Communication Expert: The 4 Psychological Drivers Behind All Self-Doubt

Most people think self-doubt is the problem. Dr. Shadé Zahrai says it's not... it's what's underneath it. In this episode we sit down with communication expert and PhD researcher Dr. Shadé Zahrai to unpack the four psychological drivers that either fuel your self-doubt or build what she calls "Big Trust." This isn't therapy-speak, it's research-backed, practical, and built for people who are already doing the work but can't figure out why they keep getting in their own way. Subscribe to the Mentored newsletter here: https://the-mentored-platform-pty-ltd.myklpages.com/l/WWJGc5 Join my exclusive Mentored+ community: https://mentored.com.au/become-a-member/ See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Dr. Shadai Zare, welcome to Straight Talk.

• 0:02Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me.

• 0:03Speaker 00

  You and I were doing something for Amazon this week and you're a communication expert.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  Yes, and actually what I was speaking about is what happens before we communicate, which is whether we trust ourselves to communicate or not. So it's really around attention and self doubt and self trust, which are the precursors to whether we use our voice and how we use our voice. And that's my whole area of expertise and I find it fascinating.

• 0:27Speaker 00

  What do you mean if we use our voice and how we use our voice? Do you mean, are you talking about tone, language, speed, et cetera? Or just speaking as opposed to not speaking? In other words, I decide not to speak. I sit back in the room.

• 0:46Speaker 01

  All of it. All of it. Because how we view our voice, whether we feel like our voice has value, whether we feel like we have value, whether we feel like we belong in the room, deserve to be there, that firstly shapes whether we speak or whether we hold back and tell ourselves our idea is dumb and we have nothing valuable to say. But it also shapes if we do choose to speak, it shapes how we speak, the words that we choose, the tone that we have, the way that we are conveying the message. And then that influences how people perceive us. And that's why when you strip it all back, you can learn the tools and the techniques. But if you don't fundamentally believe in yourself and trust that you deserve to be there in your values

• 1:29Speaker 01

  or your message has value, you're not going to be able to convey it. And that's why when we talk about communication, yes, there is the part people see, but then there's everything that's going on inside and we have to get these two right. Otherwise, nothing works.

• 1:43Speaker 00

  Can we fake it? I mean, let's say we don't feel like we deserve to be there or we lack a bit of confidence. But we've performed so often for so long that we can fake our way through it.

• 1:57Speaker 01

  If you trust yourself.

• 1:59Speaker 00

  To be able to fake it.

• 2:00Speaker 01

  To be able to fake it. Okay, so let me ask you this, Mike. What would you say is the opposite of self doubt?

• 2:05Speaker 00

  Self confidence.

• 2:06Speaker 01

  Confidence. This is what we find when we ask people on the street, when we run our workshops or audiences, 95% of them will say confidence and they are confident in that response. When we look at the data, when we really interrogate what this feeling of confidence is, it's this feeling of readiness and certainty. So people think then that they must feel ready and certain before they do something because that's what it means to be confident and I have to be confident first. But when we strip it away, that feeling of readiness and real confidence comes after you've done the thing, not before it. It's called self-efficacy. When you do the thing, your brain gets evidence that I can do this thing.

• 2:44Speaker 00

  Affirmation?

• 2:44Speaker 01

  Affirmation. And then you have the proof and that builds your self-efficacy, which makes you more likely to want to do it again. That's how you build true lasting confidence. But if confidence comes after, something else needs to come first and it's actually self-trust. It's trusting that you have the worthiness, the capability, you can handle what comes your way, you can manage the emotions that are going to come with it. And it's also acknowledging that there's a lot of uncertainty. We don't know how things will go. We don't know how we'll be perceived or how the message will land. But if you trust yourself first, you will do the thing, you will speak up, you will fake your way into it, which then gives you the proof point, hey, I did it.

• 3:25Speaker 00

  So it's instantaneous though. The, the proof point is happening as you're, as you're speaking.

• 3:28Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly. So as you're speaking, that's your proof point. That's your brain's evidence of, hey, I felt uncertain, I did it anyway, I can do it again. And then that becomes this self-perpetuating, repeating cycle.

