back and you might have 30 kilograms more on muscles. I know whatever you did, it was not good.
It was too fast.
Yeah. because all these quick changes also when we look outside sometimes, I mean, let's just take the earthquake or the tsunamis or a lightning strike, anything like this, the natural forces. Yeah, they don't tell you one month before that they are coming. The problem is when they come, they very often have this destructive character, not always, but often. And when it comes now to creating our way of life, when it comes to the transformation of ourself, at least in my worldview, I take this into consideration, meaning I don't even expect myself to make huge jumps quickly.
Quickly.
Because I just feel like, okay, that might just not be sustainable. that might not just be something that is helpful on the long run and therefore to take pressure away from you, make small steps. Yeah. And this is what I mean by how far is your view on your future vision of what you want to achieve there.
How far should we be thinking out in terms of our vision or our mission? Is it based on the season of life we're in? If we're 18 years old and we're going to school, we should just be thinking out the next four years. Or should we be thinking out 5, 10, 20 years? Because so much can change so quickly in life and situations.
I can only talk about myself. And I have to say, I'm a dreamer. yeah, I'm a dreamer and a visionist. A Visionaire, probably. I don't know how you call it.
Visionary.
Visionary. My way of seeing this world where I am embedding in is super huge. That's why, of course, you can always say, yeah, but this is just your imagination.
Yeah.
Yes. Which is your most powerful. source, your ability to put something into your own mind where nobody else has impact on. And only you know that day in, day out, you just still walk this path and feel for yourself how it's getting real because it's unbroken, because there's nobody who can interfere. It's all small things. And.
Probably.
I can just say that maybe to try it out, okay? Of course you should not like dream too big, which is like unrealistic, let's say like this. Of course not. But a vision that there is something you can bring out about yourself that this world has not seen yet. This is something which is quite appealing to me and is therefore also something that I also, let's say, continuously practice and keep on the mind. And now comes the but. Whatever vision and dream you have.
Upon.
Yourself, that you are projecting upon yourself. I do think that you need to have at the same time a commitment. And first on, for example, the commitment. And what are you going to do with that identity of yours if you're gonna get there?
So you mean a commitment of, like, the daily actions you're going to take that you're committed to or. once you're there, what are you going to do with it?
The commitment now very clearly you are creating because you want to help.
To serve.
Yes.
To help others.
Yes. You are not creating any identity of yours in order to harm. Because I think if this is what your initial intention is, then I think the penalty will come.
What if your intention is to only serve yourself, is to look good, to make money for you, to get famous for you, to buy things for you because you want to be successful, but you're not including doing it in the service of other people as well. What happens when it's only about May.
You might reach it in this lifetime. But if you bring this one to the to an end or if you continuously go there, not in my vision, not only in this lifetime.
Yes.
You're gonna be lonely. You're gonna have everything you want. You're gonna have everything that blinks. You have all the reputation. It's all great. Everything you ever dreamt of, you have it. What you don't have is something that gives you real stability, something that gives you real value in this life.
What is that?
I think it is something that can't be taken off from you. I think it is the connection to other fellows. It's a connection to people, to humans, to animals, to this world and ultimately the connection of this life. And what happens with this person if he only lives this way of life? He's going to repeat himself. Why repeat? Or what do I mean by repeating? Now, I jump a little bit, but sometimes this life seems to me is like a video game. And if you're at level one and continuously fail at level one, you're never gonna move up to level two and get into touch with the next challenges of life. So if somebody is still stuck on the material level, of wanting this and that's really materialistic. So this is really the basic plane. This is a very very basic plane. This is like level one. Sometimes it's necessary you need to have it first. And then your relationship towards these things starts to shift and suddenly you find yourself that Now it's not these things anymore that start to matter to you. Now suddenly, since you're in level two, now you're starting to ask yourself, okay, now it's not material things anymore, but I love my wife, I love my husband, I love my children, I love my dog, I love the jobs, I love my employees, but they are getting sick, they are starting to die away. This is now starting in level two. to trouble you. So now it's the time figure out a way how do you walk through this lifetime figuring out these challenges of life that our ancestors lost people, our future generations are going to lose beloved people. It's nothing new. How do you learn despite the fact of that is existing. How can you still find something about yourself to still keep going, stay strong and still keep going and supporting and helping despite of these things? And then maybe level two, you manage to find a way for yourself. And then you're going to be exposed to the next type of challenges that this life is giving to you. So what I'm talking about is that I'm not sure if life is getting easier. I just think that you are becoming more mature. You are becoming more skillful in order to tackle the challenges of life. I think this is what ultimately, for me at least, seems to me like this.
Yeah, it's learning to become a better leader for yourself. It's developing these skills, overcoming the challenges so that I think I heard you say like life doesn't get easier, you just get stronger and you can manage it with more peace and grace as these challenges and pains come to you, right? When do you think is the easiest time in life? When you're younger or when you're older?
