Word count:10198
hey this is Leo for actualised dot-org and in this video I'm talking about a critical topic I'm gonna tell you how to stop caring what other people think about you why do we allow other people to have so much control over the way that we live our own lives I think I wonder this I've ever wondered why you let people have so much power over you because you are doing it and if you're a people pleaser if you're somebody who is watching this video and this topic is something that resonated with you and you want to stop caring so much about what everyone's thinking about you then you should really sit down and take a deep look and I'm gonna help you to do this with this video this is going to be a foundational video because I think that this is a problem that almost all of us face some of us face it to such a degree that it's literally crippling and destroying our lives this is a personal topic for me because this is something I really had to struggle with for a long time not just for a few years but really for my whole life this is almost like a theme a motif of my entire life is struggling with this and just over the last year I've made some really big progress you know I've been I've been making good progress last maybe three years but especially the last year I've made some really good progress as I've really taken my personal development to to some advanced stages and I have some mindsets that I think I can share with you to help you right now right at the end of this video to walk away with some big shifts there going to be some paradigm shifts so if you're facing this problem then stick with me I know a lot of people have been asking about this topic this is a topic that I really wanted to do justice to I've already shot this video several times so this is probably my fifth time recording it I've shot it in various places from Death Valley etc and I'm rerecorded it now because I want to make it really have punch so my own struggles let me start about by talking a little bit about those really I moved here to the US when I was six years old I moved here from Russia and that was an amazing time for me it was really an amazing experience there was so much here in the US that was not available in Russia at the time when I moved here it was in 91 which was right before about a year before the Soviet Union collapsed so I moved here and my family relocated and it was great except one problem in that transition was that I started going to school here and I didn't know the language when I went to first grade so I had to really learn quickly and I struggled for a while in school trying to you know catch back up and one of the things that really crippled me there was that it was really hard for me to fit into the culture of the people here in the States in school so I always felt like I was kind of the odd one out I always felt a little bit weird I always felt like I wasn't normal I always felt that I had to work extra hard to fit in with with the culture that's here and that that lets some some kind of deep impressions on me some deep maybe scars nothing traumatic you know nothing shocking but still well you've got a young mind and you're faced with that kind of challenge you you can you can use it to kind of scar your own self and then you can develop it's kind of complex where you feel like you're always assessing how people think about you maybe you can relate with that when you're walking down the street you're always in the back of your mind thinking about what's that person think about me how do I look in his eyes how do I look in her eyes when you're having a conversation with a girlfriend or a boyfriend you're thinking about oh how are they going to interpret that what do they think about me when you're talking in front of a group of colleagues that work in back your mind you're always running that analysis right always running that analysis about how you were perceived how you come off so this was me for a very long time might be hard to believe now because I've really worked on myself a lot shooting these videos just in himself has helped me a lot so there was that and even more than just this incident of coming here to the States and kind of the culture shock that that I had to deal with and trying to fit in but the next thing that I really that I faced was that my dad was an interesting example because he was the type of person that simply did not give a [ __ ] what anybody thought about him and it's really quite remarkable it's almost inspiring there were good and bad components to that there's good and bad in that but the problem that happened with me was that I was seeing that and how I was interpreting that thing of not caring about what people think of you I was interpreting that as bad I was thinking that that was a bad thing and so usually what has to happen is that your parents your mom and your dad they have certain values and kids will either align with those values and they'll tend to go along with those and they'll adopt those or some of those values kids will do the opposite with they'll just rebel against them because they see is they see them as being bad or something that they don't want for themselves so that's what happened in the case with my dad here and with trying to be a people-pleaser in my own mind I rationalized it like this and if you're people pleaser then you probably can relate to this kind of line of thinking in my mind I said well I don't want to be an [ __ ] I don't want to be uncaring I want to be the good guy I want to be the white knight right I want to be the goody-goody I want to be epithet ik like I want to care about people so I'm gonna go out and you know I'm gonna go out of my way and I may be nice I mean extra nice to people I'm gonna make sure that I do things well that's kind of a philosophy that I set for myself very early early early on and I kind of rebelled from that philosophy of you know [ __ ] it who cares what people think I'm just doing my own thing and and now it's been many many years and I've been I've been kind of going full circle coming back to originally what I shunned because there were a lot of problems with this people-pleasing mentality that I adopted so that's what we're gonna do in this video is we're going to help cure you of your people-pleasing tendencies let's first take a look at why this is happening what's really going on here why are you trying to peel to people please here's what I've kind of come to this conclusion here's how it works you've got an image of yourself a self image in your mind you've got this picture this mental