I Feel Stuck And Lost. How Do I Change Things?

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You know that feeling when there's a spark building You know that feeling deep down inside of you that you were meant for more? That's your own drive pushing you towards what's next. Capella University gets that. With their FlexPath learning format, you can set the pace and earn your degree without putting your life on pause. You've built experience and you know what you're capable of. Now, this is your time to turn that momentum into more. The only real question is, what can't you do? Learn more at capella.edu. Let's face it, life is hard. Let's stop pretending that it's not. And some seasons are harder than others. Some days feel like a cruel joke, to be honest with you. I've been there. If you're feeling stuck right now, today's episode's for you. And I'm not gonna give you some sort of, you know, motivational poster. I'm gonna give you some clear steps that actually have worked for me in my life. One of the biggest takeaways I wanna share with you today is that my life changed when I stopped living in my head. When I started realizing that I have to start doing things to change things. They say motion creates emotion, but also if you want to change your emotional state, sometimes you just got to get out and make something happen. Welcome back to the $100 MBA Show. I'm your host, Omar Zenhom, where I deliver practical business lessons 3 times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. to help you start, grow, and scale your business. Hey, if this show has helped you in any way, it would be amazing if you dropped us a quick review on whatever app you're using right now to listen to this podcast. It helps me and my team bring you new episodes every week, and more importantly, more entrepreneurs will be able to discover the podcast so you can help someone else start their journey. So how do you get out and make something happen? Well, that's what my 3-step approach is all about. And the last step shows you how to build some incredible confidence so that when the dark days revisit you, you have the feeling of, I can take on anything. Nicole's here with me today on Q&A Wednesday to help me answer today's question. Nicole, great to have you again.

Hey, Omar. Happy to be here. I know this question came from a reply to a newsletter that you sent out where you shared that you regretted not starting your business sooner, that there was a fear of failure that got in the way. And so we got a A reply, and we're not going to use a person's real name. So Robin has sent in this question in reply to that email. Their question is, I feel stuck and lost. Nothing seems to be going right, and I don't know how to change things, how I feel, or my actual situation. How do I get out of this? I'm sure many of us have felt lost and stuck at many points in our life. So I'm really curious to hear your 3-step approach. Let's go. Let's answer this question.

Yeah, first of all, I have and I will continue to have those dark days and those challenging days. And you— that's life. Life is going to challenge you. And if you're not being challenged, then you're not really trying hard enough. Honestly, you got to push yourself a little bit and be uncomfortable sometimes. Having said that, Robin, who asked today's question, I got to be honest with you first and foremost before I give you any of my steps or what works with me and all that kind of stuff, is the hard part about being stuck isn't just the situation you're in. Whether you're strapped financially, whether you're having health problems, whether you're maybe not living the life that you planned out to have, maybe you're still living with your parents, whatever it might be. It's not just a situation, it's that you're carrying this disappointment of yourself 24/7, right? You're carrying this burden and feeling like you're not where you should be for every day, for every hour of the day. You just kind of beating yourself up. throughout the whole time that you're existing.

Yeah, I think the rumination that happens when you're still— when you're in your head all the time, I think that's where it's going to be helpful to have some strategies how to get out of there, because that's where you get stuck, right? You get stuck when it's just you and your conversation in your head or the problem that you keep facing. What is something that you can do?

Well, the reason why I want to share this episode is because often when you share these things with your friends and family, they just kind of pat you on the back. They kind of say like, hey, It's going to be okay. Things are going to turn around. I believe in you, all these things. But this doesn't really tell you what to do. Like, how do I move forward? How do I get out of this situation? And one of the things that really bothers me about, you know, modern motivation and the internet and all these reels you see on Instagram is like, it actually doesn't tell you what are the steps you need to take to change your situation. Because the honest truth is, if you don't do something different, nothing's going to change, right? If you just hope the world's going to cater to your whims and things are going to get better magically. That is delusional, honestly. And I learned this the hard way. So today's episode is about like, how do you take those first steps even when you're feeling down, when you're feeling— how do you take that like just low effort, low lift ways to change your situation? Now, I also want to mention a book that would be incredibly helpful if anybody's struggling right now. This is a book called The Biggest Bluff by Maria Korokova. It's one of my favorite books. She wrote this book At a time where nothing was going right in her life. She had health problems, she had close family members passing away, relationship problems, you name it. Everything was going wrong in her life. And she was like, I've had it. What's going on here? I'm doing everything right. I'm trying to be good. I'm trying to do all the right things so that my life is good, and it's not, right?