When you're younger. Out of just the fact that you have not learned yet and have not been exposed yet to all of these adult ideas of what you are supposed to do with your life.
How do you manage the level that you're at now? I'm not sure what level you're in in the video game. Is it level seven or 28 right now for you? But how do you manage this level where you're stepping into new seasons, new decade, you know, of the material number of the world you're in, the new, the platform that you're building around the world globally. How do you step into that and Master it?
I think before we talked about it already a little bit. that within the last three years, four.
Years.
I could really witness in a way how like these type of teachings or let's say my name was really spread out into the world and more and more people starting to also participate in listening to what is it that is being shared out, for example. And at the same time, I can also feel that everything I have to say, everything that I like shared, the reason why I could share all of these things is because the first 35 years before that, I was not the talker at all. There couldn't be any more quiet person than me. So I was really, yes.
Until when? When do you start using your voice?
I think it happened in the moment where people asked me to explain what I'm doing. And then I just said, look, I'm not just doing my punch. This is not punching for me. So in the martial art, for example, I started to explain, for example, the punch is not just for me something, let's say, physical. It has also something to do. What are you doing to prepare inside of you before you throw out that punch? Because if you throw out something, if something moves outwards, the question for me is, where does it get in? Because if you throw out punches, 500 punches every day, you just throw them out, where do you get the energy from to throw 500 things out? And now different ways how you can express it, but for me coming from this field of Martial arts where the yin yang symbol does matter and also does matter why it is around. Means for me I started to explain if you wanna throw a punch, there are different ways how to throw it. If you have a lot of mess already on yourself, you probably can just use straight line movements. No issue at all. But if you look at me, Small Asian, I have to compensate for the lack of mass somehow. And therefore I need to use another method. I need to use different methods to compensate for the lack of mass that I have in comparison to other people. So and suddenly out of a question how do you punch? Starts the talking discussion.
Yeah.
And honestly, I think this is where the beginning lies, where then people found it interesting that apparently there's a whole philosophy just behind like a punch. And I said, Yes.
How did you, I can resonate with the fact that, you know, you were shy most of your life, right? You didn't speak that much up. You didn't use your voice as much. You were more introverted with your voice. Is that correct?
Yes.
So how did you have the confidence and learn that skill of confidence to use your voice when you really didn't use it that much? beforehand. Were you fearful? Were you nervous? Were you afraid? Or how did you step into that?
I just had to laugh right now because I just imagined in my mind that we're very often also now in school time already, of course, my, my, my friends, they were standing in the break time, everybody having discussions. I was always quiet. Yeah, but internally, I could already like, feel like I knew what I would say if I would open my mouth. It's just that I didn't.
Why not?
Because ultimately I just thought that it's pointless. It's pointless because sometimes just sometimes the.
Topics are just superficial or whatever.
Yeah, yeah. It doesn't bring benefit to it to anything. Yeah, it's just meaning maybe that you are like, profiling yourself, but that was it. Yeah. So that's why I kept it for myself. But internally, observing people, watching, just listening inside of me, the language was always speaking. I always knew, like, what would be my answer if somebody speak to me like this?
Sure, sure.
And so ultimately, I really think it was for me not difficult at all to then, when I was asked to just. let it out.
Say it. Yeah.
Because I already had it inside. I just had to, let's say, allow my, my mouse to speak it out.
So I'm hearing you say is link, also link confidence to intention. Some people say link it to the effort.
Right.
Like the effort that you show up that you just keep showing up. And others talk about the results.
Yep.
Should we be thinking about it?
There's two. I have a whole, I call it the Holy Trilogy in the Book of Self-Confidence what is this? But the the confidence trilogy is faith. Have confidence. So if you're a person of faith, no matter what you believe in, it's amazing to me how people that believe in energy, quantum energy, or they believe in, they're a Christian like me, and I believe in both, by the way. Yeah. But whatever their faith is, that they have it on Sunday, they have it in Bible study, or they have it when they get together with their friends or when they meditate, but somehow when they walk into a business meeting, they're alone. So why are you alone then, but you're not alone these other times? So I'm never alone. So that's number one. Number two is my intention. And third is my associations, change my confidence. But here's the biggie. If you don't have self-confidence, here's what you have. You have a really bad reputation with yourself. You have built a habit of not keeping the promises you make to yourself. We've all heard this before, but there's a level. I have a chapter in the book called One More Standard. Here's how I built what I would call almost superhuman confidence in spite of my insecurity. Think about that. Superhuman confidence in spite of my insecurity. And it's exactly what you just said. It's an effort play. If you don't have self-confidence, you've never kept the promises you make to yourself. Check that box. If you have self-confidence, you've started to keep the promises you make to yourself. If you want to have superhuman self-confidence, you keep the promises you make to yourself and one more. So if I'm going to get up and I'm going to work out, I'm going to do 10 reps in the gym, I do one more. If I'm going to do 45 minutes on the treadmill, I do one more. If I want to make 10 contacts in a day, I do that and one more. If I'm going to tell my daughter I love her every day, I'm going to do that. and one more. And so that higher standard, because in life, we don't get our goals, we get our standards long term. And so if your standard is one more, what starts to happen is you go, I'm willing to do things other people aren't willing to do. And I combine that, that I have great faith, great associations, and I intend to help people. This is a formula to build wonderful self-confidence and never lack humility when you have it.