picture of what you think you're like we all have this but you as a people pleaser your self image is very specific your self image is that of this noble person you're a good human being you're a caring human being you're not like some of those other human beings who just kind of stumble aimlessly through life not caring about others you don't want to hurt other people's feelings you want to do good you want to do right in the world and you want to be perceived as a good kind-hearted human being the kind of human being that you imagined yourself to be your ideal self you've got this ideal self and you want this image to be reflected in the external circumstances so it's not just enough that you have this image but you want a validation of that image you want evidence that your image is accurate you want this evidence from your boss you want it from your mom and your dad you want it from your brother your sister your wife or your husband or your girlfriend your boyfriend or any of your friends or any of your customers or any of your clients or even a random stranger on the street that just glances at you you want all of those people to validate your noble self-image you want to be approved of and you want to be loved that's basically what you want and because of this you are working very hard to maintain this image because as you can probably already guess when you've got all these random and various people in your life that you're trying to please that you want certain reactions from that's not an easy thing to get that's not an easy situation to architect so what you're doing is you're running around and you're literally trying to architect your life in a way that people are giving you the most approval possible so that your self-image is upheld and you could say oh look I am this noble person after all she said so he said so they said so this guy said so it was written about me here it was told about me there you're looking for that confirmation evidence and anytime you hear evidence that is contradicting the self image that really really disturbs you really disturbs it sends you into overdrive to work extra hard to correct that to make sure that you don't get any disk disconfirming evidence so you want both confirming and you want no disconfirming evidence and that's what you're always working towards one of the ways that you work towards this is by telling yourself that you want to be very empathetic right you really care about the feelings of other people the problem is that being empathetic while it can be very nice in your case for you it's a trap it's a huge huge trap that you are drowning in like quicksand here's a fundamental problem that you need to come to grips with is that although it's nice to care about other people nice to do good things for them to be empathetic to understand their feelings you are a living breathing organism I trillion cells comprise you each of those cells is almost like a little mini living organism by itself that's struggling for its own survival all those add up create you in in a very deep sense you're not even in control of how selfish you are you are an incredibly selfish organism and to deny this nature within you is a challenge it's a problem because when you deny that you are very very selfish and when you tell yourself that you're this altruistic person when you try to live up to that the problem is that that's that's rubbing against your your very basic nature very basic nature of human being and when you put the the feelings and the priorities and agenda of everybody else in your life above your own then you're really putting yourself in this adversarial relationship with your own nature because your own nature is gonna fight that it's not just going to take it it will take it maybe for a little while maybe it'll even take it for a few years maybe I'll only take it for a decade but it won't take it indefinitely and so problems start to bubble up right you can't suppress this stuff there is some resentment starts to built up anger builds up all sorts of tensions build up in your relationships you start feeling unfulfilled you start feeling inauthentic you start not being able to create and live the kind of life that you want which is ultimately why we're talking about this right the reason that this is a problem that you care too much what people think about you is because it's preventing you from building your dream life you can't do it and I'm going to talk a little bit more about that in detail as we continue so at this point and I want you to be very mindful of this what your mind might be saying if you're people-pleaser is something along these lines you might say below so what it's already talking about here you're telling me that being empathetic and being caring is a bad thing now when when did this nonsense come about this is good you're telling me that what I'm supposed to be an [ __ ] now that's what your brain might say that's what my brain said for a long time here's the thing you've got to be nuanced here don't let your brain bully you don't let your brain engage in black and white thinking because right now what your brain is telling you is I can either be a goody-goody on one hand or I can be an [ __ ] on the other and I definitely don't want to be an [ __ ] so I'm going to be this goody-goody and yes there's some downsides with that Leo I understand you know not everything's perfect there's some pros and cons but this is far preferable to being an [ __ ] so I'm going to be this goody-goody I'm and continue to struggle and suffer the way I have for my whole life but it doesn't have to be this way I'm gonna give you a new alternative the new alternative is what I call the middle way the middle way if on this end of the spectrum we have self-sacrifice and altruism and on this end of the spectrum we have the careless [ __ ] who's a monster cold-hearted monster then what do we have here here we have an interesting thing we have someone who is completely independent of the good or the bad opinions of others but yet he or she is grounded in his or her own values and those values are good and those values are right and that's the end of it that's the bottom line that this person is grounded internally by their own values and whatever opinions are out there about this person don't matter because there is a path that this person is walking and no one is going to take them off this path this does not mean that this person is a monster or an [ __ ] and also it doesn't mean that their self sacrificing themselves and suffering needlessly in order to appease others so it's the really