Mm-hmm.

And she wanted to find out how much of life is luck and just, you know, the cards that you're dealt. or how much of life is in your control based on the decisions that you make. And she went on this journey to learn this through the analogy of poker. She decided to learn poker and, you know, spoiler alert, she became a poker champion through this experiment. But that's not the point, that she became great at poker. What she learned is like, how much is actually in our control? How much do we actually have to put ourselves in a situation where we can get lucky, where we can have things move in our favor? And I love this book so much Not because I'm just a huge poker fan as well, but also because it recognizes the fact that things will go wrong. And one of the biggest themes in the book is like, don't focus on a bad beat, which is like a term in poker. Like, you're going to lose and you're going to lose badly at some point in the game of poker, usually in any given time you play poker. So you have to have a short-term memory. You have to be like, okay, I can't focus on the fact that that just happened because I have to be my best self for the next hand so that I can Maybe possibly win that next one and the one after, and eventually the whole tournament, or, you know, be successful at poker or life. This is just an analogy.

That's one of the things that has stuck with me from that book, Don't Focus on a Bad Beat, which that idea has come in many ways, like pick yourself up, dust yourself off. You know, there's so many ways that you can get this advice. I think, you know, we're not probably the first people, you're not the first person to share advice on how to get unstuck. But there's always those moments that, and where a message might land or resonate with someone in the right time that they finally get it. And for me, when she, in that book, when she says, don't focus on a bad beat, even though I'm not as immersed in the world of poker, it's such an easy way to remember that, okay, there's going to be a setback. Don't focus on it. It really, that was super effective.

I think a lot of success in business and life is about self-awareness and emotional awareness. Like, Understanding, okay, I'm angry right now. Why? Oh, because I just— something bad happened in life, or I didn't get that customer that I wanted, that client, or things are not going my way. Recognize that, all right? You have to understand that this is going to affect your performance. Understand that, like, okay, I need to step out of myself right now and realize, okay, that happened, that's okay. How do I make sure that tomorrow is better, that the next hour is better, so that I am Rebounding from this loss.

Do you think some people are better at that detachment, like stepping out of yourself and recognizing the emotion and separating? Because it's hard when you're in that emotional state.

I love this question about like, do you think some people are better at it? Because they worked on it. Yes.

Question of practice?

Yeah. No one's born with this. Like, you know, we're all— we all start as babies. We all learn something. Maybe our family or our parents taught us something that we didn't You know, some parents were— helped us with that or not. But at some point you have to pick it up. You have to work on it. You have to, you have to recognize this. You know, I wasn't given this as a child. You know, I wasn't, you know, we didn't talk about our emotions or talk about like feelings. You know, I can't remember last time my mom cried. Like my mom was a tough woman and, you know, and crying was not like seen as a good thing growing up. Like, you know, wipe your tears, wash your face kind of thing. You know, like there's nothing to be sad about. There's poor kids in Africa.

Yeah.

Like all that. You have to learn it. So like anything worth anything is going to take some effort and it's going to take a bit of like, oh, I want to be angry. I want to blame other people. I want to say that this is not fair instead of saying, hey, you know what? This is going to happen. Everybody has bad beats. Everybody's going to have a tough time. Everybody's going to have bad seasons.

Okay. So we can unlearn it. I think that's where we want to go.

Yeah. And that kind of leads me to step 1 of the framework I want to share with everybody. And step 1, And I know this is gonna sound very cliché and very, I would say maybe you've heard it a million times and maybe it's not gonna resonate, but I'm gonna just go a little deeper to make sure it does. And that's, I want you to just take a moment to stop complaining and reset with gratitude. I know this sounds like, oh, don't complain, don't be a complainer, you know, kind of hustle culture, blah, blah, blah. No, I want you to hear me out. It's okay to feel bad about something, but it's not okay to feel bad about it for extended period of time. You can allow yourself an hour to feel bad about something, But think about how much time and energy you're wasting not getting to where you want to go, changing your situation by complaining. And complaining is you are basically talking negatively about yourself. Like, imagine you start trash-talking your colleague or a friend of yours or your wife or your husband. Like, you're a loser, you're horrible. You think that person's horrible. Well, the only difference is that you're doing that to yourself.

Yeah. Turned in on yourself.

