The speaker argues peer pressure doesn't exist. What feels like pressure from others is actually your own desire to be liked or fit in. Recognizing this as self-imposed gives you back control, because you can choose to accept or reject your own pressure in a way you can't control what others demand.
Here's what peer pressure is. It's me trying to be like them or me trying to be liked by them. It's one or the other. If you look at every peer pressure situation, it is almost always going to be you, the person feeling like I got to do this to be liked by them, or I need to do this to be like them. Who's applying the pressure? Them or you? Can't be them. You didn't say them anywhere a second ago. You said, I'm trying to be like them. If you understood that there's no such thing as peer pressure, there's only self-pressure. You've got control. When you believe there's peer pressure, You don't think you have control because you can't control your peers, which by the way is true. You can't control your peers. So what happens is people go, well, I just couldn't— I just didn't have a choice. There's too much peer pressure. But listen to the difference. I recognized I was putting pressure on myself and thought, that's ridiculous. So I just didn't. I have total control over self-pressure. I have zero control over peer pressure. Peer pressure is not what happens to most of us. It's self-pressure.