the perfect path to take this middle path and this is the path that you're going to have to if you want to create an extraordinary life the kind of life where you're doing big things so we already talked a little bit about why I'm bethey is bad the other thing that I'll add on top of that is just to simply say that it's not a sustainable strategy you think that you're doing the greatest good but actually you're not doing the greatest good when you're denying your own nature when you're denying your own agenda when you're denying your own values this really comes down to an issue of values because a person who is a people pleaser the core problem with this is that when you're people-pleasing all the time then your own values and your own dreams those get put off to the side and when that happens you're not working towards them you can't you're also not working on yourself you're not able to do the personal development that's necessary in order to empower you to create those dreams and for most people those dreams could actually be the way that they help the world the way that they help their family the way they help their friends but you're not able to do that because you're not honoring your own agenda because what you're doing is you're constantly concerned about what other people are thinking about you you're constantly sacrificing your own agenda for others for the sake of others who impose themselves on you but you never have the courage to impose yourself on them and really you don't even want that because you judge that as being bad so this whole strategy this whole strategy you have to start to understand that this is garbage it just doesn't work it doesn't work and you've been doing your whole life you see that it doesn't work right you're not accomplishing the things that you want to accomplish when you're doing this because you're too dependent on the opinions of others here's paradigm shift here's something that could really change your thinking about this situation an opinion right what somebody is thinking about you what is that what is it it's a thought it's this thought in somebody else's head so literally ask yourself this thought which is you could say a figment of somebody else's imagination that you're letting a figment of somebody else's imagination control your life think about that when you put it starkly like this it sounds pretty ridiculous it's ludicrous that you would do this that a figment out there and it could be a figment it's one thing to be influenced by the figment of the imagination of for example somebody that you really respect or somebody that's really important to you like maybe a spouse or a father or mother but most people they don't even do it this way what they do is they're really concerned about the figments of imagination that are in a complete strangers mind a complete strangers mind so maybe it's a customer that you interact with once a year and you're concerned about him or maybe it's you speaking in front of a group of people giving a presentation you don't even know half the people in that audience but you're so concerned about what they think about you what you think about what they think about how you dress how you speak how your face looks how your body looks how much weight you have how good they think your speech your speaking is how good they think your material is right or you're on a date and you're so you're so worried that this person that you've only known for a couple of days is is sitting there and judging you or what they think about you what's going on in their mind you're letting this dictate how your life progresses can you realize that how ridiculous that is it's really a travesty to allow this to happen because what you're doing is you're taking all the responsibility that you have to rekt your own life to make yourself happy fulfilled in life and you're just giving that away to somebody to a random critic a random stranger and some random crowd or maybe even a close friend of yours or a boss or colleague no one should have that kind of power over you but yourself so what's the solution here you need to start getting grounded in your own values what you think is right what you think you should be doing right getting grounded in that and then just going along and really not caring about the opinions of other people either bad ones which are critical opinions or good ones which are which is praised both of those you shouldn't really care about because somebody who is grounded their own values who knows what they want out of life who knows what they stand for in life who knows what's going to fulfill them and won't won't write who knows what's right and what's wrong for them who knows that do they need somebody to tell them yes you're doing a good job no you shouldn't be doing that yes I like how you dress or how you look no I don't like your work I don't like your art I don't like this thing that you said here are they gonna be concerned about any of those things I mean when you really know what you want don't you just go for it you just go straight for it and that's a powerful way to live life that's how you create a powerful life that's how you be a creator because if you've got all these people on the sidelines giving you their opinions and their critiques and it'll slide snide remarks and their little praises and compliments and you're always constantly distracted looking one way in the other how are you going to move forward how are you gonna build out that grand vision that you have for your life it's just not gonna happen it's not gonna happen and every single one of those people they have their own agendas they have their own values they don't know your vision they don't know your dreams they don't know what you want to do in life they don't know what's right and what's wrong for you they don't have your values so they're in charge of enforcing their values you should be in charge of enforcing your own don't be the one that's left out without any values you need to enforce your own one objection that might come up about about this point is that you might say something like below what about feedback don't I need feedback I mean if I'm doing this work if I'm making this art if I'm making this music if I'm doing something in a relationship if I'm doing something for a customer or a client don't I need to know if it's good or if it's bad or if it's right or if it's not what if I'm building a business don't I need to know if it's gonna be profitable if it's gonna be successful feedback is important there right well the thing here is that you're really