Exactly. So, so you got to stop that. And you got to start instead. I like to do a little bit of a gratitude exercise because we all have something to be grateful for. And it's very hard to be angry and grateful at the same time.

Is it?

It is. I do. Like, think about how can you be grateful for what you have, your health, your, your family, a roof over your head? I always say, like, if you live in a place where bombs are not falling from the sky, like, that's something to be grateful for.

I know, but doesn't that kind of invalidate the problem? Like the problem still hasn't gone away. You could have just been laid off from your job, for example.

Right.

And there's a lot of things that you can be grateful for, but it still doesn't change the fact that there is this problem that exists in your life, right?

Yeah. But the point I'm trying to make here is what's going to get you out of that situation? Complaining? No, it's not going to. What's going to make you get out of the situation is taking action. You're only going to take action if you feel better about the situation. If you feel like, okay, Actually, I have a lot of resources. I can get out of this situation. You know, I'm not alone. I have friends. I have a community. Maybe I'm staying with my parents because I can't afford my rent anymore, but at least I have my parents. You're not like—

there's a—

it can get a lot worse. And that's the point I'm trying to make is that like you still have a lifeline. You still can make this happen.

Yeah. I mean, as children of immigrants, yes, we've been fed the— there's always someone that's got it worse off than you. And that's how we were.

And I'm glad for that. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it's, it's been helpful, but there were times I've grown up like that, but there were times in my life where it's just like, okay, there's a whole list of things that I'm unhappy with right now. My career, current relationship, where I'm living in the world. Great. I've got friends. I've still got family, but there's all these other big areas in my life that I'm still unhappy with. And I can't remember. I don't know if this would be helpful, but it's just come to mind. Someone told me, write down your worry list. And I remember doing that. I literally remember writing down all the things that were a problem for me in that moment. I guess seeing— do you think that's something that you could do? Because you're saying like, okay, recognize the problem, be self-aware. Is there maybe something tangible that can kind of separate, help that process of detaching yourself from—

Well, you are detaching yourself by writing a word list. You're taking yourself out of the situation. You're being objective. You're writing things out. You're doing something. You're not complaining. That's not complaining. That's you just being a little bit more strategic about these are the things I want to get better at. These are the things I want to improve in my life. These are the things that are bothering me. Why are you doing that? Because you want to change it. You're not doing it just like, oh, I want to write this list so I can dwell at it and make— feel bad about myself. You know, like your intention is not just to complain. You spent money to get that customer's call. Ads, referrals, word of mouth, doesn't matter. The moment it rings out unanswered, that's not just a missed opportunity. That's a sunk cost walking out the door. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo, spelled Q-U-O, the business phone system built so you never miss a call. With Quo, all your calls, texts, and voicemails live in one place so anyone on your team can pick up a conversation, see the full history, and respond fast. Set up in minutes on any device, keep your existing number, and add teammates as you grow. No IT, no hassle. And Quo's built-in AI agent handles after-hours calls, answers questions, and even books appointments so you never miss a lead, even when your team is offline. One of the reasons I attribute any success I've had in business is great customer support and service, and Quo makes that easy. Money's on the line. Always say hello with Quo. Try Quo for free, plus get 20% off your first 6 months when you go to quo.com/MBA. That's quo.com/MBA. Today's episode is supported by Upwork. Smart hiring begins with the right tools, not more work. Upwork makes it easy to hire specialized freelancers quickly so you can get the expertise you need now. How do I know? Well, I've been using Upwork for over a decade. I made some of the best hires in our company through Upwork, and it's for good reason. Upwork helps grow your business by giving you fast access to specialized talent across more than 125 categories. So you can fill in skill gaps, launch projects faster, and scale support up or down without committing to a full-time headcount. I absolutely love Upwork because it's a one-stop platform to find, hire, and pay expert freelancers across web and software development, data and analytics, marketing, business operations, and more. It's free to sign up and posting a job is easy. And with Business Plus, you can access the top 1% of talent on Upwork. And with AI-powered shortlisting, you get matched to the right freelancer in under 6 hours. No endless searching required. Visit upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That's upwork.com to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow.

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Listen, Nicole, you've been with me for long enough to know we've had some dark days. We've had some challenging times in our business where we're not really sure how we're going to get out of it. And we saw the other side. But in those moments, in those mornings, I would wake up and I had to put out some fires at Webinar Ninja, or, you know, my lead designer got poached from another company. Now I have no designer. How am I going to create new features? I'm worried about the morale of the team. I just sat down and I just talked to myself about the basics that I have, right? I have my health. I have a roof over my head. I have a partner in life that cares about me and is with me on this journey. I'm not alone. Like I said, I live in a safe place. No bombs falling on my head. This is a reality that people don't like to talk about. Oh yeah, I know that's far away. That's a reality of a lot of people in the world.

