Transcription
Sometimes I have a tough time feeling proud of myself. Do you know what that is? And I think I've had other people call in on our show that have talked about that. You know, what do you think it is?
I don't know. I feel like, um, I almost feel like there's just there's a disconnect. Like it doesn't even land on me. Or I feel like maybe if I feel like I'm proud of myself, like if I actually feel proud of myself, it'll go against some script that I've always had written or some, some thing that was always written inside of me, you know? It's like it, it's almost like it wouldn't, if I wrote on the wall of myself, "I'm proud of you," it wouldn't even show up on the wall.
What emotion would you feel if you saw that? Um, like what emotion would I feel if I saw, "What I'm proud of myself"? Would you go, would you say, be pissed off by it? Would you be annoyed? Would you just...
I think I feel ashamed of myself for even thinking it.
That's interesting. And it produced an emotion in you just now, even when you just thought about it. I saw that flash in your eyes, just a little bit of water, a little bit of fluid.
Oh yeah, dude. We cry on here every week. Sorry, dude.
Beautiful. No, it's okay. But yeah, we don't have any, we don't have any shame about that.
No, you shouldn't. But I'm saying liquid leaving your body in a public place, as long as through your eyes, is not a problem. That's what I'm talking about.
Huh? Yeah, yeah. Don't ask. Don't ask. That's right.
But my point is, there's a real anchor for you there. So let me explain it to you. Everybody has what I call an emotional home. Yeah. Do you ever watch, like a, a place here and let's say, you know where the cyclone happens every two or three years, it wipes out everything, or a tornado comes through, and you see these poor people, all their stuff's all over the ground, and they're picking it up. And you could have a heart of stone not to feel. They rebuild. Two years again, it happens again. Two years later, happens again. Some part of you eventually goes, "Why don't you move?" You know? It's like, why don't you move? A lot of Vietnam's like that. It floods. New Orleans is like that. It floods. New Orleans is like that. So here's why don't they move? Because it's home. It's what they know. We have an emotional home. We have certain emotions that got built up in your youth. I had four fathers, I had a mother that was pretty intense, and I had a lot of emotions that came out of that experience. If I didn't reprogram myself, I wouldn't be sitting here with you today because my emotional home was not good feelings. It's what I was used to. So even though it didn't feel good, you go there because it's what you know.
Yeah. It's comfortable. So yeah, it almost feels like I was deserting myself if I felt good about myself, which is crazy. I'd almost feel like I was leaving. I don't know.
Yeah. It's almost like I knew those feelings. Finish that thought. I'm leaving what?
Well, it's almost like I feel like I know those feelings of not feeling good about myself so well that I would be, I don't want to leave them alone because we always had each other. And it was like, if I leave them, you know, if I have, have you ever, have you ever had a friend? I leave them. I just, I won't. I don't know. Does that make sense though?
Yeah, it does. You want, what if I leave them? I'll just be letting them down. And they're not even, yeah, they're not even real. But they're to pardon me, some part of me inside of me. I can't even access. They're like his brothers.
That's right. They're your home brothers. And by the way, I, I, I really appreciate you being so vulnerable because people watching there, seeing that allows them to be vulnerable because you're a role model of that. It's because you're funny as hell, but to be able to be that vulnerable is beautiful. But let me just tell you something. Those are not your friends. You know? And you're not going to abandon those parts of yourself. You're going to find these other parts of yourself that need to be in charge. It's not to say that you can't have negative emotions or fears or feelings, but the ones that don't support you, you got to break that pattern. And the way you break the pattern, first, first is you start to see, you get a new experience. If I get you an experience where you feel like you actually felt proud of yourself without those feelings, and there was no sense of loss, and I did that with you for days and days, you'll never go back. Wow. Cuz your brain will go, "What the f? I'm not going back to that shit." Those weren't my friends. It'd be like, you know, it's like having a friend that beats the shit out of you every single day. And it's like, "I'm letting him down if I don't let him beat the shit out of me, right?" It's like, "Oh no, I got to be there for him." Cuz I got to be, it can beat the shit out of me all the place, right? That's pretty much what happened here, dude. You're like, "Damn, here we go again."
And so then what happens though, is the reason you went for the antidepressants is it's so overwhelming that numbing, at least feels less. I'd rather see you cry and feel the pain, even though I want you to feel pain as a brother.
Yeah, no, I'm grateful to feel it. I want it out of my system.
That's right. But the next step for you is drawing a line in the sand of how you really want to feel. So I'll have people, an event, right? Down, I give them like a minute. I go, "Draw a line down the middle. Right down the left side, all the positive emotions you feel in an average week. Not once a year, not once a month, the ones you regularly feel. Whatever good feelings, the average emotions in a positive, in a positive week."