worried that you won't make it on your own you're really worried that you don't have your own guidance system and that's what we need to install and you is your own guidance system because if you have your own values by which to guide yourself then you can take feedback there's there's no reason why you can't listen to you know two people telling you things it can be a good source of information but the problem isn't feedback the problem with you is a lot more emotional it's a lot more irrational very neurotic you're not really looking for feedback what you're looking for is validation and approval and you're really trying to stay away from criticism or anything negative because you just want to build up that self-image that you've got right you want to preserve that self-image that beautiful self-image of your ideal self if you could just have that validated by everybody out there and nobody contradicted it everything would be perfect right that's how you're thinking that's not feedback that's that's like ego mania happening there very subtle ego mania be careful about your ego telling you that you're selfless it's actually when your ego is telling you that your selfless that's usually when you're being the most selfish so really watch out for that you might also object and say well if I don't get proper feedback then I'm gonna get off course you know I'm gonna get off course get off course could of course you might say leo these people in my life they keep they keep me on course they keep me knowing that I'm doing the right thing otherwise maybe I'm doing something wrong I won't even realize it what if my guidance system breaks well sometimes it's good to have people to hold you accountable to to do some sanity checks on your own decisions you know that's all well and good but you don't want that to become a way of life and this concern that you have that you're going to become some sort of monster some sort of [ __ ] you're gonna become some sort of failure in life if you don't have all this criticism coming in or you don't have all this feedback coming in you're not always constantly looking for opinions and approval of other people this is nonsense actually the best way to live a very successful life is by not looking at the opinions of others when you look at the opinions of others that's the most likely to make you more neurotic in your life that's the most likely way that you're going to fail because you're gonna be just going around in circles worrying all the time about what everyone's thinking about you but not honoring your own agenda so I already mentioned that praise and criticism are both problems for you and this might be a point that you haven't really realized and thought deeply enough about yet because criticism this is obvious right if you're an artist or you're a business person you're working somewhere you're in a relationship it's it's obvious that criticism is something that is emotionally disturbing to you you don't like criticism right I mean who likes to get criticized about something so you can see how this will sabotage you right if you're doing your art and someone keeps telling you that your art sucks all the time your parents tell you your arts no good your friends tell you your arts no good maybe you submit your art to a gallery and the dealer tells you your art is no good so you do all this stuff you're getting all this negative negative feedback about it and all of a sudden it's making you doubt yourself can I even be an artist can I be successful should I be doing this or maybe I should stop being an artist altogether right there you're starting to basically sabotage yourself because you're listening to all this feedback that's out there I mean how many artists were told that they would never make it how many artists were told that their art sucks how many artists were told that their art is worthless and will earn a penny only for that art to go on later in someone's life or after they're dead to earn you know millions and millions and millions of dollars so it's dangerous it's dangerous to think and to take that criticism seriously so this might be obviously you probably know this already that you shouldn't be taking criticism too seriously because it's good it's gonna run you into the ground but what about praise you might ask yourself you might say Allie oh what's you know what's wrong about getting praised what's wrong with a with a nice compliment here or there and I mean technically speaking there's nothing wrong with praise the problem though for you is that you're neurotic about it you need it you're desperate for it you desperately need it to prop up this beautiful ideal self image that you've got which is a total fiction but you need to prop it up so you need to you need to praise you need to compliments so maybe you're that kind of artist that puts out some work but you're not very confident in that work until someone comes up to you and says oh man that's amazing maybe you need it to sell maybe you need to sell some prints or some copies maybe you need to earn X amount of dollars for you to get that validation that praise that positive approval that oh yeah this art has been accepted it's good now I can go on and I can create more well see you can't rely on that because not always will you get the praise you want and if you're neurotic about needing praise if you're desperate for it if you're thirsting for it all the time then when someone doesn't give you the praise that you think you deserve which happens so often then what happens you get resentful you get bitter you start to doubt yourself you start to question that person - why didn't they give me the praise I deserved how could they be so insensitive how could they be so cold and so heartless how could they be so judgmental so this just further undermines everything you're trying to do in your life it makes it very difficult to build your dreams out how are you gonna build out your dreams and your vision with all the work that's required when you know the work and the time that that takes a while to happen during that time you might have a lot of naysayers you might have a lot of people criticizing you you might have a lot of people questioning your motives making fun of you ridiculing you saying that you won't make it or maybe even they'll tell you that you're doing good but they won't give you that amazing praise if you think you deserve for your work or any other part of your life and all of that stuff is gonna just gonna drive you deeper into the ground it's gonna get you stuck so what's the solution to this how do we