So when did you learn this one more mindset? Was this from your dad early on or was this?
It's from my dad. So we talked about this a little bit earlier, but my dad had these a couple theories he would always say to me. And so one was when he got sober, he gave it one more try. He was going to stay sober one day at a time. And then my dad, there's no dreaming in my house. There's no like, my jet, you know, I've been blessing like multiple airplanes, right? In my life. My jet was in almost walking distance of my dad's house. He's never been on any of them.
Wow.
And I would say to my dad, I would say, hey, let's go play golf in Maui. Let's go, there's these great golf courses in the ocean. And my dad would say, well, why would I go all the way to Maui to play golf with my favorite person, my son, when we can play here in Chino. It's not about there I want to be with my son. So this, my family had none of that stuff. But my dad knew I was a dreamer and my dad would always say, you know, I was one decision away from changing my life the whole time. One choice. And he'd say, Eddie, you're not as far away from these dreams as you think you are. And I'd say, Really, Dad? And he'd go, no, you're actually a lot closer than you think. But because you think it's so far away, you behave in accordance with that belief system and it always keeps it that far away from you.
So how do we bring our dreams closer to us?
The first thing is, that's a great question, the first thing is you need to believe and know that you're one decision, one relationship, one meeting, one book, one thought, one something away from a completely different life. And when you know that, then you begin to look for them. And so in the second chapter of the book, I have a thing in the book called the Matrix, and your Matrix is your reticular activating system in your brain. It's the filter for your entire life. Okay? And this filter reveals to you the world that's in front of you. Again, an example of it is, I just, I like what Musk is doing. So I just bought a Tesla.
I drove it here today. I got a Tesla too, though.
You did? Model X or what do you got? I got a Plaid. Okay, wow. Good Plaid. It's a good one.
Nice.
And so, I bought this Plaid and all of a sudden, man, everywhere I go, there's Teslas. Everywhere. I'm like, whoa, I see everywhere. Three lanes over, other side of the road. Freaking Tesla! This is crazy! They were always there. Why didn't I see them before? Because they weren't part of my RAS. So the key thing I teach you in the book, how to slow down time and create the matrix of your life. When you make the Teslas of your life, those relationships, those meetings, those thoughts, those encounters, you can very easily do this, but there's a process of repeated visualization you do that's not complicated. It's chapter two of the book and it will shift you. The other component to, I have a chapter in the book called Become an impossibility thinker and a possibility achiever. Here's how most people's frameworks, they don't have an RAS program, they're not intentional, so they keep getting, if the things most important to you are your worries, fears, anxieties, problems, bills, you will continue to have people, places, and things revealed to you that confirm it. And if you operate out of your memory and your history, if this is your pattern, your framework, you will continue to find those things. You need to learn to operate out of your imagination and your dreams. This is a different framework for life. Imagination is different than dreaming. Imagination causes you to create dreams and thoughts that never happened. When you imagine something, you create a space. Once you have a thought, this is powerful, when you have a thought, you create a space that did not exist in the world before you had that thought. And that space is now exists. And the way your brain works and your life works and the universe works is it tries to furnish that space, whether it's a negative or a positive thought. It starts to hear things it wouldn't hear. That's why like when you're in a crowded room, and they say, Lewis, you can hear Lewis auditorially over all the noise. Why? It's in your RAS. It's why you see the Tesla. Okay? So the key thing is being able to operate out of this imagination. Why is imagination so important? When you were a child, three, four, five years old, you were probably happier than you are right now. Why? Two reasons. A, you were closer to God. You had just been with God more recently. And two, you operated out of your imagination. You didn't operate out of a history and a memory because you didn't have one. And slowly over time, by the time you were 10, 11, 12 years old, Loving people installed their limiting thoughts and beliefs, their software into you. Because most things in life are caught, not taught. You catch them. And so now you're starting to operate out of history and memory and you repeat it and your RAS begins to see the things that reinforce that history and memory. And so you basically have the same life over and over again with a different cast of characters in a different environment, but the same emotions. You have the same emotional home. My dad used to say to me, every call bro, till the day he died and I'm 50 years old, blah, blah, blah, whatever we're talking about. Last thing he would always say to me, be careful. Be careful. What the heck?
And I go, Careful with what?
I don't know.
I never knew. But what is that programming from the time you're eight years old?
Be careful.