Mm-hmm.

Like, like, that's not something to belittle. A lot of people are living in war-torn areas where their own personal safety, they don't know what's happening, right? I can read, I can write, I can speak English. I have access to all this knowledge, right? I have the opportunity to get out of this situation. And by the way, I did a little research. I wrote down all those things and I found out that only 18% of the world have all those things.

Wow.

Those basic things I talked about— health, sound mind, a roof over your head, not living in a war-torn country, can speak English. You have another chance to turn things around, a much bigger chance than most people in the world, like the vast majority of the world. 82% of the world don't have what you have. So like, that is something to really think about. For me, this works because it makes me feel like, all right, stop feeling sorry for yourself, Omar. This is not the end of the world. You have a lot going for you. You can figure this out just like you figured out things before in the past. And it just gets me feeling like I need to do something instead of just sit here and have a pity party.

I know those gratitude lists work, and it's one of those things where it's the hardest thing to do in the moment. that you need it the most. But I know we've done those lists and they have worked. I think the flip side of the gratitude list is that if you don't recognize all the positives that exist, it's that you're still in this like hyperfocus of the negative. I think that's what the gratitude list helps you get out of.

Yes, I also wanna add that this really works if you make the time and spend the money and the effort to see the world. Like most people that see the world, this is tangible. Like what I'm saying to you is like, you go to other countries where like the standard of what you think is normal is not normal everywhere in the world. When you travel to other countries and they have things that they do better than us and all that kind of stuff, and their culture is unique, but it becomes closer to home when you actually have met the person. You've, you know, had a taxi driver that told you about their family where, and you realize, oh my gosh, it's so normal for somebody who has a family of 10 Living in one house, you know, you start to realize, oh, this is something that is real and not just like something I see on the news.

Okay. Yeah. I mean, you're talking about perspective there.

Yeah.

But someone who's probably in a moment where they can't— yeah, I think—

I'm just saying investing in that throughout your life is when you have the tough times, you'll have a real understanding of like, yeah, I remember when I was— I went to India and saw those kids on the street begging with one leg. That's a reality.

Yeah. But I do think there could be, You know, we've had this drilled in that someone always has it worse. But I think I don't wanna feel like those problems that I am experiencing are invalidated because someone has it worse. No one says invalid.

No one says invalid, but you have to put things in perspective. That's the point of this exercise.

Or you don't wanna add the guilt on.

There's no guilt. There's no guilt. What I'm saying is, is that like my latest product launch failed and it didn't do as well as I wanted it to. It feels like the worst thing in the world. It feels like I'm a loser. It feels like nothing's going right. You need to put that in perspective to help you move forward, which is the next step. And the way to move forward is to put in perspective with all the problems that could possibly happen to you, right? And you realize, oh, actually it's not that bad. What I need to, you know, just like don't focus on a bad beat and move forward.

Well, I'm gonna agree with you because, because I'm the product of that.

I know that people feel like this is like, oh yeah, that's true. It is true. These are real people in the real world, right? That like, the only difference is that they were born there and you were not. Like, we have to recognize the fact that like, you are blessed, right? We are blessed to have the things that we have, the opportunities that we have. So like, you have to put it in context, you know?

Sure. If you're listening to this podcast, you've got access to the internet. If you're able to, you know, write—