solve this problem you need to come to a realization right now this is where the paradigm shift comes in we've talked a lot about of this stuff but here's the realization you need to admit it's the first step admit to yourself right now that the current strategy that you're using this strategy of seeking approval for your self-image that this is a shitty strategy and that it's time to drop it you need to admit that to yourself because most people pleasers they won't even get this far they don't like being people pleasers but they never take this first step of really thinking it all through and saying wait a minute this is a strategy I'm using it's a overarching life strategy and it's just not going to work there's no way it can work when you think your strategy is correct and you think it's gonna work then you're gonna keep doing it so you need to admit that it's not gonna work hopefully I try to convince you a little bit of it here and I'm gonna continue to do that as we keep talking here but you can do your own work and investigation to really convince yourself that this is true and I guarantee you that it's a good move to make to move away from the strategy of course you have some reservations right your brain doesn't want to do it because well you have a lot of good reasons you have fears potential fears of what might happen to you what might happen to your success in life that you currently already have and you're clinging to you might wonder what's going to happen in your relationship you might wonder what's gonna happen with you you might tell yourself that you're not being authentic if you're not a people pleaser all this various area stuff comes up which was very natural because your brain uses all those reasons and stories to keep you very grounded in your in your present strategy but you need to bust through that and you need to decide right now that the best course of action for you the best strategy is to become independent completely independent of the good or the bad opinions of others this means that people will come and will praise you and you'll take that praise but it won't change your trajectory you won't need that praise you won't thirst after it also it means that if people come and they criticize you they laugh at you they make fun of you they have a negative image of you whatever that means then that's also okay you're not going to be triggered by it the game that you're playing right now and it is a game write this up holding of the ideal self image it's a game this game that you're playing the problem is that it can't be won it can't be won because what you're trying to do is you're trying to make every opinion out there exactly the way you want and you're basically trying to control other people you're trying to control think about this you're trying to control the imaginations of other people it's nuts what you're trying to do and it's not going to work it's too much work to do it and one of the other reasons that it's not going to work it's simply because opinions are very ran very random in nature very capricious what that means is that a lot of times what people think about you says very little about you and your art or your work or your looks or your personality or anything else about you it says a lot more about that other person I mean think about how does that happen to you when you were in a bad mood yourself something bad happened he maybe you've got a flat tire earlier that morning on your way to work or maybe you skipped out lunch and dinner and breakfast here and eat for a long time so now you're a little cranky because you're so hungry or maybe you had just a big breakup or a big fight with your wife or your girlfriend or your boyfriend so something like that happens to you and then somebody else comes to you and asks you to maybe give them give them some some feedback on the work that they did or somebody else is in a conversation with you and they're there trying to get your opinion on something and then you chime in there and what are you you're negative right you're negative you're hyper critical you say something off the cuff that's a that's insensitive maybe you criticize someone harshly or something like that and this is what happens with other people right that's what happens with other people so when you think that somebody's criticizing your art or is criticizing your looks or is making fun of you or is giving you a sarcastic comment I mean there could be literally a million reasons for why they said what they said and it might not have to do anything with your art or your looks or your your value as a human being it might simply be that that person had a breakup or a death in the family or maybe they don't have a really good sense of art so their opinion isn't worth as much as you think it is or maybe they just skipped lunch and so now they give you a critique whereas if they didn't skip lunch they would have given you a compliment very random right I want you to ask yourself do you want to give give your dreams and your vision that you have for your own life do you want to put that in the in the hands of randomness in the literally imaginations of other people that are out there many of whom you don't really even know too well and a lot of them who you don't even respect that much but you still take their opinions very very seriously ask yourself this question can I live an extraordinary life if I'm dependent on random circumstances is that going to happen what you're gonna realize is that it's not gonna happen and that your life probably right now is a lot less than it could have been if you hadn't been working this this people pleats of strategy for so long and so you know someone get wrenched in it okay so basically what we're talking about here is that it's okay right it's okay for the following things to happen it's okay for someone to think that you're an [ __ ] it's okay it's okay for someone to think that your work is [ __ ] that's okay too it's okay if somebody mocks you if someone ridicules you if someone makes fun of you if someone makes you have to be fool that's okay too and it's okay if you don't get that compliment that you think you deserve to get or that you really want it to get all of this stuff you need to treat it as just you know just the wind blowing it's the wind blowing left one morning right the next morning you gotta treat it as though it doesn't matter because here's another deep realization that you need to come into into contact with and that's this that there is nothing really that another human being can offer you of true value this is a powerful