Hey, go to school. Watch out. Be careful. So what that, it operated on this fear thing, right? Oh, I need to be careful. I need to be careful. But don't make this risk. Don't take that business. Don't start a podcast. Don't get on that stage and speak. Don't do this, don't do that. You say that to an already unconfident, insecure person, he meant it lovingly, by the time I'm 50, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, be careful. He didn't even know he was saying it to me. But what was he doing? He was installing, God bless him, his limiting beliefs into me as a little boy. So a lot of these things that you believe, you were defenseless when you started to believe them. They were installed in you by loving people who were around you. And even though your life may look differently, your emotional home, the four, five, six emotions you experience pretty regularly might be really familiar from your parents, one or two of them, right? And so you need to look at your emotional home.
What's your most powerful emotion and the emotion that you wish you could let go of?
Love is the most powerful emotion in the world. We will all do everything for love. If there were more love in the world, the way we treat one another, the way we express our thoughts, you know, you'll do anything for love, right? So love is by far my most powerful emotion. It's like, Like, I love you. Then, like, when I just saw you, we didn't just hug people. We didn't just hug for, like, one second. Yeah.
And you do this better than I do. I hold people. I make it uncomfortable because I just.
Want to hug and love on people. But it's not uncomfortable, bro.
Right, right.
Because the reason you're so successful is you truly do love people. Yeah. And you come from that place. And I know we're bigger dudes and, like, that's a beautiful expression of a man. A real man is capable of real love. That's a sign of real strength. So that's the most powerful one. And then for me, I know the emotion that I wish I didn't have. It's chaos. Really?
How often do you experience chaos?
Less because I'm aware of it. But I'm going to tell you all the time till about five years ago, even when we first met, why I used to even say this, man, I operate great under chaos. Man, you should see me operate under chaos. Most people can't handle chaos. I'm calm under pressure. Well, the reason for that was I grew up in an alcoholic home. So, I'm very familiar with chaos. It became a very familiar emotion. And what we do is we gravitate towards the familiar emotions in our life, even if they're not ones that serve us. And I don't think there's negative or positive emotions. I say this in the book. There just are. Yes. Fear isn't negative. Fear in abundance is negative. But some fear, being afraid to do this podcast, to some extent, causes us to prepare. So, a dose of it, it was given to us in the caveman days, so T. Rex didn't need us, right? For sure. So, some fear is good. Some anxiety is okay. Some frustration, some anger is appropriate. It's to the dosage level. And we get these four or five of them. For me, some chaos is okay. It's fun, it's exciting, it's exhilarating, right? But getting it every day, every week, every month, all the time. And so how do you get rid of it? Well, one way you get rid of it is just be awareness. When you have an awareness of a thought, it loses its impact and power over you. It almost becomes like this, I'll do it, I'm like, I'm doing it again, aren't I? I'm doing the chaos thing. Everything's great right now. Yeah, yeah. All the houses are paid off. My kids are happy, married to a great woman. Got great friends. I'm doing the chaos thing again, aren't I? You dummy, you're doing it again. And it kind of loses its power over you. So I have a chapter in the book called One More Emotion and how to take an inventory of the emotions you have. And so yeah, man, mine's definitely love and the one I don't want is chaos.
Because chaos causes me to act out.
Of anger and frustration. It can depress me. And your intentions are not going to be as, I guess, pure. It's a gateway emotion. Chaos is my gateway emotion to the ones I don't want. Chaos gives me stress.
Chaos gives me anger.
Chaos gives me frustration, chaos gives me fear. So it's a gateway emotion.
What is the result when you create from that space of chaos?
It's funny. I have found the ability to externally create something pretty productive.
Right.
But stay with me on this. But the process in getting there is destructive. The process in getting there is not beautiful. And I used to think, a lot of successful people, -Forcing your way to get the results. -Almost through force.
Yeah.
And I still do it sometimes. I'm thinking of a situation this week where I did it. And I used to think, well, that's a superpower though, because I've created all these external.
Look what I made.
Look what I did. And I'm doing it because of that. The truth is I did it in spite of it.
I believe self-doubt is one of the biggest killers to anyone's dreams. So how does someone develop self-confidence and sustain it? with the ever going changes and stresses and uncertainties that always come up. Once you reach a certain level, there's a new uncertainty.
So, I think it's ironic that we call it self-confidence. Because I don't, for one, think it comes from the inside. I think our self-confidence comes from the outside.
You mean that's the wrong way of going about it or you think that's where it comes from in general?
We are being misdirected by the name. When we say build your self-confidence, that's the instruction is saying go inside, look inside oneself.
But.
I think that's a false direction. Children aren't born self-confident. Their confidence is built from their parents and their friends and their teachers, where they're rewarded when they do well, and they're pushed when they fail, when they can do better. Simply, you know, we know this, that simply telling kids that they're great all the time actually doesn't build self-confidence, actually does the total opposite.
Right.
Right. And I, for one, I can tell you in my own experience, my own self-confidence 100% comes from the relationships that I have. It's not some deep internal fortitude. A world-famous trapeze artist is not going to try a brand new death-defying act for the first time without a net. So it's the people in my life. It's when I do doubt myself that somebody says, you got this. When somebody says, I believe in you. When somebody says, no matter what happens, whether it succeeds or fails, I'm going to be by your side. That's when I have the confidence to do difficult things. I don't have some natural battery that just. That to me is bravado. I don't know if that's self-confidence. Being a huge risk taker is not an indication of self-confidence to me. Jumping out of a plane and jumping out of a plane with a parachute are two different things.