• 3:41Speaker 00

  What about feedback loops in terms of people's responses? So let's say I'm in a room with ten of you.

• 3:49Speaker 00

  And if it, and I'm feeling like a little, um, a little behind the eight ball, I'm not sure if I'm equivalent to you, all of you. And then, um, something comes up and it's my, my time to respond or interact. And do, am I, should I be looking around the room, seeing what people are thinking about what I'm saying or should I not give a stuff about it, maybe look past them?

• 4:13Speaker 01

  It depends where you are on your self-trust journey. If you're struggling with self-trust, it means that you're going to be outsourcing your worth. So how people respond to you.

• 4:23Speaker 00

  Say that again to me.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  If you struggle with self-trust.

• 4:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  You outsource your worth. So your value is determined by how people respond to you. Which also makes you a people pleaser. It makes you more likely to say yes when you really want to say no. And so what you'll be doing is gauging how you're going based on whether other people are responding well. And then if someone looks at their phone or someone looks like they're not interested, you will internalize that, take that personally.

• 4:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:49Speaker 01

  And it'll throw you off your game. So if you're, if you know that you're struggling with self-trust, look past the people, look at their eyebrows, look somewhere else. That at least gives you the proof point of, hey, I can do this. I'm getting the evidence. I'm building my self-efficacy. I'm building the confidence. As you go on that journey and you become more confident, then the highest performing communicators, those with the greatest skill, they're constantly reading their audience. They know that if they go in there and they're trying a message and they see, you know what, this is not landing, they pivot there and then. They ask a question. They take a break.

• 5:26Speaker 00

  Make a joke.

• 5:27Speaker 01

  They call on someone, they make a joke. That, you know, when we look at communicators on stages, keynote speakers, the most charismatic people, they're in conversation with their audience, even if they're the only ones speaking. And it's because they have built so much self-trust, which is earned confidence as well, because they've done it so many times, where they can have that back and forth.

• 5:46Speaker 00

  Is there an arrogance in self-trust?

• 5:49Speaker 01

  There is a risk.

• 5:49Speaker 00

  Intellectual arrogance.

• 5:50Speaker 01

  There is a risk. So, okay, can we, let's deep dive into self-trust, because this is the essence of my work, my research. I've just finished a PhD in this area. Self-trust sounds very fluffy. We know it's the opposite of self-doubt. But when we drill down, there are four drivers of self-trust, which means there are four drivers that give you a kind of protection against self-doubt. The first one is self-acceptance. Do you fundamentally accept yourself?

• 6:19Speaker 01

  If you do, then you feel like you're enough.

• 6:21Speaker 00

  But do I say, am I being truthful? Am I being honest? Do, have I done the work in relation to the subject matter topic? But what are the variables?

• 6:32Speaker 01

  The specifics here, there are four ways. Well, so let's look at how it shows up when you don't have it.

• 6:37Speaker 00

  Right.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  Cause that'll help us understand what it really means.

• 6:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  The first one is the pressure to prove. You don't feel like you're enough, so you feel like you have to prove yourself through achievement, through setting a goal and reaching the goal and through being better than everyone else. And you get there, a lot of people do get there, but then they don't feel the satisfaction that's supposed to come with it. So then they set the next goal and the next goal. A lot of highly driven entrepreneurs find themselves in this space.

• 7:03Speaker 00

  They suffer from imposter syndrome.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  Completely, completely. So that's our first pillar there. The second way this shows up is the likability trap. Because you don't.

• 7:11Speaker 00

  The likability trap.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  Yes, the likability trap. Because you don't feel like you're enough, you want other people to like you. Because if they like you, then you can like yourself. So this is that people pleasing territory. You're going above and beyond for everybody. Because then again, if they validate you, you feel a little better about yourself. But you end up sacrificing what you want and need. You end up exhausted and you're not really addressing the real root of that.