This is so easy for us to do this for when we, when we want to punch up. So easy for like, oh, woe to me, Jeff Bezos's jet didn't work. He couldn't go anywhere. Like, we could do this for the people above us, but people below us are like, Oh, there's somebody else. We don't know them. Like, you know, we have to think about that. It's a reality. Let's move on to step two. Step two is to do something, anything, any small step. And this is probably the most important step because this is what's actually going to change things for you. This is what's actually going to make things start to feel better, and you're going to start getting some momentum, and you're going to get some wins, and you're going to start to realize, oh, I'm actually almost where I need to go. So This only happens if you just start. The thing is that that's the hardest part. So you need to figure out what is the smallest micro step I need to do. Say for example, you're overwhelmed with your finances. You're not sure if you're in debt. You don't know how much in debt you are, blah, blah, blah. One small step you could do is literally create a Google Sheet, name the Google Sheet. That's it. That's one step. The sheet exists, right? You're taking a step. For example, when I was 20 years old, I was really financially strapped. I was just making enough to pay my bills. I couldn't get ahead. head. I didn't have any discretionary money. I was still kind of in university and trying to make things happen. And I wanted to start building money on the side. I wanted to learn how to build a side hustle, how to start a business, all that kind of stuff. And I couldn't afford taking a course or anything like that. But there was a bookstore across the road from my job. It was a Barnes Noble. And I walked into the store and I went into the business section and there was This book that was in bright yellow called Online Business for Dummies. I picked up that book, and when I say picked up, I mean I picked it up from the shelf and started reading it in the bookstore because I didn't have the money to buy the book, right? At the time, this is like, you know, $10 or something like that, but like, I just didn't have that kind of money to spend. And I would read it for like 30 minutes, put it down, go back to work. This is during my lunch break.

Mm-hmm.

And then the next day during lunch, I'd eat my lunch really quickly, go to the Barnes Noble across the street, Read another 30 minutes. And I did that until I finished that book. And the funny thing is, is that like that book gave me some insights and gave me enough to take the next step, which taught me about eBay. And that's when I had an eBay store where I started to sell rare Air Jordans. And about a few months later, I made my first, I think, $30 or $40 where I just basically bought a pair of Jordans, sold it to somebody else who wants it, made the difference. It's called arbitrage. And I did it with no money. I did it with very limited information. I remember I used my mom's computer in her, you know, in the house to build my eBay store. I didn't even use my computer. But the point I'm trying to make here is that like as little action as possible to get the ball rolling, you have to get something going, right? The book gives you ideas. The ideas get you to take some thoughts. Oh, maybe I should do this. Let me try that out. Let me, next time I go to my mom's house, I'm going to open up and see what this ebay.com is. You have to do something. A small step is a step. And as you take each step, take another step, you take another step, take another step. And this applies to everything, applies to getting healthy. This applies to getting better with finances, deals with relationship problems. Any little step moving forward is going to help you.

Do you think though, you found your first step in a book? Do you think there's other ways like I mean, it almost sounds like you picked up a book and you were looking for a business book because you kind of knew that you were going to go into, into business. I mean, it just seems a little bit not easy. What if I don't know where to turn for that first step? I mean, such an overwhelmed situation. What is my first step?

Any step, any step.

Going for a walk?

Do anything, like do anything in the direction. Like say, for example, like I want to change my life. I want to do something else with my career. All right. Start going dancing. Maybe you want to be a dancer. Try anything. Do something. The motion itself, trying something else, will make you feel like, I'm in control. I can do something to actually contribute to my own life and the direction it's moving in. I also want to comment on the fact that it's easy. Not easy. It's not easy. How many people are going to dedicate half their lunch break for 3 weeks to read a book?

You have a focus. It's true.

It's not easy. And it's embarrassing to walk into a bookstore And to know that you're kind of loitering and reading a book that you're not gonna buy, and like, this guy again, whatever. And I used to have this fear that someone's gonna buy the book and I'm not gonna have access to it.

Yeah.

You know, and that feeling and not feeling like, oh, I can't even afford $10, that, that feeling, not easy, but you have to get over it. And I love the fact that you brought that up because anything that I look back on and I feel proud about and I feel like, man, that really got me over the hump, that allowed me to change my state, that allowed me to change my life and feel better about myself. Wasn't easy. It's like so hard because you're going against comfort. You're going against the norm. You're going against what you normally do. Guess what happens when you do something that's different? Different things happen in your life when you change things. When you go to a new restaurant, you're going to have a new experience. You go to a new place to work out, you're going to meet new people, you're going to have new friends. You go to a different country for a holiday than the place you always go to, you're going to have a different experience and learn a new few words in that language. Like you're going to gain something new. Hey, by the way, thanks so much for tuning in today, watching, listening to today's episode. We have an upcoming episode Nicole and I are really excited about. It's a Q&A Wednesday episode where we answer the question, what do I do when a potential customer seems interested but just ghosts me? Right? They just don't answer my emails, my phone calls. They were really promising on the first conversation. What do I do? In that episode, I'm going to share with you why it's actually very uncommon that people are completely uninterested. And what to do so you, that you can make sure that you're top of mind so that when they're ready to buy, you're there. Hit subscribe so you don't miss that episode. All right. That takes us to step number 3. I said step number 2 is the most important because you have to take that first step. This is probably a very close second, which is you have to be consistent. You have to take action not once, not twice. That's not enough. You have to recommit every single day to take action. Every time you take action, that is a recommitment to yourself that I actually want this. I want to go after this. This is part of my identity. This is who I am. I'm a person that is a doer that accomplishes things. And when I see anybody who succeeds at anything, an athlete, a musician, an actor, a scientist, there's somebody just shows up every day and does the work and understands that that's what it's going to take. With my very simple example with the bookstore, you know, I had to show up every day to the bookstore to read the book. I not only did read the book, but I had to take action and implement what I was learning. I went to ebay.com, signed up for an account, figured out how to create a store, realized, okay, how do I set my pricing? What about shipping? What do I do about shipping? I looked into that. I figured that out. You know, I went back to the book to look up for this information. So every day I'm doing something. So I'm moving forward. This momentum is very, very powerful because it gets you going. It gets you feeling like I'm making progress. And you start gaining some wins, even though they're just mental wins that like, I'm, I'm somebody that actually knows this stuff now. I'm somebody that has an eBay store. I didn't make any money yet, but I am technically a business owner now. So it just feels like you're making progress because you are making progress.