So what are some ones you feel in a week? In a week? Uh, feel at least, at least once a week. Okay. Any emotion? Uh, positive. Start with the positive.
Empowering emotions. Hopeful. Okay. Um, thankful. Yeah. Um, loving. Yeah. Um, and, uh, maybe some pride.
Good. And so, so the pride, the pride is sneaking in now. That's not ego pride. That's pride of like, you're growing.
Well, I'm learning about pride. I mean, it's like I said, it's really hard for me to feel pride of myself.
You know, so stop saying that. Okay? Cuz every time you say that, you're rewiring it back into your body over and over. It's a story. It's like there's an old phrase that says, "Tell a lie big enough, tell a lie big enough, loud enough, and long enough, sooner or later, people believe it." You know who said that?
Hitler.
Oh, I think you say Fauci.
Well, same difference. But yeah, I didn't know who was going to be. We're aligned on that one, brother. You're quicker. You're quicker than, than I am. But no, so yeah, we hear what we're saying. But you, the conversation you've said with yourself, you've done. How many times do you think you've said that?
Said what?
That, you know, "I'm, it's hard for me."
I, you know, I say, I say it a lot.
Yeah. It's because I think I'm, yeah. It's like having a new story for myself. I, you know, part of me still, there's a heavy bit, even to my whole new story. Having a new story, even having some success in my life, it's almost like some of it feels embarrassing. You know? And some people feel like, you know, the word people use is impostor syndrome. It's all bullshit. It's just fear that you're not enough. We all have that fear, brother. I feel that at times. I don't feel it much now, but I'm 63 years old and I've done a shitload of things for 40 years. You know, you build enough patterns.
Yeah, I built up new patterns. It's like a muscle, you know? Everybody's got the muscle. If you use it, it grows. If you don't use it, you lose it, right? It doesn't ever disappear, though. It just looks like it's not there. But if you demand it, you push it beyond what it's comfortable with. And that's what you're doing right now. You're pushing beyond your comfort. You were settling for comfort to try to survive. Now you're like, "F that, I want more out of this life." You know, "I'm not going to settle for that shit." But then you keep telling yourself the old story. So change your story, change your life. It sounds overly simplistic, but it is true.
Oh, I love it. I appreciate you saying it. Yeah, yeah. I think a lot of this chat has been about that. And but look at the positive emotions you wrote down. So you just told me verbally, right? So you're hopeful. You have, are you playful or funny or what would be your term around that part of you? Because I didn't hear that part of you.
I know it's there. No, I feel like that part of me became such my work that I haven't had as much free time to be that.
As I on your own. Okay, cool. Well, so those the positives. What are the negatives you feel in an average week, at least once a week? Not once a month, once a year. What are the negative emotions you feel?
Um, ugly. Okay. Um, I feel, um, incapable. Angry. Um, and I feel, uh, disappointing.
Okay. So which, which of those emotions is most powerful for you? Um, the positive list or the negative list?
The negative list is more powerful. And that's true for most people.
Watch this. What's an emotion that if it became the dominant emotion of your life, one or two, that would get rid of those negas, like they would have any power over you? What would be an emotional state? Would it be like courage? Or would it be playfulness? Or would it be, uh, uh, let's say joy? Or would it be gr... You've already got gratitude. More gratitude. What would be an emotion that's so strong that it would get rid of the disappointment?
Probably love.
You know, there you go. And that's, that's your core, brother. And hear you say that on the first one. That's all you really want. It's probably why you do this podcast. It's probably why you make people laugh.
Me too. By the way, the only reason I do what I do is I love people. I love to see people happy because I was so unhappy myself. And I got out of it. So I was so grateful. It's like, I don't, it's like, you know, I feed, you know, 100 million people a year. 100 million meals. Doing, I've done a billion meals in the last eight years.
Jesus Christ, dude. That's almost, that's what that's what McDonald's did, isn't it? And it was free. They're pretty cheap at McDonald's, but dang, dude. But I did it not because I'm a good person. I did it because I grew up and I had no money and no food. When I was 11, somebody came and fed us on Thanksgiving. And I was like, that made me believe strangers care. Strangers care about me. And they care about strangers. And so I fell in love with people. And I want to make people feel happy. And I know what it feels like not food. I know what it feels like to be absolutely depressed and miserable and saying, "Do I even need to stick around in this life?" Right? So I don't want anybody else to feel that. So it drove me to find answers. Not just for me. Once I found it for me, I wanted to help as many people as I can. But why I want to do it? Because I love love. Because when you help people that much, I mean, I have so much love in my life, it's ridiculous. I get stopped on the street every day and people don't come up and say, "Oh, I like your show" or something. Come up and go, "You changed my life." "Oh my God, I love you, Tony Robbins." And I always say, "No, I didn't do it. You did." But I'm glad I helped. But I love the love that comes from it. Yeah.