• 7:40Speaker 00

  You're inefficient too.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  Yes, completely. The third is the shrinking syndrome, shrinking syndrome. So this is where you have someone who struggles with the self-acceptance piece to such an extent that if an amazing opportunity comes their way, they make an excuse, I'm not ready. It's not the right time because they're worried that if they say yes, and it doesn't work out or they fail, then they will take that personally and they'll see it as evidence that I am a failure. It will confirm the deep belief that I already have that I'm not enough. So they make excuses. And then the fourth one is really interesting. It's called the Schadenfreude cycle. It's a German term. And this is where you find pleasure in other people's failures.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  So you enjoy hearing stories of how other people have messed up because it makes you feel a little bit better about yourself. Because if you don't accept yourself, you want to see others fail too. So this is what drives a lot of bullying behavior. It's what drives a lot of clickbaity headlines. A lot of people who consume clickbaity headlines struggle with self-acceptance. It's a way of distracting themselves from what's going on for them. So you can see how if you have any of these things, if you don't feel like you're enough, you're going to doubt whether your voice is worth listening to, whether you have anything valuable to share. It's even going to affect how you share what you want to share. You might hesitate. You might use a lot of softeners like, this might be a dumb idea.

• 9:09Speaker 00

  Oh, I heard that.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  I haven't really thought this through. You're discounting yourself before you've said anything.

• 9:14Speaker 00

  People say that. I've heard people say it.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. And a lot of the time, when it's repeated and chronic, it's because of a lack of self-acceptance. We hear a lot of just, I just want to check in, just, just asking, just want to see. Not helpful at all. So we see a lot of these common patterns when it comes to a lack of acceptance. That's the first driver of self-doubt, a lack of acceptance. The second one is what we call agency, which is really simple. It's just, can I do this thing? Do I believe that I have the skills, the resources, the talent to learn? Can I do it? So the psychology term is self-efficacy, that internal belief that, yes, I've got this or I'll figure it out. Even if I don't have the skills now, I'll, I'll figure it out. That's our second one.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  This is where imposter syndrome comes in, feeling like you're not deserving to be where you are. So you've achieved some things in the past, and yet you feel like you really don't deserve the success you've had. And you're worried that at any point, someone will discover that you don't belong there and you'll be found out as the fraud that you are. So you either overcompensate and do everything for everybody and take on more and feel like you must keep pushing, or you just don't even try. Because if you don't try, you can't fail. People can't discover that you don't deserve to be there. We also see a lot of comparison. Constantly comparing yourself to everyone who's ahead of you. And then again, finding excuses as to why you'll never be as good as them.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  You'll never be as successful as them. Everyone is further ahead. I can't do it. And there's another one here. It's the, I'm gonna wait until I'm ready excuse.

• 10:54Speaker 00

  I'm not ready yet.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  I'm not ready yet. Oh, it's the worst. And it destroys people's chances of success and their chances of getting better. Because you're making up an excuse of, oh, no, I will know when I feel ready. And so you keep doing the research and the preparation and you keep talking to people.

• 11:13Speaker 00

  But you never jump.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  You never jump. And I love, actually, Mark, I love the way that you talk about a lot of the areas of self doubt and self trust. Cause it's so pragmatic. It's so pragmatic and you've very much lived your life believing that, okay, yeah, you might have self doubt, but just do the thing anyway. Validate yourself. Don't wait for other people. Just try because that is how you learn and you will never succeed unless you try. And so this is much, very much part of your message, which is brilliant because it aligns so beautifully with what the research is telling us. So they're our first two drivers of self doubt, right? Lack of acceptance, lack of agency. The third one's really interesting. So, Mark, and anyone?

• 11:53Speaker 00

  Just on the agency, do you mind for a second?

• 11:54Speaker 01

  Yes, of course.

• 11:54Speaker 00

  Do you, the agency, do you have to purposely give yourself the agency? You have to say, I'm gonna give myself the agency on this. And, and just on lack of acceptance, self acceptance. Do you have to, I mean, these are issues, problems, but I presume the solutions are, Mark, accept who you are, maybe even write it out. Accept who you are. So self acceptance, that's, that's the deal. And Mark, you've got to take agency. You've got to control it yourself. Are you, is that what you would say to those first two?

• 12:30Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:30Speaker 00

  Is that the way around it?