I feel like sometimes you think you can draw from other areas in your life where you are showing up consistently and, or you are doing something where there is progress that you might not even be aware of because you're so zeroed in on this one problem or whatever area of life or multiple areas of life that are going on, you're zeroed in there, but maybe the fact that you're someone that is always there for their friends, always picks up the phone, always shows up to the gym, something that shows you actually I am capable. I'm just now so zeroed in on this problem that I don't see the other traits that I have or the other ways that I actually can prove to myself or have proven to myself already quietly without my knowing that can do things or—

Yeah. And I want to kind of use what you just said. to make a point. You said that, you know, I'm somebody that shows up for my friends consistently. Like I'm a good friend. That's who you are.

Mm-hmm.

That's good. You wanna change who you are. You wanna do something to show that you are now somebody that also is good with money, that also is fit. Mm-hmm. Nothing really changes until you change. Mm-hmm. Right, right now you're doing this consistent thing and showing up for your friends cuz you're a good friend. That's your identity. And I think identity is a big piece. Identity for me is a big driver. If my identity is to be healthy, then healthy people go to the gym every day, or they, mm-hmm, at least exercise a few times a week. Mm-hmm. A healthy person is conscious of what they eat. If I want to make sure that I don't consider myself a liar, I need to do the things that align with my identity. Mm-hmm. So you just brought up a point where like, I identify as a good friend, so I have to show up. Why do you feel like you have to show up? Because I don't wanna— that's how I perceive myself. So you have to start perceiving yourself as something different so you can start doing things differently.

Do you believe in affirmations? Do you feel like if you write down those, I believe I am, Capable of success. Is that something that you feel like can change your identity?

I don't have the exact study at hand, but this is not a belief. This is a fact. Like the fact that you are saying something to yourself, you change what you believe about yourself and you start doing things differently. People think that, oh, they just manifest things, just happen. No, the reason why they happen is because you are doing it, right? If I believe, like for example, Michael Jackson wrote on his mirror every morning, best-selling album of all time. And he would tell himself, I, I'm gonna be the best artist of all time, best artist of all time. Thriller didn't become the best-selling artist of all time or the best-selling album of all time because he wrote it on the mirror.

Yeah.

It became the best-selling album of all time because he recorded 80+ tracks. 10 of 'em became Thriller. He worked with the best producer of all time, Quincy Jones. He's obviously talented, but he worked really hard on it and he worked really hard on it because he wanted And he told himself, I need to create the best-selling album of all time. People would kind of get it twisted and don't realize, like, he took a lot of action to make that happen. And the action came because he believed that's what his destiny is. I need to act as if I will have the best-selling album of all time.

Yeah, there's definitely studies, and I believe that affirmations work. I think they're very powerful.