realization that I had about oh I'd say five months ago that really helped me to get over this people-pleasing thing is that I started to realize that wait a minute what is it really that somebody else a human being is offering to me in terms of what's really important are they really offering me fulfillment how much fulfillment am I getting from this praise that I'm getting over here this nice critical review that I get over here this nice thumbs-up that I get in my video this nice comment that I get this nice thank-you letter that I get I mean don't get me wrong all that stuff isn't nice right but if your people please we have to really tell yourself wait a minute what's the value and all that stuff can another person give me something that's truly valuable at first you might say of course of course Leo I mean other people gives us valuable stuff all the time someone give me some money or someone give me some sex or some love or a marriage or dah dah dah dah work you know all this all this stuff but think about it a little bit deeper a little bit deeper what you're gonna find is that nobody can really fulfill you sure they can give you some material stuff they can give you job opportunities and and all that all that kind of stuff and then give you sex and love and but will the will that really fulfill you what you're going to find is that this game that you're playing of trying to uphold this self-image you think that this upholding of this self-image so now is going to fulfill you but honestly it doesn't it doesn't really fulfill you does it even when it's perfectly upheld it's not that fulfilling I mean that praise they got at work that nice review you got in some magazine or under one of your YouTube videos or something like that that can be nice but what happens a day or two passes a week passes a month passes you don't even remember that you got it you don't remember what it feels like it was just a nice little hit what's a lot more fulfilling is to be on your own path in life to be honoring your values to be living to your dreams here to be living to your full potential in life right to be embodying your own values to be fighting and championing those that's what's really fulfilling creating your dream life that's what's really fulfilling not these really criticize and compliments that you get left and right so you don't need to be upholding this this self-image up there who cares if it gets a little bit of smudges on it once in a while you need to accept that accept that your self-image will get tarnished and that people out there don't need to be costly validating it in fact and I'll get to this point a little bit even later in this video is I'm going to tell you that that's actually impossible the standards that you're setting are simply guaranteed to fail so as a recap you don't need praise and you don't need approval try to like live into this in your mind you have to you have to kind of trick yourself because this is unnatural for you your people pleaser so you think that you really need this approval you really need this praise you really need people to love you to think that you're a good human being but really it's okay you're not gonna die people think that you're a bad human being you're not gonna die if somebody is criticizing you you're not gonna die if a couple of people in this world think that you're an [ __ ] which invariably they will it's okay to challenge people tell yourself this it's okay to do that it's okay to offend people it's okay to hold it unpopular opinion it's okay to not fit in all the time it's okay to be abnormal to not be the average in society or the average of your group of friends or that the one that fits into your family it's okay to be the odd one out and it's okay for people to criticize you for that it's okay for people not to like you it's okay for people to think that you're stupid or that your opinions are foolish or that you're flat-out wrong or that you're an idiot in your mind a people pleaser will tell himself that wow this stuff this stuff is you know it's horrible must avoid at all costs but really if you go out there and you actually experience more of this more of this rejection more this criticism you shouldn't build up a tougher skin and you sort of realize you know what it just doesn't matter that much I'm gonna be dead soon anyways there's a lot more important stuff than a figment of the imagination in someone's head over there and that's how you have to kind of start to start to think if you're going to be building a big life you're gonna be going out there you know imposing yourself on the world constructing something important maybe challenging the status quo you're gonna be you're going to be clashing with people sometimes as a people pleaser you don't want to clash with people you want everything to be nice and proper and prim and that's not gonna happen if you're building a business there's gonna be tension there if you're building a relationship is gonna be tension if you're interacting with your friends are gonna be tension and tension comes from authenticity when you're authentic how that the person is authentic there can be tension and that tension is also authentic tension and that's actually that's okay that other person doesn't mind us so much actually what that other person really doesn't like is you being fake when you're fake all the time just to avoid any source of conflict it's hard to be attractive not just in intimate relationships but I mean anywhere it's hard to be attractive because you make yourself so bland right it's like you take out everything that's unique and special about you you hide all that stuff behind your back so that nobody sees and then you present this just like pristine vanilla mask that you put on and that kind of mask people aren't engaged with it they're not excited about it it's not good for business it's not good for marketing it's not good for sales it's not good for your relationships or your love life and it's really not good for your soul because when you do that your soul gets strained you feel empty because all that stuff that's unique about you that you put behind your back well that's the stuff that makes you really fulfilled when you express it so self-expression is really probably one of the biggest things that you're sacrificing as a people-pleaser when you've got a big vision and you're going out there to build it a lot of people won't understand what your vision is about especially at first your parents might not understand what you want to do for your career they not dead it they understand it they