• 12:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, at a high level, absolutely. You know, like, accept who you are, give yourself the agency. But then the question is, well, what does that even mean?

• 12:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:37Speaker 01

  What does that mean?

• 12:38Speaker 00

  I was gonna say, because it's complicated.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  It's complicated. And of course, that's why we wrote the book, to go into much more detail with all of the different tools.

• 12:44Speaker 00

  That's why you're calling it big trust, by the way.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  It's called big trust. So it's the ultimate state of self-trust. You don't need to eliminate the doubt. You don't need to feel ready. You just build big trust with these four attributes and it allows you to move forward. So let's get.

• 12:55Speaker 00

  What's the third one?

• 12:56Speaker 01

  Well, let me give you some of the tools.

• 12:58Speaker 00

  I'm sorry, go on.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  We're too excited. All right. So if you, if you've noticed that you do struggle with self-acceptance.

• 13:03Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 13:03Speaker 01

  Which is very common with anyone starting anything new, very common. Okay, so this one shows up a lot with people who are succeeding. Because what happens is every time you succeed, your circle changes. And what I mean by that is.

• 13:18Speaker 00

  Of people, you mean?

• 13:19Speaker 01

  Of people. Your circle of people and the people you associate with changes. So you've achieved an amazing business success. Suddenly, you're now rubbing shoulders with other people at that level. You are now the least experienced person in that room. It's very easy to start to think, I don't deserve to be here. I don't know as much of these people and you feel uncomfortable. And then again, the next success comes and it just keeps coming and coming. And so we find this doesn't really ever go away. You just have to learn to get better at dealing with the feelings.

• 13:47Speaker 00

  So when you say feelings, how important is measurement in that category? So, you know, some, because I've heard people say this who run startups and they, they do well here in Australia. And they go to San Francisco and they say, oh my God, I just don't feel like I've done anything compared to the people I'm sitting here. Because, you know, I made 10 million in Australia, but they made 100 million in Australia and they're only 25.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:08Speaker 00

  Whatever, that type of stuff. Is measurement, is it dangerous, measurement?

• 14:14Speaker 01

  Measurement is helpful objectively from a business perspective. Completely unhelpful from an individual perspective, how you feel about yourself.

• 14:24Speaker 00

  Right.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  Because if your, if your sense of.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  Value as a person is entirely dependent on measurement. It means that the moment you keep finding someone doing better than you,

• 14:34Speaker 00

  There always is.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  Which is inevitable, you're going to keep feeling worse about yourself. So you need to find a way to anchor your self acceptance to something unrelated to your business success.

• 14:43Speaker 00

  And unrelated to measurement.

• 14:44Speaker 01

  Unrelated to measurement. Measurement is needed for business growth, not for our own worth.

• 14:50Speaker 00

  A lot of people who I know, they talk about, how much is he worth?

• 14:54Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

• 14:56Speaker 00

  And media does that too. I mean, the media does that stuff all the time because the media is interested in numbers. Um, and, and sort of, yeah, the numbers. Um, that's sort of, I think that contributes to people's sense of self-worth.

• 15:07Speaker 01

  Completely. I think we need to print on mugs and T-shirts that your self-worth is not your net worth.

• 15:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  And your net worth is not your self-worth.

• 15:15Speaker 00

  That's a good point. That's a very good point. I wish people would put that in T-shirts.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  I completely agree. Keychains, you know, screen, phone, what are they called?

• 15:22Speaker 00

  On your mirror when you get up in the morning.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  Everywhere. It's okay to have net worth as something that you're aspiring towards, something you're building towards. It should not have a bearing on how you feel about yourself. That doesn't mean that you lose your drive and your passion to excel and be the best at what you want to do. But it just doesn't have a bearing on you as a human, as an individual.

• 15:44Speaker 00

  So, so, if, yeah, but if, um, Shana, if I'm trying to work out my, um, self-worth. And if I immediately discount net worth, which is fine, um.

• 15:57Speaker 01

  What's left?

