954 Build a Reputation with Yourself

“If you’re constantly being influenced and moved by what other people think about you, it means there’s a deficiency in what you think about you.”Ed Mylett is one of the premier business leaders, peak performance experts, and motivational speakers in the world. He has a passion for mentoring and coaching others on what it takes to become a champion in all areas of life. He has shared the stage and has very close personal relationships with other business legends such as Tony Robbins, John Maxwell, Phil Knight and many others. Hear his insights on the key to building self-confidence in this 5 Minute Friday clip from our past interview. Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is Five Minute Friday.

• 0:10Lewis Howes?

  And Ed Mylett, if you don't know who he is, he's one of the premier business leaders, peak performance experts, and motivational speakers in the world. He has a passion for mentoring and coaching others on what it takes to become a champion in all areas of life.

• 0:29Ed Mylett?

  First off, self-confident people. So how do we build self-confidence? Because that's what your belief, okay? When I meet somebody self-confident, here's what I know about them. They've built a reputation with themselves, so they don't need to build a reputation with other people, okay? So if you're really...

• 0:43Lewis Howes?

  What do you mean by that? They honor their own word?

• 0:45Ed Mylett?

  You got it.

• 0:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 0:46Ed Mylett?

  The key to self-confidence is really simple. I've trained hundreds of thousands of people. I've spoken to millions of people around the world. I can tell you this, the self-confident people I know, whether they are athletes, schoolteachers, mechanics, parents, stay-at-home moms, you name it. They have a pattern of keeping promises they make to themselves. The groundwork of beginning to build self-confidence is to begin to keep the promises you make to you. And that's why it's important to begin to even make small promises. If you're going to get up at a certain time in the morning, not only do it, but then give yourself credit, say, "I did what I said I was going to do." If it's in your diet or your fitness, don't just eat the healthy foods. Go, "I'm doing what I said I was going to do." You begin to build this reputation. If you're constantly being influenced and moved by what other people think about you,

• 1:29Ed Mylett?

  it means there's a deficiency in what you think about you. And so the key is not some esoteric, like, belief system. It's a pattern of keeping the promises that you make to you. That's the groundwork of self-confidence, for sure. And it is a pattern. When I meet people that lack confidence, I think, "Let me serve you. Let's begin to keep the promises you make to you." You're so worried about... There's this addiction to other people's approval in the world, right? It's the greatest... The greatest addiction today, it used to be drugs, before that it was alcohol, there's all these addictions, sex addictions, whatever. The number-one addiction in the world today is the addiction to other people's approval. And that's because we don't approve of ourselves. Or we don't feel a spirit, a universe, a God that we believe in that approves of us.

• 2:10Ed Mylett?

  And so my confidence comes from both my faith and in the fact that I keep promises I make to myself. That's the groundwork of all confidence to me. Yeah.

• 2:19Lewis Howes?

  How did you develop this sense of belief and confidence early on then, when you were failing in the financial services?

• 2:24Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, it was, I had to separate from outcome. And so You weren't getting the results. Yeah. Everything for me initially was contingent upon outcomes and results. And I know there are people in our space that say, hey, get your money. You gotta get this, you gotta do that. And that's easy to say because they've already built tremendous self-confidence. But most people watching that go, okay, but how do I do that? And so I had to start to take some solace, some confidence in the fact that I was behaving in a way requisite to eventually produce success. Right? And so I started to give myself credit. I started to work on my identity. I started to read the right books, listen to the right things. And for me, it starts with my body. Like, I couldn't control what other people would say to me, but I could control that I got up and worked out. I could control that I moved my body.

• 3:08Ed Mylett?

  There's something that we've both learned from Tony about just literally moving our bodies physically changes our state. And like, everybody hears that, but I actually do it. I really believe it's hard to get depressed. It's hard to not believe in yourself. I was at the gym today, I was watching this couple of very odd dudes. They were just sort of really dancing and the first part of me was like judging them, like, these guys are so weird, you know? You know, in public. But then I thought, you know what? That's not right. These guys are in a great joyful, blissful state, right? They're, they're, these are not depressed guys. These are not guys lacking self-confidence. And so often the way we move our bodies can change that too. And so the answer for it was I started to keep the promises I made to me separated from outcome. There's, it's nothing wrong with having goals and outcomes. But if your outcomes and goals define you, whether you get them or you don't get them,

• 3:53Ed Mylett?

  you will have a hollow life. In other words, if you're defined by the goals you achieve, you actually get them, and you think that's gonna make you happy and define you, you're gonna lose. And at the other hand, if you constantly define yourself by the fact that you aren't achieving your goals and outcomes, you're going to lose. Both of obsessing over outcomes will lead to a pretty hollow existence. But if I can, if I can be from a place of my intent, my behaviors, I finally figured out, my intentions are good. I'm a good dude. I'm a good person. And you know what? I'm trying to do good. I'm trying to improve my life. I'm trying to help people and I keep promises that I make to myself. Both of those things were the stimulus for me to be, because I'm a naturally I think you're probably this way too. I'm a naturally incredibly insecure person. I think everybody has insecurities.

• 4:37Ed Mylett?

  I think I was dosed at birth with more of them than a normal person. Sure. I'm introverted, I'm shy. All of those things, I think growing up in a family that had some dysfunction, just added to my insecurity. And so usually when you meet somebody who's incredibly confident, like the people who think you and I are, I always know they probably came from a further place. These are people who really had to work on themselves. I really had to do this stuff because I was so low on the totem pole in terms of self-esteem. I had to really figure out how to change this stuff. So, and what ends up happening is like any muscle you build, I built a pretty big muscle of self-confidence over time because I had to train it so badly. Yeah. Yeah, over and over.