How to Stop Being Controlled by Fear and Failure | Impact Theory Special Guests Q&A

[Music] this episode is sponsored by skillshare and the first 1 000 people to click the link in the description will get a free trial of skillshare's premium membership enjoy the episode hey everybody welcome to impact theory on today's very special episode we have gathered some of your favorite it guests ever to answer questions directly from you these guys have so much wisdom to share i'm really excited that they got a chance to answer your questions directly so sit back relax and drink in some of the most amazing people on the face of the planet without further ado let's dive right in hi yeah my name is jp i'm a music producer and a father of two from belfast and my question is for jay shetty jay do you think that happiness is a system that can be figured out or is it a moving target that we have to chase thanks a million that's a really really interesting question now the way that i look at it is that happiness is the byproduct and the result of practicing certain daily habits so we see that psychologically scientifically and spiritually the practice of a set of habits every single day can create states of happiness now some of these are in the book called the book of joy by the dalai lama and desmond tutu i highly recommend it and some of the other ones that i learned living as a monk include four key habits thankfulness inspiration meditation and exercise so that's how i view happiness i see as a result of practicing these daily rituals these daily habits that can create happiness in our lives now from a more long-term point of view of happiness it comes from purpose and meaning it doesn't just come from pleasure and joy and purpose and meaning come from a concept known as dharma in sanskrit which is where you find this beautiful intersection between your passion your strengths and your compassion the ability to serve with what you're naturally skilled at i hope that answers your question thank you so much for asking it and wishing you all the best i'm jonathan dugan from las vegas nevada and i am a lifestyle and mindset coach for heroes academy along with the podcast interviewer on youtube now my question is for alex benayan now i heard you talk about one time that 99 percent of people in this world view their mistakes as enemies and one percent views their mistakes as friends my question is that there's a lot of individuals right now that feel defeated on the verge of giving up they might be fearful of an uncertain future or they might be dwelling on the mistakes or failures that they have experienced in the past months or year how do we begin to transition to transform our relationship with fear and failure into a healthy relationship as if it were our friends best friends an opportunity to grow to learn to see a brighter future how do we begin to transform failure and fear into friendship i know you're going to give an amazing answer thank you so much for your time alex what's up impact theory i'm alex and i'm the author of the third door here in my home in los angeles and jonathan from las vegas i love your question about how to turn fear and failure into things you can cherish and grow from now this is my thing about fear anyone who's dealing with fear whether it's rejections whether it's insecurities whether it's getting your dream off the ground or whether it's taking it the final you know 10 yards uh you know to end zone fear has this way of being this constant throughout the journey and you know failures many times add on to that fear and failures we project in our head intensify those fears so this is a insight and x-rays i'll use for anybody who's trying to not only overcome their fears but wants to cherish them in a way where they're no longer an enemy but they become a friend and the exercise is called dating your fears and it's sort of the opposite of what a lot of other people think about when it comes to fears a lot of people talk about pushing through your fears conquering your fears i advise you to do the opposite take your fears on a romantic date once a week and i mean this quite literally uh spend you know look at your calendar and carve out maybe an hour maybe two hours once a week either lunch or dinner and it's got to be consistent and once a week let's say it's wednesday nights every wednesday night what you're gonna do is you're gonna take the time to have a nice dinner you know right now uh you know because of coronavirus maybe it's at home maybe it's on a balcony maybe it's at a park and you know make yourself a nice bowl of pasta maybe pour yourself a glass of wine you know really make it silly if you want you know get some chocolate strawberries make it very romantic and the idea here is to take your fears on dates and just like a date the first day you know might be pretty surface level as you're getting to know them and what you're going to do is while you're having dinner is you're going to take your journal out and you're going to ask your fears questions where are they from where did they come from how have they you know grown throughout their lives um and what you're going to do is you're going to do this one week with the first date and then you're going to do it the next week a second date and a third and a fourth and a fifth and a six and what you start realizing is it's almost like the bachelor where you're gonna have like 13 14 15 maybe 20 different fears lined up in front of you and as the dating process unravels just like in real life what you'll begin to realize is there are deeper causes deeper origins and as you become more intimate with your fears as opposed to beating them up as opposed to stuffing them in the closet as you become more intimate with your fears you begin to appreciate them you begin to have compassion for yourself and that then gives the window of opportunity for you to cherish them so your fears don't necessarily disappear but you become so intimate with them that they no longer have a hold on you and that's the greatest gift you can give yourself jonathan i'm wishing you the best of luck man hi vanessa my name is ono northey and i am an author uh i put self-development into fiction so it's like mindset with car chases my question for you is if there was a character who was loosely based off of you what would be a quote or a piece of wisdom that you would want to make sure made it into the book thank you hello hello this question is so fun so i think what i would want people to know or take away is that there are multiple flavors of charisma i think for a long time i thought there was only one way to be likable there was only one way to be charismatic and it was to be the bubbly extrovert that if you were going to be likable you had to be life of the party you have to be funny you'd be impressive and then i realized that their charisma comes in many flavors you can have yes life of the party but you can also have the quiet powerful introvert