Transcription
12 months ago to the day, I posted a video on this channel where I publicly committed to 100% making this channel and my business work. And it felt a little bit terrifying to say it out loud, but I made the commitment and I publicly said that I will make this work. I will make this work no matter what because I have to.
So, I made that video on my 40th birthday and today I turned 41. So, I want to make a little bit of a tradition out of this that every day, every birthday when the year when the day comes around, I will do something a little bit different. So, last year I started the episode off by putting my cards on the table that I got from my my kids, and I'm going to do the same today. And these these are just they're reminders of why it is that I do what I do on the deepest level. And those of us that are that are offering education that are coaching, guiding, teaching, the work that we do is aimed to help people. It's aimed to take somebody through a transformational experience so they can go from where they are now to a state where their problem is resolved. That is the purpose of educational content. That's the purpose of programs and courses and all that sort of stuff. But every single one of us, every single coach, every single guide, every single consultant, although what we do as a profession is helping somebody move through something, we have our own personal desires that sit underneath it. And my personal desires are all wrapped up in these cards in my kids. So everything that I do from a personal perspective is to build a life that I believe my kids deserve. And that's it. That's it. And for me to be present in that life. I don't want to work a job. I don't want to have a job that ties me down so that I miss my kids life. That's it. That's that's what I'm doing here for myself.
And one of the things I talk about on this channel is whatever it is that you're doing, whatever kind of channel that you're making, the first step is to get clear on what you want, what you want your life to be. Because you only have one life. We are so lucky to be to be alive. We have this one shot in these bodies, in this particular body. Who knows what happens next? We have this one chance to live this life with our families, with our friends, and move through this thing and just be fully immersed in it. We've got this opportunity. And now we're living in a time where we can build leverage through content and education to be able to buy back our own time, which is amazing. That's what I've been doing over the last 12 months. I've been building leverage. I've been creating content. I've been building my business and my coaching program and building leverage so that once all of the groundwork is done, then I'll be able to get back my time. Right now, I'm grinding. And I've been grinding all year. And that's okay. I've learned to sacrifice the present for the future. Something that I never used to believe in. I used to think, "No way, man. I'm just going to fully immerse myself in the present moment. The future is an illusion. Doesn't even exist. It's only a thought in the mind. I'm going to give everything I have to the present moment and really respect that." That was my philosophy. It still is my philosophy. But now also recognize that being fully present with the work that we do that builds leverage for the future which is also going to be the present. When we arrive in the future the future we will still be here right here in the present experiencing life. So if we can learn to sacrifice some of our present experience for the future then our future present moment will be pretty free.
So anyway, today I want to talk about um limiting beliefs and I want to talk about how we can actually move through limiting beliefs because most people that start on this journey, they don't make it unfortunately. I don't know what the numbers are. I try and look at them online and they seem to be all over the place. But somewhere between 95 to like 99% of people that think they want to build a YouTube channel or personal brand to grow their their coaching business or whatever it may be, they fail unfortunately. And when I say they fail, they give up. And usually somebody gives up because they don't believe that they can make it. They don't believe they can push through. They don't think they're good enough. And these are limiting beliefs. And sometimes it's just true, you know, it's it's not everybody is going to be able to do this in the same way in which not everybody has the physicality to become an athlete, no matter how hard we try, you know. So there is there isn't even enough room on the internet for everyone to be able to have a space. So, in order to get through it, we actually need to get very, very skilled and we need to get very good at what it is that we do. We need to get really good at all the things that we need to do in order for our content to surface and for people to be interested in it. So, there's a lot of things to learn, but a lot of people, they give up because they see they're not getting views, they're not getting subscribers, they're not getting leads, they're not growing their business, and eventually they give up.