Right.
Right.
To me, self-confidence is measured and there should be a degree of doubt. But I think true self-confidence, belief in oneself and belief in one's cause, I could not do the things that I'm doing and I would not have the strength to have made the sacrifices that I've made or continue to wake up on a daily basis to drive to spread this message if I were alone. And so when we talk about building one's self-confidence, I think the mistake that we make is that we look inside. I think the reality is when we try to build our self-confidence, we should be looking to our friends, we should be nursing our relationships. When I'm looking to build my self-confidence, the question is who around me do.
I need to take care of?
You know, the way we bid our self-confidence is by helping somebody else build theirs. Right. It's an act of, we will build our confidence with an act of service. So I'll tell you a true story. So I did an experiment. I love doing experiments in my own life.
Yeah, me too.
You know, I have mad thoughts. I'm like, well, let's try this one out. So I have a very dear friend who has stuck with me through thick and thin, who she is absolutely profoundly one of the reasons that I am who I am today, right? And I have my confidence in large part because of her.
Wow.
Right? She's one of a small group of people who I look at and say, Yep, yep, good friend, right? She was struggling, like seriously struggling. Oh, let me take a step back. So, we decided that we were gonna, she was struggling. She was going through some hard, hard things in her life. Career wasn't going the way she wanted. Her personal relationship was struggling. There was a lot of rough.
She was lacking confidence.
There was a lot of rough. She was lacking confidence. And we would get together on a regular basis and I would attempt to coach her, you know? And she'd feel great for the hour after she left me and then it would very quickly go back to normal and we'd get back together and I would coach her and she felt great for the hour after she left me and then it would go back to normal. And I can't say that there was some profound change being made so I had her brain idea. I went to her and I said, I need your help. I said, I'm struggling. I don't have a coach that I love and trust. You've known me for years. I trust you with, you know, with everything. I feel unbelievably safe around you. Can you put together a program and can you coach me? I think you're good at it. And it wasn't reciprocal. It was an, I'll coach you, you coach me. I said, it's just, I need your help. 'cause I'm struggling. It was legit. It wasn't like I was just making stuff up. You were stressed. It was legit. I could do with the help and I trusted her to help me. And something profound started to happen. Over the course of just a few weeks, it wasn't even a few months, but over the course of a few weeks, she started to gain way more confidence. Her career started to really move in.
A more positive direction.
Her relationship firmed up. And the more that she was in service to me, the more that she grew herself. Wow. So I think self-confidence, I wish we didn't call it self-confidence, because like I said, I think it gives a false direction. The way we build confidence is with. You know, con means with, doesn't it?
Interesting.
So I have no idea the etymology of confidence.
That's interesting.
Just making stuff up here. But con means with. to confide. Let's look this up because fidelity is something to do with truth. So confide, right? Yeah, look it up with the etymology of confide. Look up the etymology of confidence. To confide is to two people, like a conspiracy is a co-whisper. That's what conspiracy is, a co-whisper. So confidence is co-fidelity.
Right.
What is it? So let's see if the instinct is matched by the etymology of the word. And which of it isn't? I'm still okay with it. Yeah, you like it. What does it say? So it comes from late Middle English, confident translations, origins and meaning. Here we go. Unlighted etymology dictionaries. Gotta love it. Where does the word come from? It's about trust or reliance. But what's the actual etymology of the word? Yeah, I'm not gonna sit here and waste everybody's time. Yeah, we can look it up later. But it comes from cum fidere. And fidere means to trust.
To trust yourself or trust other people.
So cum, what does cum mean? It means with. It means with trust.
Wow.
That could be with trust, but yourself.
I think it's been missed. That's my point. I think it's been, I think it's like a conspiracy requires, a conspiracy requires two people. You cannot have a conspiracy with one person. It's a co-whispering. You know, you commit the crime of conspiracy when you tell someone something and you're both in on it. So I think confidelity, confidence is the same thing. I think it's at least two people. who undertake the task of trust and reliance.
So she was coaching you and you saw a change with over a few weeks of her confidence built and her belief in herself.
Her confidence built and her belief in herself grew when she was in service to helping me to helping me. And so that goes back to the root of the question, how do you build your self-confidence?
Or how do you overcome self-doubt?
How do you overcome self-doubt? Help someone else overcome self-doubt. I love that. I love that. Overcome self-doubt by helping. And it's not a selfish thing, I'm only helping you so I can. You have to genuinely love and commit to the person, this person that you're helping. You have to genuinely care about their success and their confidence and their lot in life.
So.
Everything comes back to service.
And like I said, it goes back to the origins of humankind, right? Which is we are naturally tribal animals and we are We are, we actually are at our best when we are in service to each other in a cause greater than ourselves.