just don't get it they think it's wrong right maybe your friends think that the personal development you're doing is stupid maybe your partners at work or your colleagues think that the some direction that you have for the company from this project is it's also wrong headed in some way and they're very critical of it but you've got this mission you've got your own values right and you want to live those which means that you have to put aside the opinions of those people who don't see the vision yet this is this is one of the biggest Ruggles of being a visionary is to deal with all the naysayers that are out there so you gotta develop some tough thick skin and you got a you got to do that even though you're not gonna have the feedback that you wanna have the praise if you want a front in fact you're usually gonna have criticism and maybe even ridicule so think about that I think that's ultimately my point here is that you have to choose between whether you really want to uphold this nice shiny self-image that you've got or you would rather build this beautiful dream life something powerful do something powerful with your life which would you rather have because there's definitely conflict between the two and I think it's time for you choose this one over here write your dreams your extraordinary life I want you to build that so here's how we're gonna practically do it I want to give you an exercise in fact I'm gonna give you two exercises in this video because it's important to actually put this into practice not just think about it so the first exercise I'm gonna get you going on right now here's the one thing that you're taking away from this video it's this one single statement I am completely independent of the good or the bad opinions of others such a powerful statement it's so powerful that I'm gonna say it with you right here I want you to say it with me three times in a row we're gonna say it to get it to sink into your mind alright ready I'm gonna guide you I am completely independent of the good or the bad opinion of others alright say it with me I am completely independent of the good or bad opinions of others same it with me again third final time I am completely independent of the good or the bad opinions of others good this is a powerful statement you don't presently realize how powerful this statement is here's my assignment for you if you really want to get over this people-pleasing thing then here's what you're going to do for the next 90 days this is not gonna be easy for the next 90 days straight for five minutes five whole straight minutes you're gonna affirm to yourself as an affirmation you're gonna say to yourself with your eyes closed for five minutes straight I am completely independent of the good or the bad opinion of others and you're gonna do that for five whole minutes just repeating it repeating it repeating it repeating it repeating it and then doing that day after day after day after day week day and weekends workdays and holidays for 90 days straight if you do that that's gonna be a very powerful impulse to reprogram that the subconscious mind of yours which right now doesn't believe this at all but if you say this for 90 days straight you're gonna be surprised at how simple something like this can be and yet still have a very powerful shift on your psyche so go ahead and do that and don't dismiss this as you gonna become some sort of evil monster or some sort of [ __ ] cold-hearted person right this is not gonna happen to you this might be a problem for somebody else if I was talking to an audience of not people pleasers but Psychopaths or murderers or [ __ ] you know if I was talking to people like that then I wouldn't be given this conversation then they need more empathy right they need a dose of empathy in order to to get them back towards center you you're so off-center to this side here you don't need more empathy what you need is a little bit of cold heartedness really it's not called hardness it's just uh it's just not caring a [ __ ] right to put you on this middle path that's what you need so don't worry you are not going to become evil you're not going to become a monster people are not going to hate you because you do this in fact people will start to respect you because you find your spine in life right and you get some sense of direction and the final thing the final point that I want to leave you on is that you also got to consider this this game that you're playing of trying to to please everybody even if you play this game perfectly give you everything right you're the perfect human being you're the perfect human being for your parents for your siblings for your spouse for your girlfriend for your boyfriend for your for your co-workers for your friends for your boss you're just the perfect human being for that random stranger that's walking down the street you do everything the way they want there are still going to be haters they're still gonna be people that criticize you they're still going to people that think bad of you I want you to really realize how much of a losing game you're playing because in your mind you might be telling yourself well if I just did a little bit better you know maybe if I was a little bit better with my parents or with my relationship in my marriage alright my you know and my job then all my problems would be solved I would have this glowing self-image here it would be all validated and pristine and then everything would be great well that day is never going to come and in fact the more you're doing good stuff in life the more assertive you are which you need to be in order to accomplish big things in life then the more attention you're going to draw you're gonna draw attention for people maybe you get a little bit of Fame at your job in your you know in your social circle and as you're drawing more attention just by the law of averages at least one person in 100 is gonna hate you they're just gonna for any random reason either hate how you look hate how you sound hate your ideas hate your philosophy hate everything about you criticize your work hate your work hit your family friends 100 will will think that about you so the more successful you become in life the more of at upper skin you're gonna need because you're gonna have lots of people that are gonna be criticizing you in various ways and that's okay because you have to let go you have to just release your clenched you right now you've got this pristine self-image that you're just clenching so hard you gotta get to release it and just let it go that's like a you know a fairy tale that you don't