So we all really want love. But we're afraid we're not enough. And you, my friend, you are growing like a weed right now because you're doing things most people never get out of. And I'm not blowing smoke your way. I'm not a bullshit.
I don't feel, I don't feel that, man. I appreciate you saying it.
The truth. But you gotta, you gotta notice your progress. And you got, you got to stack the good. And then you got to stop the old story. And the minute you start to say that phrase, "Shit," that's an old story. It's not true anymore.
Yeah, I think a part of me is afraid that I'm going to leave a part of me, like, um, if I, you know, if I even if I be successful. So let's investigate that for a second. Like if I be successful, I'm going to leave a part of me behind, you know?
Well, then you're effed right now because you're already successful. You got, I don't know how many millions of people, I'm sure that watch your podcast. You make people laugh all over the world. You have people that adore you. Sometimes. But all those emotions are old habits. They're just habits. So I understand that. And by the way, when you feel embarrassed or you feel these negative emotions, yeah, it also makes you feel for yourself for a little bit. So that's the other part you might be afraid of. Like some people take care of. Well, like for some, I don't know if this is you, but some people are so busy trying to make everybody else happy all the time, they don't take care of themselves unless it's a big ass problem. And then for the first time, even it's a negative feeling, at least I'm feeling for myself. I'm feeling for me. And that might be what you're afraid of losing. Let's try it for a second here. What if I told you you could go back and feel like shit as much as you want? It'll never stop, right? But you don't have to have it be the predominant emotion of your life. That you, this need to beat yourself up or be ashamed or not be too happy, that it's an old story that got wired a long time ago and it has nothing to do with who you really are. But when you keep telling yourself, it's like my friend, I need to take care of. I'm going to lose a part of myself. No, you'll never lose that part. There's a part of me that would be a victim very easily. I was beat as a child. My mom was a beautiful woman. I'm not denigrating her. When she put, but she put, but she put alcohol together with prescription drugs. She was crazy. And I was five, one in high school, believe it or not. I'm 67 now. I told people the difference. I tell people the difference is personal growth, right? But I had a tumor in my brain that made me grow. But I was this little guy. She would slam my head against it. She'd put liquid soap down my throat because she said I was lying, and I wasn't lying. And when the person you love most is trying to hurt you, you can do a number on your head. But I look back now and fortunately, I didn't let that stop me. And I didn't settle for that. I struggled for a long time. I look back on, I can honestly tell you, if she was the mother I'd hope she'd been like, if I was well-fed, you really think I'd be trying to feed a bill? You tried not a billion people now. I'm trying to feed 100 billion people. You think I would be spending my time doing that if I was a well-fed kid? I don't think so. If she had been the mother I want, I wouldn't have become the man I'm proud to be. Yeah.
So, so those emotions are not you. They were a part of your past. They were a pattern. It's a pattern of what you do with your body and breathe. But it meets some of your needs to feel, feel yourself or feel sorry for yourself or feel sad, right? You follow me? It's like a self-pity thing, a little bit. But what you're really wanting is not self-pity. You're wanting self-love. You just haven't learned how to give it to yourself. My way of doing that is gratitude because when you're grateful, love flows naturally.
Is that a common pattern that sometimes? Because I, I noticed over like a, about two years ago, I noticed that I, when one of my biggest addictions sometimes was self-pity. I didn't even realize it. I thought I was helping myself by like focusing on myself, but really I'd been too, I was feeling too pitiful. Yeah. I, I didn't, it was, it was, man, it was. I realized my alcohol was self-pity. Anytime I also, also alcohol is a depressant. So what's going to do is lower. It feels good in the moment, but then it lowers your energy and your blood sugar, everything, right? Same for self-pity. Same thing. Now your energy, think about it. Self-pity, if you're in self-pity right now, zero to ten, ten is total high energy, zero's no energy. Where are you in self-pity? Where would you put it?
Oh, two.
Yeah. Where are you when you're feeling excited? Um, where's my energy? Zero to ten. Yeah.
Uh, my energy when I'm feeling excited is like a nine.
Which one do you want to be?
I'd rather be the nine.
Yeah. Why the hell want us just do that? I know.