Stop Letting Negative People Control Your Life | Evy Poumpouras

If someone listening or watching feels like they lack confidence in most areas of their life, what would you say is the way to overcome self doubt and build confidence? Some things they could do.

Stop doing things that you're only comfortable with. Take risks, make decisions. I think I've noticed that with people who lack confidence, they're quite indecisive. Indecisiveness is a big thing. And what they will do is they will go take a survey and ask everybody around them, what do you think I should do? What do you think I should do? And you're asking a person who has no ability to. You're asking someone with no expertise about something. It'd be like, love, mom. But it'd be like me asking my mom, hey, mom, do you think I should do this TV show? And she'd be like, what did you say? What TV show? Oh, you're gonna be on tv. You know, like, I can't ask my mom about a TV business decision. She doesn't have the experience. I can ask her about something else, you know, that she does have experience in. But indecisiveness is key.

How does someone build decisiveness when they do?

You got to stop asking people what to do and just do it. And then when you make a mistake, own it. Fall on your face. The more you fail, the more confident you become. You can't fear failure. I have failed, Louis. I don't even know. I feel it. I feel so much. And every. You know, and I look at it like, all right, and once that happens, once the worst thing that could happen to you happens and you are still standing, you are still there, you are still breathing like that. That builds resilience, indecisiveness. Knock that out. The minute you're like, let me ask people, stop. Choose. Don't worry about it. Whether you're right or wrong, just do it.

So we got to take risks, make decisions, fail often. Choose anything else. On overcoming self doubt that you've seen.

The way you talk to yourself in your head. Watch the language you use. Watch your mouth with yourself. So, for example, I work out, and so there are moments where it happens where I'm sitting on the sofa and I'm just like, I don't want to do this. I don't want to go run outside. I don't want to go to Jiu Jitsu. I'm tired. I want to sit. I want to eat popcorn. I don't want to do anything. I want to watch Netflix. I will never say to myself, don't be lazy. Get Up. I'm not lazy. There is nothing about me that is lazy. Why would I ever say that to me? But I will say every move. Get up. Go. And I may be bitching as I'm putting on my sneakers, and I don't.

Want to do this. I hate this.

Whatever. But I will be putting them on and doing it and then go. But I will never call myself names. And that's something I had to learn over time.

Oh, man. This is. My entire childhood was calling myself names. You're never gonna amount to anything. You're stupid. You suck. Why did you do that, idiot? You know, all these things, even something.

As simple as, like, I'm such an idiot. What did I do? Why did I put that there? And I catch myself. I'm like, don't say that about yourself. You're not an idiot. I wouldn't want another human. I wouldn't want somebody else to call me an idiot. Why would I call myself an idiot? Yeah, we get pissed at other people when they call us that stuff, but we don't.

No, we should get mad at ourselves for calling us that self.

Yeah.

What would you say are the three greatest skills that you have as an interrogator?

As an interrogator, I can listen. I can listen and have a person completely shred me and not say a word.

What does that mean, shred you?

Like, you can have somebody be like, I hate you. You're this, you're that. You know, you don't react in the interview room. Especially with the job. I would sit and take it because it wasn't my ego.

It's personal, too. It's not.

It was less personal. Yeah, but I've been able to, not always successfully, but even in my personal life, maybe without, with my husband so much, he's probably like, yeah, that's bullshit. But he's an interrogator, too, so it's all right. But typically, with friendships, relationships, I'm better at not. Like, I can have people say hurtful or cruel things and not respond. Really, I'm not saying it doesn't hurt. And there's moments, you know, you have those moments where maybe a business relationship doesn't go well, or you have a friend or even a distant family member, and, like, they send you a horrible email that, you know, soul crushing, and you just want to point out, like, just the lies or the inadequacies in what they wrote. And I have learned to not respond or to try not to respond. I have my moments, too, but I really think to myself, Is this person worth responding to? Sometimes it's hard because it's like, I hear what this person's saying, I see what they're doing, and you want to respond. And I think it takes so much discipline to not be mean to someone who's being mean to you or hurtful to you. That's tough because we all go through that. Yeah, every. Each one of us has people in our lives who give us hate. And you're like, how's this happening? Why is this happening? And you want to give it back. Especially when you've trusted them unconditionally. You feel betrayed.

You believed everything they say.

You believe you. You. You access the primitive part of your brain, and you gave them all that trust. You didn't give them conditional, you know, trust. You gave it all up. And then that relationship go south, and you're. You're just. You can be distraught. That's. That's hard.

How do we learn. How did you learn to respond in an empowering way or not respond at all when someone attacks you?

That. To be fair, I learned that in the interrogation room, in the interview room when we were.

You always like that? So you weren't always like that?

No.

You, like, screw you.

I was bad. I was bad. I was pretty bad. Yeah. I took after my father in that part, you know, and look. And I give my dad kudos in that. Like, even, you know, I talked about the cursing thing, and I realized where I got it when I'd go home as a kid sometimes, and I'm like, dad, this person picked on me, and this. That. This is his advice. Did you say you. He never taught me to be a victim. Never. And I remember. So my dad passed, and I remember. This is hard. He was. It was. We were at home, and I couldn't handle his pain anymore. He had pancreatic cancer, and I was managing his treatment at home, and I couldn't manage it with the drugs. He had to go into hospice. And then the hospice people came. And we're sitting at this table. It was the round kitchen table, and she's like, we have to take him. You can't manage it anymore. He has to go to hospice. And I knew in that moment when he left, that was it. He was not coming home. And, like, the tears are coming down, and I'm sitting there, and he's like. He's like, hey, he's dying. He's like, hey. And he says it to me in Greek, you know, he says to me in Greek, and I'll say it in English. He's like, how are we going to win the war if you're like this?

Oh, man.

He's like, how are we going to win the fight if you're like this? Stop. And so I. I appreciate that, because he never taught me to feel like a victim. And so to. To the. To the point where he died. And it stayed with me. I'm like, he's dying. He's going to hospice. He knows he's never coming back. Wow. And he's just, hey, knock it off.

So he still wasn't a victim then.

He's like, hey. To me, he's like, stop. How are we going to win the war if you act like this? Wow. How are you going to win in life? I was just like, sorry. Yeah.

What was the greatest lesson he taught.

You that, you know, he, you know, to. And he had a temper. He was worse. Like, he would actually vocalize the stuff. And I learned not to do that. He taught me not to be a victim. He taught me not to let. Even though people hurt us. He'd be, you know, he'd say to me, does. Does this person feed you? Do they clothe you? Do they. Do they pay? Do they pay your bills? And I'd say, no. He's like, then what are you upset about? And you. You have this moment.

You're like, yeah, why am I upset?

You're right. It kind of like knocks out quite a few people. And that. That helped me. I mean, it could also be traumatizing. When you're young, you want a little bit of the, hey, yeah, I didn't get any of that, but I appreciate that. And I think that that also intuitively gave me that. I'm not. I'm not your victim. And I don't even like that word.

Yeah, I know.

I don't like that word. Because I think when we think like that, we intuitively fall into that role. And so sometimes being able to, like, say, hey, f you gives you power back to say, like, I'm not going to take this. I'm not going to do this.

Yeah.

All people lie. The research varies. Some research says some people will lie 10 times within conversation. Sometimes with people, people that we know very well, we can see it. Because sometimes you'll have people say, well, I was married to someone, or I was close to someone, and I didn't see it. And because we're invested in that person, we want to believe the lie.