need anymore it's like that security blanket that you had as a little kid that made you fit feel safe and good well after you grow up a little bit you don't need anymore you can just leave it to the side and kind of like be grown up so that's what I'm encouraging for you here and the final exercise you know how do you stay up with this how do you follow up and implement this stuff here's what you do I want you to start going against the grain right against the grain of what you're used to I guess the grain of people-pleasing I want you to become very mindful and conscious of all the little areas in your life where you are being fake being inauthentic sacrificing yourself for other people it can be something extremely simple like maybe you get an email from your boss and instead of serving your kids dinner you have to sit down you feel like it to sit down and instantly reply to your boss because you feel like if you reply to your boss within 30 minutes of getting his email then you're gonna look a little bit better in his eyes maybe it's just a simple little thing like that or you're being fake whereas if if you were more authentic and grounded in your own values then you might say to yourself wait a minute you know it's I should really finish with the kids here then I'll answer the email later or maybe even next morning like little things like that I want you to become very mindful of those and I want you to almost purposefully screw around with a system a little bit so push people's buttons a little bit you need that you're a people pleaser so your pendulum it's swung all the way over to this end your you just start to swing it back this way right and it's okay if you even go a little bit towards the [ __ ] and the cold-hearted zone right here because you'll find your way back you'll find your way to the seiner you got to kind of trust yourself on this so right now you need to like apply some force in the opposite direction and here's a very easy way to do this very easy everyone has what a Starbucks near them right we all have a Starbucks near us everywhere in the world so you have no excuses here's what you can do an exercise I want you to do this at least once in your life go to a Starbucks and preferably during a busy time when they have 10 or 20 people in there and you know people are lined up ordering their coffees maybe it's the middle of lunch or something like that and get in line stand there make sure there's some people behind you in the queue and then as you're moving ahead when you get to place your order and you're standing there you're about to walk up to the cashier you just stand there and you think to yourself and you start observing the menu as though you don't know what you want to order and you stand there and you stand as long as you can but you do that for at least a couple of minutes where you just stand there your feet are totally planted the cashier is looking at you asking you to come forward to place your order but you stand here like you don't give a [ __ ] and you mumble to yourself wondering what you want to order and you do that even though you know that there are 10 20 30 people behind you that are eager to get their orders in otherwise maybe they're gonna be late to work and you just stand here and you take that pressure that's what I mean by going against the grain you kind of go against the grain of society right here when you're doing this you take that pressure people they're weird looks maybe someone's gonna tell you that you're that you're being rude that you're being careless good good you need that you need that because you want to be this goody-goody you want to pull this pristine self-image you need some you need some people to tarnish it for you and you need to tell yourself you know what it's okay if a couple of people in this world think that I'm an [ __ ] it's okay it's even okay if I think I'm an [ __ ] sometimes it's okay it's a better way to live all right this is Leo I'm signing off I know this was a long video but this is something that was very near and dear to my heart and I know a lot of you have been asking about this so here you go this is how to stop caring what other people think if you apply some of this stuff I know you'll get good results and for me this has actually been one of the one of the most fulfilling personal developments that I've gotten in the last year or two is really releasing a lot of it a lot of it I had to do because I'm on YouTube so you know I get a fair share of criticism and negative comments I mean I get a lot of positive comments which is great but but even those I had to also kind of wean myself off of that so I try to be more independent from the praise and the criticism and I think it's good for everybody even if you're not shooting YouTube videos it will be handy in your life too already this is Leo I'm signing off go ahead post your comments down below I'd love to hear from you also like this video click the like button for me right now the more people like this the more free content I can keep releasing also share it with a friend if you would throw it on Facebook and finally come and sign up to my newsletter it's right here actualized or gets a free newsletter you can sign up I'm releasing new videos just like this every single week I plan exclusive stuff for my subscribers coming up soon a lot of exciting stuff that can't be done through YouTube that's gonna be on my website and really the reason you want to sign up besides all the bonuses and and nice stuff is that I'm really passionate about helping you to create a passionate life I want to give you the mindsets that you need a lot of advanced mindsets deep stuff that I don't find in a lot of books this stuff I have to really dig deep to find this stuff a lot of this stuff comes from my own experiences some of the clients that I work with you know I've been on this personal velman journey for at least five years now really strong really studying it really thinking about it and this stuff have made big improvements in my own life I've seen it make big improvements in the lives of my clients and there's so much more to discuss about how to become more authentic warand it right more on track with your own goals with your own values how do you how do you get all the pieces into place because this is just one piece we want to get all the pieces into place because there's a lot of factors that are keeping you from having that successful fulfilling life and I'm really excited about sharing all those with you so sign up and you'll be on track with that every single week with updates you