• 15:58Speaker 00

  What, yeah, what? Am I looking at things that I'm doing or thinking about that are worthy of humankind? I mean, is that what I'm thinking of? Is it like, is my, do I have a, am I thinking about my social enterprise? Relative to say my business, if I'm out there pitching my business to people. Um, or if I'm sitting in a boardroom, or if I'm sitting in a management meeting, or I'm sitting with my one staff member, or whoever it is. If I don't want to think that way.

• 16:25Speaker 00

  What do I think about to sort of help me with my self-worth calculation?

• 16:29Speaker 01

  One way to think about it when we look at the literature is the impact in the various areas of your life, which could be being the best father you can be. It could be being the best friend you can be, the best neighbor you can be. It could be being the best parent or sorry, best, you know, son or daughter for your parents. It's going to look different for everybody. It might be having an impact in the environment. There's something called self-forgetting in the literature. What happens when we have a lot of self-doubt is that we become very internal looking. Okay, think about the brain as being like a giant flashlight. Okay, or a torch. Let's keep it simple. It's a torch. And attention is where that torch is pointing. When you struggle with self-doubt, that torch is pointing inwards.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  I'm not enough. I can't do this. They're ahead of me. I don't belong. When attention is pointing inwards, we are less able to actually focus on the world around us, the people around us.

• 17:24Speaker 00

  Good. The perspective is gone.

• 17:26Speaker 01

  Perspective is gone. We have the choice to shift that flashlight outwards, that torch outwards, onto the people around us, the environment, the community. And when we do that consciously shifting our attention, so instead of how am I coming across? It's how can I add value to this person? How can I make this barista smile? How can I do something that's...

• 17:47Speaker 00

  Did you say burista or barrista?

• 17:48Speaker 01

  Barista.

• 17:49Speaker 00

  Barista. I thought you were calling me a burista.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  Burista. Not that one. Make the, you know, the guy making my coffee. Little things that we can do, it just gets you out of your own head. And what's beautiful is when we look at a lot of the research, it has this shrinking effect on our ego. It has this shrinking effect where we start thinking less about us and more about other people. One really valuable tool that you can use is role identification. What does that mean? When you struggle with acceptance and have a lot of self-doubt, you identify with your job. That is what you do. You identify with your business, with your... Net worth.

• 18:22Speaker 00

  For example, I'm the mortgage guy.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:25Speaker 00

  If I said that, if I said that, or I'm worth blah.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:29Speaker 00

  You know, like, and which is the danger of all these, I mean, these, you know, publications that publish, you know, the richest people, top 10, top 5, top whatever. I mean, I just think they're just such a nonsense.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:39Speaker 00

  So, by the way, so did most of the people in there. How do we sort of turn that volume up? And when that volume goes up or goes down in our own head, how do we manage that process in terms of the self-worth bit? And best, is it actually best or the best I can be?

• 18:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, nicely said. Okay, two elements I want to share here. The first one is something that I've seen shared and circulated around a lot, and I love it. It said, you know, if there's one day and you only had 40% to give, and you gave 40%, then that was your 100% that day.

• 19:11Speaker 00

  That's it.

• 19:11Speaker 01

  And I love it.

• 19:12Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  We only have, you know, we are a finite capacity. We cannot push all the time. Our brain has a finite capacity, our body has a finite capacity. You give what you can. The second piece, though, is also to ask yourself at the end of every day, okay, what worked? What was good? What am I happy with? And what am I going to try and do better tomorrow?

• 19:29Speaker 00

  You mean like bank the wins?

• 19:31Speaker 01

  Bank the wins from a personal perspective. What worked? And even if you have no wins, that's okay. Okay, well, how am I going to be better tomorrow?

• 19:37Speaker 00

  I don't believe there's always a win. Someone's smiling at you.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  I agree, I completely agree. I woke up this morning.

• 19:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm not dead.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  I'm healthy, my family's healthy. There's always a win. And that trains, again, this idea of the flashlight, that trains attention towards gratitude.

• 19:49Speaker 00

  Right.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  Because I think people have gratitude wrong. I mean, it's, it's this beautiful, intangible thing, but really, it's also attention training. There's this other beautiful quote that said, "The number of beautiful things in your life entirely depends on your capacity to see them."

