Video summary
Ryan Holiday challenges the conventional notion of self-belief, arguing that faith without evidence is overrated and proposing instead a confidence rooted in tangible proof of past actions. He distinguishes between blind belief and an understanding built on experience, noting that while one cannot have absolute certainty about tasks never attempted before, having successfully navigated difficult projects previously provides a reliable foundation for future endeavors. This perspective reframes impostor syndrome not as a sign of inadequacy but as a natural byproduct of stretching one's limits; feeling unsure is actually essential because it indicates you are reaching beyond your current comfort zone rather than staying within safe boundaries where failure is impossible. Holiday illustrates the power of this evidence-based confidence through his own experiences with live performances, specifically contrasting a successful show in Dublin with a tense performance in Manchester where he felt nervous due to family and friends being present. During halftime at the Manchester event, after realizing things were not going smoothly, he engaged in a brief but pivotal conversation with himself in front of a mirror, reminding himself that his loved ones supported him and viewing the situation as a valuable learning opportunity rather than a disaster. This ability to maintain perspective during setbacks allowed him to recover fully for subsequent sets, reinforcing the idea that losing one's grip on a performance is manageable if one can grab it back with grace, turning potential failures into proof of resilience. The discussion extends to how audiences and creators often value smooth execution in anticipation but appreciate overcoming adversity in retrospect, citing Hemingway as a prime example of someone who reinvented his career after accidentally losing all his manuscripts while traveling in Europe. Holiday highlights the famous letter Hemingway wrote to Ezra Pound immediately following this tragedy, where he admitted that while everyone told him it was "all for the best," he had not yet reached that point of acceptance and felt devastated at the time. This distinction is crucial because it validates current suffering without denying future growth; one can acknowledge that things feel terrible in the moment while simultaneously knowing through cognitive dissonance that the mind will eventually reframe these struggles as beautiful chapters in a life story, minimizing regret over time. Holiday advises those facing financial, emotional, or relational difficulties to adopt this meta-cognitive approach of projecting themselves forward into their future selves who will look back on current hardships with gratitude and strength. He suggests that rather than trying to force immediate positivity when things are going wrong, it is healthier to accept the pain as part of the process while trusting in one's ability to handle whatever comes next based on a track record of surviving previous challenges. By understanding that even catastrophic events like bombing a show or losing years of work do not define ultimate failure but rather serve as strategic lessons, individuals can stop torturing themselves with interim worries and instead focus on putting in the necessary work to emerge stronger, ultimately realizing that the obstacles encountered are often the very path forward.
Read the full video transcript
one of my favorite ones from you is
self-belief is overrated generate
evidence yeah I I say I don't believe in
myself I have evidence like I know what
I have done because I have done it and I
can see it and it's real and like when
people talk about trusting the
process um it's much easier to do when
the process is paid off for you it's
hard to trust the process when you've
never seen it work but when you've seen
it work over and over like I now
know in my soul what it feels like like
for a book to not be coming together and
I know how if you stick with it and you
keep going it does eventually come
together I know the rhythms of the
process I know all the different Peaks
and valleys of it so I don't think that
much about it I just show up and I do
the stuff right and and that that's a
you're you the more you do it the more
reps you get you just have this
confidence of like I can handle anything
cuz I've handled everything up until
this point that that's that's what to me
what conf
so do you have more self-belief now than
you did 5 years ago than you did 10
years ago I guess it depends on what
we're saying like to me belief is uh uh
you know faith without evidence right I
like I have an understanding of what I
am capable of but the the paradoxical
part is like how do you know you can do
something that you've never done before
this is where it gets interesting um
when I sat down to write my first book I
did I I was confident that I could do it
uh because I'd done hard things before
because I'd worked on similar projects I
had an awareness of like the positive
traits that I bought but I didn't know I
could do it to know I could do it would
be belief in something that I did not
have uh I I could not actually say sense
it does I suppose the alternative uh to
know that you could do it would be that
the task that was in front of you was so
unchallenging to you that there was no
way that you could fail there's a great
Seth golden bit about how uh impostor
syndrome is just a natural byproduct of
you stretching your limits each time
that you do choose to do something which
is so far beyond what you've done before
like what would it mean to not feel like
an impostor yeah if you're not afraid
you're not reaching right and and and
you're not you're you should be putting
yourselves in in positions where you're
not sure if you could do it you hope you
can do it you have confidence that
you're not someone who quits when things
are hard and these are these are what
allow you to to make a rational bet that
it's not a totally Reckless thing to do
you know what was cool I uh we were
talking before we started about the live
things that I was doing you've got some
live shows coming up this summer
Australia yeah Australia um and I did
this last year and you know I had a
phenomenal first show in Dublin on a
Thursday night and it was classic sort
of slightly Rowdy Irish crowd that had
had a few drinks beforehand and it was I
mean I got like a 500 person standing
over it which was totally like I wasn't
going out there giving a sermon but it
was just very nice and a lot of positive
encouragement and then the Manchester
show which was the Friday I just ate
and I it was a Friday it was a
slightly bigger venue it was a bit
brighter maybe my delivery wasn't quite
there my mom and dad were in the crowd
and loads of my friends were there so I
was a little bit more tense and more
nervous and uh at the halftime interval
45 minutes in uh I was like I just
wasn't happy with how it was going and I
went and I looked in the mirror and I
had a little word with myself and I was
like Hey 600 people came to see you in
Manchester on a Friday night some of
your best friends from your entire life
are here and your mom and dad are sat
four rows back like if you can't have
fun with this as your second ever show