you can have the compassionate empathetic soul you can have the creative tinkerer inventor and that all of those different types are charismatic and so the big thing that i am always encouraging people to do that i live try to live myself is that you can be your best self and find your people you can be your true self and still be liked and so i came out as a recovering awkward person um in 2016 and that was the biggest relief because before then i think i had been trying to be this life of the party person but actually i'm quite introverted i'm quite awkward i um struggle with social interactions i struggle with social anxiety and the moment that i owned that and i put it out there people came out to me as well and people were more caring and accepting and i had more real conversations than i ever had before and so i think i stopped worrying about trying to impress people and i started trying to just be myself and hopefully i found people that would like me for that and so i think that's the big thing that i'd want people to know is that you can still be likable you can still be charismatic even if you're awkward or introverted or have social anxiety and that being yourself actually attracts the right kind of people hi mr mcdonald with millions of jobs lost during the pandemic what would you advise in terms of a pivot or a repurposing of a career under these circumstances hi i'm roshawn mcdonald i'm the host of moneymakingconversation.com with millions of jaws lost during the pandemic hearing the right words at the right time can change a person's life let's talk about my life because hopefully with the experiences i had i'm a pandemic hit i didn't know what to do i i can always share this story people i remember the first time i went out and uh went shopping i went to like a home depot and i had my mask well i didn't really have a mask because i just had a ski mask i just pulled up on my face and and then i had my pereira what left off the peril that i just happened to have and i had my gloves so i went in shopping and when i came out i didn't know did i take the gloves off to put my grocery store my stuff in this in the truck or was it contaminated and that's the life that we're dealing with right we're dealing with a lot of confusion and and that confusion only sets gets even worse because you don't know who to turn to i didn't know who to turn to times in my life and so this is the time you have to have people who can help you out and you know we're living in a pandemic we are not allowed to be ourselves anymore when you're not allowed to be yourself i always tell people leave with your gifts and don't let your age friends family or co-workers stop you from planning or living your dreams i didn't i i remember when i was in the hospital doctor told me if we don't do surgery on you immediately you will die i remember when i was announced to have cancer when i was in 2015 and then like a food i climbed up on the ladder right after surgery and failed then i broke my my arm and broke my arm my my thumb because i believe that i was unbreakable i believe that i wouldn't let anything stop me i wasn't gonna let cancer win you can't let kobe win now how do you beat colvin first of all you gotta learn the pivot what don't you comfortable you are you comfortable now you don't know you don't think you can do anything else you talk to the wrong dude i've been uh i've long loaded trucks in my life worked at burger king jordan forklift worked at the post office worked offshore been a successful stand-up comedian sitcom writer business manager steve harvey everything i'm telling you is the things i've done in my life i'm an award-winning baker these things did not are not were not planned there was opportunities right now there's an opportunity for you to be successful right now but you can't hold yourself back because you're 40 50 60 you feel that you can't have a dream you can't put a plan in place you can't i'm 60. you think i don't feel 60 i don't know what that means all i know is it's an age i have to tell everybody but it has nothing to do with my plans to be successful i would tell people this think about when you're in your 20s that's what you should be doing now that's the work when you wanted to be when you were fearless your dreams your goals your passion when you was in your 20s everything you wanted to do the money that i'm making money off of right now is what i wanted to do or what i plan to do or what i was doing in my 20s especially my early 20s before marriage came in before kid children came in before house came in before you got locked into that job right now that you maybe still be doing that you don't want to do no more before you're in that relationship that you don't want to be in no more but you don't know how to get out of you know how to change a job well how do you change a job you look for a job another job while you're still working don't have to quit a job and then go look for a job that's the biggest mistake you can do the other thing you have to do in life is you have to understand that if you want to be an entrepreneur the best opportunity to prepare for being an entrepreneur is your 40-hour week job that's right your 40-hour week job when you excel at your 40-hour week job you can win at everything but a lot of people don't know that they think that's a hassle i don't like this well if you arrive to work on time that's going to help you as an entrepreneur if you excel and do more than you're supposed to do that's going to help you as an entrepreneur if you meet all the deadlines that they're asking you to do that's going to help you as an entrepreneur more importantly if you understand short-term goals that means short-term goals mean 30 days start with 30 days win the pandemic now start in that 30-day cycle and start building your plan start building your budget more importantly the people around you have to believe in your plan if you have anybody around you that does not believe in your dream kick them to the curb i'll tell you it's a lot of people i got my shoes got a lot of kick marks on because i had to do that when i left ibm and told people i want to be a comedian you think people didn't want to call me crazy and tell me i told people i wanted the manager steve harvey you don't think people call me crazy sitcom writer when i told people i was going to be a baker people doubted me there and then i started winning the awards you know i bought a building i bought a building doing a pandemic a building you know you buy jewelry you buy clothes you know you buy food you buy a house but buying a building that means i had to put a plan in place i'm not asking you to buy in a building i'm just asking you for the first time in your life to put down that stop sign that you holding up when you're looking for the government to send you another check and start planning your future because you have more controls than you know of and you need to start using those controls right