• 20:05Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 20:06Speaker 01

  So if you, if you are training yourself to notice beautiful things in your life, you will notice so many beautiful things in your life. If you're not able to notice them, you will have none.

• 20:15Speaker 00

  That's an important point, training yourself, though.

• 20:17Speaker 01

  Completely.

• 20:18Speaker 00

  You've got to, and to some extent, sometimes we've got to rewire as well, but you've got to keep training. We're trying to go to the gym and train.

• 20:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:26Speaker 00

  Uh, we, we're very careful about what we eat. We've got to train ourselves to think the right way.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  Yes, and that's why I love a lot of the research that's gone into this book. A lot of my work is recognizing that beliefs are developed through repeated exposure. They can be changed through training. Attention can be trained, self doubt can be trained out of us, and big trust can be something we train. Now, I want to quickly share two other tips.

• 20:51Speaker 00

  I want to know what big trust is, if you don't mind.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  We'll get there. I want to just quickly share two other tips in this space before we move to the second.

• 20:56Speaker 00

  So we've hit, we've gone to two, two aspects.

• 20:59Speaker 01

  We've done two aspects.

• 21:00Speaker 00

  There's four.

• 21:00Speaker 01

  There's four. Before we get to the final two, just two other very quick tools for if you struggle with either of the acceptance or the agency.

• 21:08Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  For acceptance, get a hobby. Get a hobby.

• 21:13Speaker 00

  What do you mean, like golf?

• 21:14Speaker 01

  What does that mean? Anything. So studies have been done and they found that people that have hobbies have higher self acceptance. And people with higher self acceptance.

• 21:24Speaker 00

  Is it correlated or causative?

• 21:26Speaker 01

  No, it's causative. So they've done longitudinal studies and the reason why this is, is because when you identify yourself as your job, as your business, as your net worth, you don't really make time for anything else.

• 21:36Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  And it's called cognitive fusion. Your identity becomes what you do.

• 21:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:42Speaker 01

  And it's so dangerous because then.

• 21:44Speaker 00

  I've been down the track.

• 21:45Speaker 01

  And I think anyone who has done anything in the realm of business has experienced that. And it can be damaging because it leads you to sacrifice pieces of yourself, sacrifice things that are important to you because that is your identity. What the research has also shown is there was a study with Nobel Prize winning scientists and they found that those who win the prize are three times more likely than other scientists to have a hobby and twenty two times more likely to have a creative hobby. Something fun, artistic, creative, that doesn't have measurement. It's just something that they do as an outlet because when we look at what it does to the brain, hobbies also allow us to make different connections and to use different parts of the brain.

• 22:28Speaker 00

  As neural connections.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  Neural connections. And then when you're not actively thinking about your business or the problems that need to be solved, it activates what's called the default network in the brain. And when you're doing something else that is a creative hobby, I mean, it could even be a golf, something active. Your brain, the default network is plugging away at these problems. And that's often why some of your greatest ideas come when you're emptying the dishwasher, in the shower, on a walk. It's because you're not actively focusing on it. So these Nobel Prize winning scientists recognized that when they're doing something unrelated to their scientific endeavors, it helps them with those scientific endeavors. Also, if they have a bad day in their research lab,

• 23:09Speaker 01

  they get to go and do something fun and remind themselves that their entire identity is not just the output of their statistical analysis.

• 23:16Speaker 00

  A daily practice, so, Sean, like we.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  It can be anything. We encourage people to do what's called the daily dabble. Ten minutes a day of something low, especially if, you know, the idea of a hobby is a bit much for you. Just ten minutes a day doing something fun for you. Doodling in a book, baking something, I don't know, picking up a guitar. Just ten minutes a day to start to train the habit of, hey, I can do this, I can do something.

• 23:40Speaker 00

  Are you suggesting a creative hobby?

• 23:43Speaker 01

  Ideally, yes, but it can be anything to start.

• 23:45Speaker 00

  Right.

• 23:45Speaker 01

  To train, because there's going to be a part of you that thinks, oh, I'm wasting time. It can be learn a language. In fact, that's great for your brain. And it also means you can go to the country and use the language.