Well, for some reason, people don't think that it works for themselves, but it works externally. Like, why do we have coaches? Why, why is there Home court advantage in sports, when people are cheering you on and saying, go for it, and shouting at the other team, and the coach says, I believe in you, go for it. Why do we believe that stuff works? Feeling encouraged, feeling great. But when it comes from ourselves, like, no, that's bull. No, that's not. It's the same thing. You just actually have access to it 24/7. And kind of, we touched on this a bit, but the secret to real confidence, and I don't mean like bravado or cockiness. Real confidence is built by you never breaking promises to yourself, big and small. Every time you say, I'm going to do something, and then you do it, you build a brick in the foundation of your confidence. You start to build a stack of evidence that you actually do what you say you're going to do, and you're able to do it. And this is why it's really important to do the small things. A lot of people just like, oh, I didn't go to the gym today. That's no big deal. It's a small thing. No, the small things matter cuz they're actually easy ways to build your confidence. If you say, hey, I'm gonna go for a 10-minute run and you put on your shoes and go for a 10-minute run and come back, you know, even if it's just 10 minutes, you are building confidence in yourself because like you're a doer. I believe in myself cuz when I say I'm gonna do something, I actually fulfill it and I make it happen. So what else can I make things happen?

Mm-hmm.

You know, what other things can I think that are hard or difficult or impossible? that I can make things happen. I mean, I can give like a plethora of examples when we talk about entrepreneurs and people that we look up to and creators and innovators that created things that people thought were impossible, right? But they did it not because they're some sort of genius, it's because they built this bank of confidence of like small things, little things, bigger things where it's like, yeah, I know that the chances are slim, but I gotta try. There's a good chance I can make it happen. So if you want big things to change in your life and you wanna have the confidence and feel like, hey, I can do anything, you have to have some sort of evidence With yourself, within yourself, to believe in yourself that you actually can pull things off.

Um, you said like that if you break, you know, let's take the breaking a streak, a gym streak, a healthy eating plan streak. We all have broken that streak, right? Do you think though, it's more about not the fact that you break the streak is that maybe, yeah, you break a streak, but then you're able to not let that deter you. Like, okay, that's it. I'm done. This is not me. Like you might break it for three days, but then you get back on.

Why do people get back on? Because they realize that's not me. I work out. I eat healthy. I um whatever you're trying to do consistently. Like that that's not me. You realize that that I just made a mistake. I just fell for a moment. It was you know an aberration. People go back because they're like that's not me. But when people just say oh that's it, like then you have to question do you really want this? Do you really actually want to be healthy? Because If it just takes one little mistake for you to just like give up on the whole promise of the whole mission, you know?

Yeah, that okay. So you're not saying like as soon as you break the streak, you've broken that promise to yourself. You're doomed.

No. Yeah, no. I equate it to like going on a road trip. You go on a road trip and like you you have an idea of like okay, we're going to get to this destination. You know, we're going to sleep the night at this town and da da da da. What if something happens? You get a flat and then you fix the flat and now that timeline is gone. You're gonna be like that's it. Let's turn around. Not going on this holiday anymore. Forget it. Like, I'm a loser. Like, no, like, that's gonna happen. We just talked about this earlier. Issues will happen, problems will happen, bad days are gonna happen. You're gonna get a flat tire once in a while, and that's okay. You just gotta pick yourself up and start again. And the thing is, is that I always say that consistency is one of those things you just don't want to turn your back on.

Mm-hmm.

Because if you— and you don't want to turn your back on it for very long because one day is fine. But like I always say, like, it's like a 10x thing. You turn your back on going to the gym for 1 week, it's gonna turn your back on you for a month. Like, it's, it's really— or 10 weeks, whatever, 10x. It's like you have to be very careful with that because the longer you don't do something, the harder it is to get back on the horse and to do it again.

Right.

So really, that consistency allows you to build that internal proof within yourself that you know inside of you that you can do things, you can make things happen. If you're in a tough situation, you have a sense of confidence like, oh, I can get outta this. I've been in these situations and I've been fine cuz I didn't, you know, give up. I didn't talk bad about myself. I focused on being grateful. I took action. I know the drill. I've seen this episode before. I could do this.

Mm-hmm.

So that is one of the biggest gifts I got in my life is learning this idea of like, this is how you build confidence is that you start to realize that, hey, I am unstoppable cuz I proved to myself that I'm unstoppable. Through days, months, years of practice. There's one more thing I wanna say to Robin who asked today's question and anybody else who's listening, and this is really resonating with you. I gotta be honest, it's very important for you to do whatever you wanna do in life, in business, whatever your goals are. You have to do it for you. And you is very important because if you try to do it for somebody else, they're not gonna be there to save you. They're not gonna be there to help you out. You have to care about this more than anybody else. You have to be able to say, hey, even if nobody's on my side, I gotta be able to— and hopefully that's not the situation, but I gotta be able to do it because I want this to happen. Because the sad truth is, is that no one really cares if you succeed or fail. Okay? No one really cares. Your family is gonna love you no matter what. Your friends that have their own problems and their own issues and their own ambitions, your colleagues or contemporaries, they're looking out for themselves. Right. So you have to do this for you. Stop worrying about what other people are going to think. Stop worrying about, you know, if this is something that is going to, you know, alienate me, or maybe people are going to look differently at me. You have to do this feeling like this is something that's really important to me. I'm going to go after it because I want this.