So, I want to talk about I'll talk about a limiting belief that I had before starting this channel that almost stopped me from showing up at all. And it was the most ridiculous story in my own mind that probably put 12 months between me doing this uh between between me thinking that I should do do this to actually taking action. And the limiting belief was, what are my friends going to think of me showing up on the internet? That that was it. What are what are my mates going to think if I start building a personal brand and I start talking to people on the internet as if I've got something interesting to say. That's what was going on in my mind. That's what it was. And like I said, this put a massive gap between me knowing that I needed to do this and actually taking action. And the moment that I moved through that limiting belief was by actually clearly looking at the thought in my mind, you know, taking a step back and observing it and listening to it and seeing it for what it was and actually recognizing the damage that it was doing to me in the moment. It was the one thing that was getting in the way of me being able to resolve my biggest pain point, my biggest struggle, which was the ability to create a sustain a sustainable livelihood so that I could support my kids and give them the life that I feel like they deserve. And that that was holding me back. And I was like, "You dumb idiot. If you're going to let that get in the way of you supporting your own family, then you're just an idiot. You don't even you don't even deserve to do this." So, I was like, "Shut up, man. Of course I I get it. I get it." Loud and clear. Cool. I got to do this thing. So, I did it. I moved through that limiting belief and got set up in the studio. And uh just over 12 months ago, it was the 27th of January that I posted my first video. And obviously my birthday 12th of February, which is today. Um, I did that first video and everything else is history. Like what what's happened over the last 12 months has been completely wild for me. It's been crazy. It's been a crazy time. And what made the whole thing even funnier was there were particular there were specific people in my mind, specific friends that I was thinking about. You know, they've got names. And when I told them about it and when they saw what I was doing, they were actually the most supportive out of everyone. So, it's pretty amazing what the mind can do. We make up these stories and we believe them. And those beliefs can hold us back from doing the most important things that we need to do to make anything actually happen in our lives.
So if you're struggling with this sort of stuff, if you're struggling with your limiting beliefs around one of the different elements that you need to improve upon in order for any of this stuff to work, there's so many things for you got to put your face on the internet. You got to learn how to speak on camera. You got to learn how to get a nice shot and light things and get good sound. You got to learn how to format your videos. You've got to learn a simple lead generation system to be able to take a viewer, turn them into a lead, and then potentially have them as a client. If you want this to be a business, you need to actually learn how to sell. And this is also a massive bottleneck for so many people that are intentional. They want to do good things in the world. They feel uncomfortable selling because they feel like they're selling out. I get that because that's that's that's been me. I've had to learn all these skills and I've had to move through all of these old narratives, these old limiting beliefs that I had in my own life to be able to get to the point where I am now. And this is the thing, like most people, they give up somewhere along the line because they're not willing to take their next step. They're not willing to go through with the next difficult thing that they have to do, which is deeply attached to their own narrative of their life, who they believe themselves to be. Because throughout our life, throughout all of our experiences, the path that we take, once we get sort of into our 30s, mid-30s, 40s, most of us become pretty fixed. We have these different beliefs around who we are, what we like, what we don't like, our fears, our desires, and we say, "I can do this or I can't do that. That's not me. I don't do that." And then we don't we don't take that next step.
So, I'm just going to take you through a little process here, a process called self inquiry where we can begin to learn how to let go of those limiting beliefs. So when you are struggling, when you're struggling coming up against all of these different hurdles, you can come back to this this inquiry and ask yourself, is this story mine or is it someone else's that I've inherited that I can just let go of? So this is a process that we go through with with self inquiry. So this is how it works. So, we're born into this world as children, babies, and we're blank. Pretty blank. I mean, we've got DNA and, you know, that's about it. But we're completely free. We have no labels, you know. We don't even have a name yet. There's nothing. It's just free. Our mind is free. Everything's free. We're completely open. Complete open sense of awareness with no labels restricting us or holding us back from anything. We just need food and comfort and that's it. And then throughout our life we go through a process of conditioning where we get given a name. We move into a we move into a family into a culture into an educational system into a nation into a world that is that is that already has a has a narrative. And we inherit this narrative and we take on that narrative and we begin to believe certain things about ourselves and about the world. And we go through a lot of different things within our life and we take hits and we go through struggles and we lose we lose our confidence and all of these different things end up making up who it is that we believe ourselves to be. Today again this person is full of these different labels. My name, my job, my profession, this is what I like, this is what I don't like, this is what I do, this is what I don't do. All of these things put us in a box. When we get stuck in that box, it's very hard to break out of. So self inquiry is a process of peeling back the layers and moving all the way back to that original sense of self before we were conditioned with all of these different stories that hold us back from being who we really are, which is free. Which is pretty free from a lot of these different narratives and stories. And this this is this kind of philosophy is tied into most eastern traditions whether it be Buddhism um Kashmivism whether it be um Advaita Vedanta, you know, there's so many different traditions that look at the same sort of methodology and it's really looking at the nature of self and this is you know a process of enlightenment of of self-realization knowing who you really are that sits beneath all of these different layers that has been built up throughout your life.