• 23:55Speaker 00

  Learn a language, learn an instrument.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:59Speaker 00

  Maybe play golf, whatever it is, I couldn't think of anything worse, but anyway.

• 24:04Speaker 00

  As you say, bake cake, just do something outside of your normal realm.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:07Speaker 00

  And I think podcasts a lot, because would podcasts, listening to podcasts, form part of. Maybe having a hobby, like, I mean, or listening to things where there's learning involved or education involved?

• 24:20Speaker 01

  I would say so long as you're actually doing something with the learning. Because what we find is a lot of people will listen to podcasts because they get a kick out of feeling like they're learning and developing themselves, but it becomes a bit of an addiction and dopamine hit. Okay, one's done, what's next? They don't actually take the time to implement what they're learning, which then just becomes a giant waste of time. It's called a productivity orientation.

• 24:43Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  Where you feel like you need to be optimizing every single minute of every day. So you have an hour spare. Oh, no, I'm not gonna go pick up the guitar, I'm gonna go listen to a podcast while I'm on the treadmill.

• 24:51Speaker 00

  I'm at the gym, yeah.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  You know, which is okay, I mean, at least you're getting physical activity. But think about, okay, if I've just listened to a podcast, let me take five minutes at the end of it. What are three things that really stood out to me? And what is the one thing I'm gonna implement to make it count?

• 25:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  So that it's not just endless consumption, because that endless consumption can also undermine your agency, because you start to think, gosh, there's so much I don't know yet, I need to keep researching and learning. You know what's really interesting, Mark? Studies have been done that show that the less someone knows about something, the more confident they feel. The more confident they feel.

• 25:26Speaker 00

  Bullshit baffles brains.

• 25:27Speaker 01

  Totally. And I'm sure we've met people like this.

• 25:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, I've had too.

• 25:30Speaker 01

  Who know very little and they have so much conviction. People who genuinely understand an area realize how much more there is to learn.

• 25:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, the more you know, the less you know.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  Exactly. And what can happen is that can undermine your self-trust. Because you think, gosh, there's so much more I have to learn, I'm not gonna go yet, I'm not ready, I need to research more. And so what you need to think is embrace the arrogance that comes from not knowing much. And even if you realize there's so much more, how do you get a proof point early? How do you take the step, try the thing, say the whatever you wanna say in the meeting, meet the person, schedule the pitch, just do the thing, low stakes, to get that evidence point of, hey, I can show up in uncertainty. And even if it doesn't work out, I'm gonna focus on what I can learn from that and then apply it in future. So we had a student who once said that he was doing painting, right? He'd returned to painting as his hobby and he used to do it.

• 26:21Speaker 00

  Like art?

• 26:22Speaker 01

  Art, yes. And he used to do it when he was younger, but he said when he came back to do it, he was really high achieving in the corporate world. He said when he came back to paint, he was putting so much pressure on himself to paint something beautiful, that he wasn't enjoying it. And I said, you need a different hobby. The moment the hobby starts becoming pressure, do something else. It's not working for you right now. So you might have to cycle through a few different things. What's really valuable to do as well is assess how you feel before you do the thing. Assess how you feel during it. Just ask yourself, how energized do I feel out of five?

• 26:55Speaker 00

  When you say feel, you mean what's my energy level?

• 26:57Speaker 01

  Energy level, exactly. And then assess yourself after you do the thing. Because sometimes we, well, not sometimes, we are terrible at really assessing what's going on inside of us. Because high performing people are very good at pushing it away and just getting the job done. There's so much value in slowing down a little and asking what is really going on internally.

• 27:19Speaker 00

  A bit scary.

• 27:19Speaker 01

  It's scary, it's vulnerable, it's a bit fluffy for many people. But studies show in neuroscience, in behavioral science, in cognitive science, that the better you get at tuning into what you feel, the better able you are to manage the challenging emotions.

• 27:34Speaker 00

  Can I talk about, then on that point, can I then go and talk about, if you wouldn't mind talking about, when you say stopping for the moment and feeling a certain way, what about meditations? Where does that fit into all this?