I've heard sometimes people say no one's coming to save you. They've phrased it that way.

It's not always applicable. I mean, there's a lot of people that have some daddies that can save them. Yes. That's kind of the idea. People are waiting for permission or waiting for somebody to come and swoop them off their feet and make everything better. That's just not going to happen. You have to create the life that you want.

Or like you said at some point, nothing's going to change until you change.

Yeah, 1,000%. But just to hearken back to what you just said, no one's going to save you. The idea is people don't realize how much everybody's in their own head and they're in their own world and their own life and their own bills and their own family and their own dramas and their own job security and their own— They're, they're just— that's their world. They don't have any time, maybe some empathy for what you got going on, right?

Yeah.

So you gotta worry about you. You gotta figure out what you gotta do so that you can change your situation. No one's gonna come and like give you a, you know, a magic formula or even like, you know, come and save you financially, even emotionally, you know, like they have their own situation they're dealing with. So you just focus on what you gotta do and go after what you want because you want it for yourself, not for anybody else. So to wrap up today's episode, you know, it was a bit harsh when I started with step 1 saying stop complaining, but really gratitude is a really good cure to getting out of your head and realizing that you have a lot going for you and you can take a next step forward. There's another day tomorrow, and that leads to do something. Step 2, which is do something, anything, any small step to move you closer to where you want to go or get out of the situation. And then step 3, recommit every day. Recommit every day that I'm going to continue to do this, continue to move forward on this journey. Whether it's your business, whether it's your health, whether it's your relationships, whatever it might be, you need to wake up every morning and say, this is really important, a high priority for me. I need to commit to it and not waver, not say, oh, I'm not sure, not recommit. And how do you recommit? You continue to take action. Thanks, Robin, for the question today. If anybody has a question they want to ask, uh, you want us to answer here on Q&A Wednesday, just go to 100mba.net/q. You can submit your question right there and we'll answer it. Right here on an episode. And if you want to continue your learning, we have a recent episode that we recently published. You could just scroll up on whatever app you're using right now. It's called How to Motivate Yourself to Get Things Done. When you're not feeling like yourself and you're feeling down, what do you do to get things going again? And so you can feel like doing it.

It's kind of a nice companion to this episode too.

100%. And these are kind of the, the hacks that I've used over the years to kind of get myself out of my funk and to move forward. But I hope today's episode was helpful. Listen, I wanna just also end by saying like, I have a lot of love and care and empathy for anybody who's going through a tough time. I've had my share of tough times. I would probably say the vast majority of my life was tough times. And I chuckle about it because there's something about those memories that I'm proud of, that I'm still here, I'm still alive, I'm still able to kind of contribute in the world. It's getting out of those tough situations that make Me feel like I have something to share, like I have something to, to add to the world. So thanks so much for being vulnerable, Robin, and asking this question. But if you're deep in the crap right now and your life is not going well and you're not where you want to be, that's okay. You have tomorrow. You can keep moving forward. There's a way to get out of this. Plenty of people before you have gone out of this. Try as much as possible to kind of listen to this episode if you need more than once to go through the steps and make sure that you Just take one step forward. All right, check you guys next time. Take care. If you found today's episode helpful and you want more practical business lessons to help start, grow, and scale your business, subscribe to the podcast. All you gotta do is hit subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app, the one that you're using right now. By hitting subscribe, you get our next episode automatically. It's absolutely free and it's a way for you to commit to growing your business. I'll check you in the next episode. Who knew Walmart Business could help a bustling school district stay on budget? Principal Lewis knew. He uses Walmart Business to easily get the items his elementary school needs. Our tax-exempt status works online and in-store, and with our tight budgets, they have everything we need at prices I love. Expense management tools help him stay on top of what he's spending. I keep track of hundreds of things every day. Jenny, get out of there. Thankfully, Walmart Business lets me keep track of all our expenses in one place. Erin.

Don't eat that. Michael, uh-uh.

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