now to play in your life hey there my name is drew i'm from los angeles i'm a voice over actor obviously and a production assistant my question is for humble the poet and i was thinking whether we like it or not social media puts this pressure on us to kind of show our best lives and prove that everything is hunky-dory and i know that you've said before you'd rather feel good than look good and so i was just wondering what your perspective was on that on that aforementioned pressure and what can people do to get beyond that feeling to present yourself and show your best self i think the first thing we have to do to you know when it comes to acknowledging this pressure that we all feel to like put our best selves forward in front of everybody especially in social media is to understand this pressure existed way before social media we're a very social creature we've existed for tens of thousands of years in like smaller communities and understanding ourselves and relations to others has always been a survival tactic for us you know if you got ostracized out of your village or your tribe you know that could have meant death and that's encoded in our dna that's who we are and we can't simply say don't care what other people think we have to first acknowledge that we do care what other people think but at the same time what social media did is social media took that need and it exploded it on an exponential level now if you're not simply looking for acceptance from other people you can count the acceptance you can count the likes you can read the comments you know exactly what everybody's thinking about you and that social pressure is real it's completely real and it's completely influencing a lot of our decisions so social media ends up creating situations where problems that aren't our problems we take ownership over because we feel the pressure to talk about something or acknowledge something um as well as we want to be rewarded and validated by other people so we create this pre we create this life uh for display purposes only and again creating a life or display purposes only existed for for social media we were posing for pictures before all of this happened as well i think the best thing to do after you acknowledge it is kind of understand that the rewards aren't real you know if anything it's just a momentary you know dopamine kick or you know for a lot of my public figure friends it's maintaining a level of relevance or maintaining a level of attention but it's not sustainable you can't keep doing it and especially when you're doing it at the expense of your authentic happiness that becomes a whole other issue so when i said i'd rather be happy than look happy it's because all the work we put into looking happy doesn't actually make us happy now there's ways to be happy and force yourself and fake it like forcing a smile you know studies show that even forcing a smile will make you feel better um you know just that body-mind connection you know and it goes both ways so i think what we have to realize is the validation of other people it's addictive like fast food it's something that we've always wanted but to address that pressure we have to realize that it's not nutritious it's like eating a bunch of junk food and obviously it's validating it tastes great we want more and more and more of it but we'll never feel satiated by doing it now if we make decisions that allow us to actually feel happy that make us fulfilled that give us more peace than pleasure now all of a sudden you know we're going to have a lot more fulfillment we're going to have less of a need to chase validation from other people you also have to realize like our self-esteem is what other people think about us our self-respect what we think about us and the more self-respect we have the less self-esteem we're going to chase and i think that's a really important thing it's really about recognizing that we all want to be happy it's okay that we care what other people think but at the same time we can find that validation and that value and that fulfillment within and when we find it within we'll spend less time chasing it without and we'll waste less energy spend less time uh you know and not put ourselves in situations where we're repeatedly trying to prop up a life that isn't even ours you know it's not accurate to us nor is the stuff that we actually care about and value and understanding that you know most of the people that are looking at our social media are just are just looking for a distraction as well and uh you know whether they like your picture or they don't like your picture isn't an indication of who you are and what your personal value is all right guys i hope you enjoyed that amazing episode and i want to thank all of the special guests that took the time to answer these questions and thank you to everybody out there who submitted questions means the world to us it is always amazing when people show vulnerability and put themselves out there to find out the things that they want to know thank you guys for watching and until next time my friends be legendary take care as many of you know i'm all about constant self-improvement a growth mindset and a relentless focus on progress and skill acquisition that's why i'm super excited to tell you guys about skillshare skillshare offers classes designed for real life and all the circumstances that come with it these lessons can help you stay inspired express yourself and introduce you to a community of millions creative self-discovery and expression can settle your mind and spontaneous acts of creativity can help break up the routine of a day indoors skillshare is an online learning community that offers membership with meaning so much to explore real projects to create and the support of fellow creatives skillshare empowers you to accomplish real growth with thousands of classes covering dozens of creative and entrepreneurial skills for instance they have an amazing class by simon sinek called presentation essentials how to share ideas that inspire action if there's anyone that should be teaching that class it is simon cynic this is a perfect example of the unique classes you can find on skillshare you can also find classes on illustration design photography video freelancing entrepreneurship and so much more and skillshare is also incredibly affordable an annual subscription is less than ten dollars a month and right now the first 1000 viewers to click the link in the description will get a free trial of premium membership so you can explore your creativity don't miss this one guys sign up right now hey everybody welcome to another episode of impact theory you are here with me today i'm going to be answering your questions and we're going to be talking all about procrastination actually doing something with all of your potential turning into real skills and then deploying that into the real world that is my obsession and that is what we're going to be focused on today