So when we go through this process of self inquiry, we go through a process of "I'm not this, I'm not that." So we look at what's essential. So we say when we say what is essential to us, it's the part of us which has always been there. The part of us which has never really changed. So we strip all the way all the way back to that. So I'm not my job because I haven't always had my job. I'm not my age because I haven't always been my age. I'm not my fears because I didn't always have those fears. I'm not my desires because I didn't always have these desires. I'm not the thoughts in my mind because my thoughts are always changing. My body is always changing. So am I my body? So we we peel all the layers back all the way back to that core core sense of self, that core sense of awareness which is free from all of the stories, which is where you get to through meditation. You still your mind down. And when you get to that sense of stillness, that quietness, that's where we begin to actually tap into our true identity, our true identity, which has always been present, the observer consciousness. And when we do this, when we can strip ourselves back to this point and actually get some stillness and some quietness within our life, we can begin to question all of these different narratives that are going on in our life. All of these different limiting beliefs, these stories, these fears, these desires, these wants, these everything. We can begin to question them from a from a from from a, you know, a little bit further back. We're not caught in our thoughts. We're not caught in our story. So, it's pulling ourselves back so we can see the story for what it is and we can look at it like like it's a movie and we can listen in. And when those limiting beliefs come out, we can say, "Is that mine? Does that actually belong to me? Does that define me? If I let go of that, am I still me?" And the answer is usually yes. Especially if it is a limiting belief. There's some beliefs, many beliefs that are incredible. You know, everything actually everything that we do, everything in our in our life is based on what we believe. Every move that we make is based on the narrative that we believe in our mind. That's why we do what we do. We do what we do because we believe something. So it doesn't mean stripping ourselves back to pure consciousness or awareness and just being like empty, you know, it's that getting ourselves back to that space so we can let go of the things that are no longer serving us. And then every time we approach a hurdle or a roadblock, we can look at it. We can become aware of a thoughts in our mind that are kind of telling telling you "I'm not good enough. I can't believe I'm doing this. I shouldn't do whatever it is." It's a moment to step back, question, "Is this true? Are these my beliefs? If I let go, can I move through it?" So, it's a process of just moving through and letting go and moving through. And through this process, we can begin to actually become more integrated. We become more integrated into our full self. So, it's not about just like stripping oursel back and becoming like a baby and staying there forever. It's about pulling ourselves all the way back and then moving back out into the world, looking at all of our limiting beliefs and our problems and our fears and our desires and then kind of just moving through them and being like, "That's not serving me. That's not serving me. That is serving me. That is serving me." And we begin to build ourselves back up again in a way which is more whole, which is which is more healthy, which is more real. And we begin to move through those those stories.
And this philosophy is something that I've kind of lived my life by for forever. And it's just become more and more crystallized over the years. And when I really started to understand the power of this, I started to play a little bit more with life and kind of looking at the kind of things that, you know, the stories that I didn't think I could do. You know, even like being a dad, I was like, "I can't be a dad. Like I can't even look after myself." That's what I used to think. How am I supposed to look after a kid? What if what if I can't? Then I was like, "Well, let's let's move into it. Let's let's let's move through that one and move into it and find who I am on the other side of that." And then I became a dad. And it's the best thing I've ever done. It's the best thing I've ever done. And if I continue to listen to that limiting belief, I would never have become a dad. So it's very powerful this stuff. It's a very powerful position to take. And this is something that has completely changed my life. And it's the kind of philosophy that's helped me move through every single challenging thing that I've come up across over the last 12 months. And you may have listened to my video that I shared a few weeks back where I told the full story about what actually happened. About completely running out of money as I started this channel. Completely running out, having to take out loans, getting sick, literally got diagnosed with cancer. I had to like learn all these different skills. I had to like learn how to sell, which is like so unbelievably out of my comfort zone. But I could recognize the power of becoming my own boss, of becoming an entrepreneur, being able to build a product, build an experience that could be of value to somebody else. And if I could just learn how to share that with people, let people know how it is that I could help them and then actually help somebody move towards an outcome, then I can build out this amazing business that can resolve my problem, which was being able to look after my family, build some leverage, and get back my time. And this is the exact philosophy that's helped me move through every single one of those challenges. And this is one of the one of the things that I like to bring into my channel, into my programs, is being able to help people move through these things because you are going to come across challenges. And you're probably going to want to give up. And sometimes it's just good to know that there's somebody there that can be like, "Let's talk this through. Let's see where we're at."
So, I'd love to hear from you in the comments. I'd love to hear about your own limiting beliefs, the kind of struggles that you're having right now. What are you trying to move through? What are you trying to do? Let me know. And I'm going to leave it there for now. And um I'm going to go home and enjoy my birthday and go and see my kids. And it's pizza day. That's what we do whenever we have a good day celebration. I love pizza. My kids love pizza. I've trained my partner to love pizza and um that's what we do. So, whatever it is that you're doing today, go and enjoy yourself. And if you've got any limiting beliefs, any stories that are holding you back, just ask yourself, "Is this mine? Does this belong to me? Or is it a narrative that I've inherited from somebody else?"