The more we focus on what we're lacking, what we don't have, what's not working for us, the challenges we're going through, the more doubt we're gonna have. Correct. When we're inwardly focused on what we don't have.
Oh, I wish we'd had this conversation about eight months ago because I would have written half the stuff in one book.
Well, I'm writing a book on doubt right now.
Well, because this is, because This is what the infinite mindset is all about. A finite mindset is win-win-win, be number one, be the best. Me, me, me.
Win-win-win, meaning win at all costs, not win-win.
Correct. Not win-win-win. It's win, come a win, come a win.
Because the infinite game is you win, I win, the world wins. We all win, humanity wins.
It's a whirlwind.
It's not.
Right, so we are players in infinite games every day of our lives whether we like it or not. There's no such thing as being number one in marriage. Good luck with that. Right.
That's not gonna work.
There's no one who's declared the winner of life. We come, we go. If you make more money than somebody else, you're not the winner of life. Someday you just die and you don't take it with you.
Yeah.
You know, and there's no such thing as winning business or winning global politics. But if we listen to too many leaders, they talk about being number one, being the best and beating their competition. And this was, this was me in my entire life.
Yeah, it's a lot of time. Until like six, seven years ago when I learned that doesn't work. And you're an Olympian. Well, I haven't made the Olympics, but I'm on the Olympic handball team.
Yes. On the national team. Okay, whatever. You're at the highest levels.
Yes.
Of athletics. And you know this from spending time with athletes, which is individual athletes. I know, it's all about-- where team athletes tend to be a lot healthier. So like individual athletes, when they reach the top of their game, Michael Phelps, Andre Agassi, they become the greatest in the world. The next thing that happens to them is depression. Where as team athletes, you win the World Series, you win the Super Bowl, It doesn't like deep depression is not the next thing that happens.
Some people maybe, but not in general.
Not in general. And the, you know, Olympic athletes are such a unique and I talked to.
A bunch of them for this piece. Especially the gymnasts who are like 16.
You have a billion people watching you, you win the gold medal.
Yeah.
Now what? And it is one of the most selfish finite pursuits because the entire pursuit is I'm gonna be number one. The gold medal. And they all say the same thing. I want to win the Olympics. Well, you don't actually win the Olympics. You win one event. Yeah. You know, but they all say the same thing. I'm gonna win the Olympics. Right? And then they say nonsense like, you know, no one inspire the little children. Not a single one of them on their vision boards has pictures of little children overcoming adversity. You know, they have pictures of them standing on podiums, holding medals, holding trophies, or the vision boards. It's entirely a selfish pursuit, right? And any inspiration to little kids is just a lucky strike extra that's really good for the press conference. Right? But not a single one of them is waking up doing it for the kids. I drag myself out of bed, I'm running in the rain, I miss Thanksgiving for the kids. Didn't happen, never on any planet, right? It was for me.
Right.
Right?
And so there's this, you know, whether they meddle or not, when they're done, even if they were medalists, when they're done with the Olympics and their ability to pursue, they spent their entire lives from their childhood to adulthood striving to be number one, you know? And let's be honest, they're not the best. They're just better than everybody else that day. That day. Which is really funny to me, right? Which is, you can get a gold medal in pick a sport, ice skating, and you fell in your routine. But if everybody else fell twice.
You're the best.
You're the best.
You're the winner.
But you're not. You're just better than everybody else in the competition, 'cause it's finite. And finite has known players fixed rules and agreed upon objectives. It's only the players. But it's not life. And there's an imbalance. Yes, finite games are very important. Finite games and finite objectives are essential in an infinite game. But the infinite game is the context for those finite games. I need to excel or be the best here in order to X. And recognize that this is not the end all be all. The analogy for living with an infinite mindset is not about winning.
Right?
The better analogy is exercise, right? So how do you be a healthy person? Well, you have to eat well, you have to sleep, get enough sleep, you have to nurse your personal relationships, and you have to exercise. If you do some of those things, you'll be healthier than doing none of those things, but you kind of have to do them all, right? Living an infinite mindset is the same thing. There's a series of practices. Do some, you'll be better than none. but you kind of have to do them all, right? And the way the finite mindset fits into it is I want to get into shape. I've been sitting on the couch for most of my life watching TV. I'm going to get into shape and I have a fitness goal, a finite goal that I can easily measure, my weight. I can look on a scale and I can measure the progress and I've made the goal that I'm going to lose this amount of weight by this date. And so I commit to a healthy lifestyle. I eat better, I exercise more, I'm getting more sleep and I'm watching the weight fall off and I miss my goal. I don't lose the amount of weight that I wanted to lose by the deadline.
Yeah.