and give yourself a bit of Grace that
this is a great learning experience for
you and also how can you turn it around
how positive can you now come out in the
second and that you know all of the
shows that I had that little 30second
chat I had with myself in the mirror
yeah is one of the things that sticks in
my mind the most and that's an
undeniable piece in my stack of proof
that I can do the things that I say that
I can do yeah and if it had gone the way
if it had just gone swimmingly you
wouldn't have had that sort of moment
where you I think what you actually
emerge from that with is a is a better
thing which is you have the sense that
it can you can lose your grip on it a
little bit and grab it back BR back 100%
And so that's a super valuable skill
because now when you go up there uh
you're like I got this right you you
want things can go wrong the the Pres
the uh projector can stop the mic can
die we did this show in uh uh Vancouver
and it was so much fun that was another
Friday night in in Canada this time it's
me and James and dude it was the
audience was great venue was fantastic
Mike just kept on dying kept on dying
all the time and we had so much fun with
it because we were both really
comfortable and I was again going back
now I was telling you about Jimmy car
one of the first shows I ever saw him do
his mic kept on down and he just styled
it out and you want you love the guy
even more because of how Charming he is
with going through the nightmare he
doesn't get uptight he doesn't start
shouting at people it it was awesome so
yeah I think um oddly what we want in
anticipation is for everything to go
smoothly and for nothing to go wrong and
what we value in retrospect is all of
the going sideways as long as we
come out of it like relatively unscathed
or even not unscathed right
because you let's say you just
completely bomb like it's just the worst
and I've had some I've had some where
you know like they told me the audience
was this so I built it around that and
then oops we miss like I've had it go
really bad and it's not that bad you
know what I mean like comedians talk
about the the feeling of bombing the
freedom of it because you don't die it's
not fun fun it's not great but you still
get paid and uh you know it is what it
is strategic so so having having the
worst case scenario happen to you can be
freeing in another way which is you
realize it's not actually that bad of a
worst case scenario have you got any
advice to people uh who are going
through a difficult time financially
emotionally relationally whatever it
might be and they're thinking is there a
way that you've been able to project out
ahead the fact that in retrospect this
is going to be something that I'm really
going to value that going through
difficult times at the time just sucks
so hard have you been able to sort of
meta cognizant pull yourself out a
little bit more yeah Freud said once uh
in retrospect the struggle will strike
you as most beautiful like the years of
struggle will strike you as most
beautiful and it's true you think about
the worst moments of your life from
earlier now they're integrated into who
you are and in some ways we understand
that we couldn't and wouldn't be where
we are without those things we know like
we know not only is that true in a
positive way but it's also just true in
how the mind works like the the mind is
really good at at this is what cognitive
dissonance does it works on you in a way
that that makes this thing for the best
even if it wasn't for the best like
we're so worried about and some of the
the cognitive psychology on this Bears
it out too is like we're worried about
like will I regret it you won't regret
it because you actually don't have that
many regrets at all that's the the the
mind is is pretty good at
minimizing that feeling of regret we
convince ourselves that what happened
was for the best so we know this is
almost certainly where we're going to
end up in 6 months in a year in 10 years
in 30 years and so why torture yourself
in the interim right why not give
yourself some of that Grace now why not
go hey I understand that this is going
to be a thing that forms me as a human
and in the future I will be grateful for
it maybe I can't get there right now
there's this story Hemingway he moves to
Europe with his wife he's writing in
France he's struggling as this you know
this journalist writer freelancer and he
has this meeting with this this uh this
editor and he he's meeting with him and
he telegraphs his wife and says hey like
I need you to come meet me uh this is
Hadley and and so she gathers up all his
stuff she thinking that that Hemingway
is going to want to show it to this
editor and um she hops on the train she
stops in Lions or some somewhere in
France and uh gets off the train for a
second to grab a newspaper whatever and
she comes back and the Briefcase full of
all of Hemingway's writing is gone
everything he has done in his life up
until this point just gone they don't
know if someone stole it they don't know
if she lost it they don't know if it was
thrown
away so Hemingway loses everything that
he had produced up until this point and
and
it's obvious like when you hear the
story you know okay yes this was the
defining moment he reinvents his style
he he comes back from we know how the
story ends but there's this letter that
he writes to Ezra pound um and he goes
uh this is right after it happens he's
telling him the story and he goes I know
you're going to tell me this is all for
the best it's all going to work out I
should be grateful that it happened and
he says but I'm not there yet and I love
that because that I think that's an
important it's okay to not be there it's
okay for it to feel shitty when you've
gotten dumped when you've failed when
you've lost a bunch of money when you've
had to admit to feed on something it's
okay but you can simultaneously know
that in the future you're not you don't
have to feel the same way and you almost
certainly won't feel the same way and
and I like that Hemingway said I'm not
there yet M he got there but he wasn't
there yet this understanding of the
process this sort of acceptance of my
own psychological fallibility but this
hope in the future as well yeah and he
does get there very quick like almost uh
immediately he starts writing again and
his sparer sort of hemingway-esque style
comes as a result of this kind of
burning unintentional burning of the
boats behind him any he later he even
fictionalizes the scene where this
happened to the writer so he's able in
that scene to articulate everything that
Ezra pan was trying to say to him in
this moment but he wasn't there yet and
so like when when the stok say the
obstacle was the way like I try to be
you know I'll get people hey you know my
brother-in-law just got diagnosed with
cancer uh or you know my my spouse
cheated on me or my company just failed
I don't like give them the book and be
like this is awesome like really s you
know like really soak this shittiness in
like like it sucks to be a person and
devastating heartbreaking things happen
it's just knowing that you can put the
work in on that and you can get to a
place where you feel very very
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