So what? You're still healthier and you're on the road to being healthier and I can see for a fact that you absolutely will hit the goal later on. And even if you hit the goal, the problem is you can't stop exercising. You have to do it for the rest of your life. that's what an infinite mindset is. An infinite mindset is more like a lifestyle, which is yes, absolutely, having finite goals is very important. We are absolutely driven by goals. We like measuring things. It is much easier to get into the lifestyle of exercise and the habit of it if I have metrics. Look at the insanity of Fitbits and.
Things like that, which is overdone is.
Actually unhealthy and has adverse- Obsessiveness, yeah. But we'll talk, you know, it's not a subject, but the point is it's helping people get up and have a healthier lifestyle. We like measuring stuff. It's just a human thing, right? But it's not about winning. It's not actually about the goal. Goals and metrics are simply a way to help us measure speed and distance. I've lost this amount of weight over this amount of time, right? You cannot run a marathon without mile markers. It's unnerving. The mile markers help me measure how far I've gone and how fast have I gone. and the metrics we have at work help us measure how far we're moving and how fast we're moving towards a vision that is for all practical purposes unrealizable. Right? That's the infinite game. There's a context. And so when we beat ourselves up because we miss an arbitrary number by an arbitrary date, but the question is, are we building a healthy organization? And I would rather organizations do all the right things to build a healthy organization, even if they miss a arbitrary dates. One of my favorite stories is Gary Ridge from WD-40. WD-40 is a public company.
Huge company.
It's a decent sized company, which is.
Kind of incredible because it's basically oil.
It's just oil. It's basically one product. It's like, basically one product. It's very sophisticated lubricant that was actually made for the space program. But by the way, we talked about, you know, fancy food and their offices for, they just moved into a new office recently. They're old offices. We're a dump.
Really?
And yet the morale, through the roof.
Why is that?
People love work, because it was never about the office. It was about the people. It was never about the office. It was about the people. Anyway, they have a lovely new office now, but still about the people. That's why I said before, is it the food? Well, it depends on the company. Anyway, he was on one of his quarterly analyst calls, and one of the analysts said, you missed your numbers. And Gary said, no, I didn't. I missed yours. Mine are fine. Wow.
Right?
And that's the point, which is we, there's nothing wrong with having metrics and goals. Those are very important to human beings. But to what end? What are we serving bigger than ourselves?
Right?
So my analogy is like an iceberg. Right? So we know that the majority of an iceberg lies underneath the water. so when there's a tiny tiny tiny bit of the iceberg sitting above the ocean, right? It's the visionary who can see beneath the ocean. It's the visionary who stands there and even though everybody sees a tiny or nothing, they can see nothing. The visionary is able to explain what exists in their imagination only.
Okay?
It only exists in their imagination and they inspire a few people to join them because like that's, yes, we can do that. And they start working and a little bit of the iceberg shows. And a few people go, oh, it's gonna work. And so they commit to joining the movement or the company and a little more of the iceberg shows. Right? And before too long, enough of the iceberg shows that people can go, this is a real thing. You're not insane and crazy. What you're doing is actually in reality. But the thing is, the vast majority of the iceberg still exists under the ocean. And so what the visionary does is constantly remind us where we're going and how much more we have to do. And though we can celebrate how much we've achieved, how much of the iceberg is sticking up above the ocean, the reality is we have way more work and when I die, it's still going to be the majority underneath the ice. And that's what the movement is all about. The metrics help us measure how fast and how far of the, how much of the iceberg we've revealed. But the infinite game is understanding that the majority of our work still lies undiscovered.
How can someone overcome that fear of a classmate laughing about them or saying, oh, that was a dumb question, or just something maybe bigger, they're putting something out on social media and getting attacked, or whatever it might be. How do people overcome that insecurity?
Well, I think do you think we've taken a step back actually in in-person interactions? Communication, a huge step. Everything now is people are more comfortable in texting and communicating through social. And then when it comes to in person, something's completely shifted. You can see people having a harder time communicating in person and everyone's kind of deviating towards typing, texting or email. It's become the comfort face-to-face.
What's the most the easiest way to communicate without... Yeah, exactly.
Text is the easiest email. So here's the thing. In person is the best way to communicate, by the way. Whenever I can speak to somebody in person or sit down and see them like this, this is where you get the best. The best. This is where you get magic.
Right?
Then there's you. Okay. Then there's the phone. Phone is another great way. But when you go to email, you still have to write. But long form sentences, you have to write properly. Texting is just a couple of words. And that is where everyone's kind of shifted to gone. It's also the, when I text or when I post on social, I'm not as, it's keyboard courage.
You wouldn't say it to someone's face.
You would never say it to somebody's face.
I feel like you should only say things online with what you would say to that person's face. Otherwise, what are we doing?
Yes. If you can't look at somebody and say it, then you shouldn't write it.
Right.
But it's the anonymity that I can write this stuff and then I can take out whatever's going on in my life out on somebody else, and I can feel brave in that way. But it's such a false way to be brave.
What does that do to the person communicating in that way, having that false bravery by saying something strong or powerful or aggressive online? but the unwillingness to do that in person. What does that do to that person?
You have to check in with yourself and realize, am I being a coward? If I can't say something to somebody's face, but I can do it over text, there's something that's missing. I think bravery is something that we don't speak about, and courage is something we don't speak about. We don't do it in a very overt way, in a very physical way, in a very engaged way. It's talked about as this thing, oh, be brave, be motivated. Where is that? You have to manifest that with your body. You have to do it. And it's doing it in the day-to-day decisions that you make. So going back to my class, it's interesting. We talk about criminal justice, criminology. And sometimes we'll talk about even being, for example, I showed them a video of somebody who fell on these New York City train tracks in New York City. and there were all these people on the platform, one person gets down to go help the person. And so I asked them, Would you do that?
What I asked them.
The majority of the class, no. No, hell no. No, whoa, I'm not gonna do that. And I hear that and I think something is lost there amongst us. When the answer, at least I feel through my belief system again, is that The overwhelming answer should be like, I would want to help save another human being's life. I would want to help save somebody else. But we've come to this place where it's very much self-preservation. Don't say anything wrong. Don't do the wrong thing.
Right?
And attack in a way that's safe and comfortable, or not even attack, but you can disagree. And here's the other amazing thing. I think we don't understand how to disagree. So you can disagree, or you can be competitive. It's something actually that You're taught in interviewing and interrogations.
Are you trying to be competitive in.
Interrogation or just- so when I say competitive, I mean that I can disagree with you in a healthy way. So you call it competitive dialogue.
How's that look? If I say, you know, the sky is green today.
Okay, well tell me why you think the sky is green.
It just looks green. You know, I just see the color. you know, I don't know, maybe it's a reflection of something, but it's green, it's not blue.
Okay, so now what I would do in that moment is ask you why you think of it that way, why you see it that way.
What is your opinion on that? You're not disagreeing with me and saying, oh, you know, you're an idiot, it's blue.
Yes. You're not doing that. You're not getting, like, defensive or aggressive. Because that is your value system. So I may, for example, I have a very strong belief system, fitness and working out, it's been part of me. but that's my belief system. It is not somebody else's. If I try to impose it to somebody, so for example, when you hear somebody say, I have to lose weight, I have to lose weight, their belief system is not really based upon working out in fitness. So I can turn around and be very direct, and that's being direct with someone is the way you lose people. So what you want to do is you want to always let people talk, even if you don't like what they have to say, even if you don't agree with them. Let them go. Let them explain themselves.
What happens when you let someone explain themselves, even when you know they're 100% wrong?
You shut up. You shut your mouth. That's like, I always say that. That's my, the gift to any great communicator is this.
Yeah.
Let them go. Don't correct them. Don't tell them that they're wrong. Just let them be in their world. Now, here's the important thing. One, they're gonna say everything they want to say. you're going to understand what their mindset is and two things happen. One, you can speak now because once somebody is done sharing everything, now they can hear you. Well, what you do is you're speaking, I cut you off, I insert myself, you get frustrated, hey, you're not listening to me, I'm talking, she's dismissing me. And so when I speak, you come back at me, I come back at you, and now we have conflict. And so, for example, when I used to do interviews, I would sit in rooms with people who.
When you mean an interview, you mean interrogation.
Yeah.
I use, you know, it's interesting. Call them interviews, though. Interviews and interrogations are the same thing. So what you see in TV and in Law and Order, that you did it, you this, you that, that's garbage. It doesn't work. Doesn't that work? You're the best confessions I've ever gotten. They've been almost like psychology sessions or conversations where people progressively over A bit of time, give you what we call admissions.
A little more, a little more.
Yes. So it'll be like, Yes, I was there at the house. Oh, yes, I was there at the time. Yes, I saw her or I saw him. Yes, I left upset. Yes, this. Yes, that. And then incrementally, they get to, you get to the confession, Yes, I did it. Whatever that is, right? Whereas we go straight, most people go straight for the kill. Tell me. and it's because of this lack of patience, this thing that we know everything. And maybe you are right in that moment, but it's not what you think. It's what the other person thinks, understanding how they think, getting into their head and speaking to them. So now if we bring this back to what you asked me about, being competitive means I can compete with human ideas without it being ugly, without being confrontational or conflict, But what we've done is we've made conflict a confrontation, this very negative thing. We don't want it when it happens, people lose their minds. I have so many people reach out, especially when I do consulting. How do I, the question is always, how do I avoid confrontation? How do I avoid conflict? Why do you spend so much time avoiding it? Why do you spend so much time avoiding speaking what you, what you want to say, speaking your truth or sharing your ideas. And why can you not present them in a way where there is disagreement, there is competitiveness. I compete, you compete. No, the sky is green. Well, I see it this way. Oh, I see it blue. But why do you see it this way? And you have that dialogue. But it's not an aggressive competitiveness.
It's an open dialogue.
It's not me being a jerk to show you how smart I am.
Yeah.
And it's not me shutting you down, and it's not me having an attachment to the end result. Me being right and me showing you how right I am.
I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.