• 27:50Speaker 01

  Meditation and mindfulness are phenomenal tools, which essentially, if you think about it this way, self doubt is the result of thoughts that we have that are reflecting beliefs that we have. Meditation and mindfulness create a barrier between the thought and ourselves. And so it creates separation between whatever is going on up here. You're not good enough, you haven't done enough, everyone is ahead of you, you're pathetic. It just creates this boundary. And what it allows you to do more so is recognize that these thoughts are like clouds in a sky. They're going to come, they're going to go, but beyond them is always the sky. That's who I am. I need to learn to acknowledge that that is who I am.

• 28:34Speaker 01

  Again, the clouds are not me, they're transient, they come, they go.

• 28:37Speaker 00

  Should we accept them though?

• 28:39Speaker 01

  Yes. That doesn't mean that we can't do anything about them. We can harness them, which actually gets into pillar number four, the fourth attribute. So why don't we jump into the third attribute?

• 28:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, do the third.

• 28:51Speaker 01

  Well, I wanted to share one super quick. Tool for anyone struggling with.

• 28:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, cause you only have one tool.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  I gave one which was hobbies. I'll share this one quickly. I get so excited. There's so much to share. Okay. If you find yourself comparing to others, comparing itself is not a negative thing. But when it makes you feel inadequate, that's when it becomes a negative thing. So how do we make sure that it stays positive? Instead of comparison, shift to emulation. What does that mean? Wow, look at how far ahead that person is. How can I learn from their journey? What can I learn from what they've done to implement into how I do things into my business, in my marketing strategy? That way, you're using it as a fuel to move forward and not something that keeps you stuck.

• 29:30Speaker 00

  What can I take from them?

• 29:32Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 29:32Speaker 00

  It's not nearly, um, I put them in the position of, of, um, them being the host of which I'm going to take something from them.

• 29:40Speaker 01

  That's, that sounds a little dark, like a parasite.

• 29:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, there's nothing wrong with.

• 29:43Speaker 01

  But it's a positive.

• 29:44Speaker 00

  But there's nothing wrong with a parasite. I mean, a parasite just lives like everybody else. It's worked out a way of surviving.

• 29:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, it can be symbiotic. You can think of it as more of a symbiotic.

• 29:51Speaker 00

  But you're not going to give them anything.

• 29:52Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 29:53Speaker 00

  You're, you're giving them a moment of, um.

• 29:55Speaker 01

  Appreciation.

• 29:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, appreciation. Yeah, I looked at you or I like, you might give him a like, and we're like, thank you. But, but you know, bottom line is like, if you're, if you're a person that does this comparison thing, especially on social media, and or wherever, um, it might not even be us, it just might be in a group and you're just thinking it's a bloody hell, they do so much better than me. Yes, I, I, I think of them as a host. Well, what can I get out of that? I don't mean this in a horrible way, but what can I get from Shada that she just told me that? What I could either take it as a, like, she's so much better than me, or I can say, I'll borrow that. Okay, we're not going to take it. We're going to borrow it.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, nice. I like that.

• 30:33Speaker 00

  We're going to borrow it from her, okay, and see how it fits into my regime. I quite like that one. That one, that was a good one. I like that one a lot.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  It's simple. It's tangible. It means you don't have to stop the natural habit of our brain, which is comparing. You just channel it.

• 30:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  Okay, let's move into the third and fourth attributes now. So we've had acceptance, which is when you feel like you're enough.

• 30:51Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  We've had agency, when you believe that you can do the thing or you'll figure it out. The third one is really interesting. So Mark and anyone listening, have you ever come across someone who just constantly complains? About everything. They are resentful. They're very frustrated. They tell you the same story of how they've been hurt in the past, how the business failed, how they were double-crossed. And the first two or three times they tell you, you have genuine empathy for them. The 20th or 30th time, maybe the first time, but the 30th time they're telling you, you realize, okay, you're keeping yourself stuck.

• 31:24Speaker 00

  And I have resentment for them. I say, don't talk to me.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're sucking me into your negativity. Stay away. Well, negativity is contagious. Complaining is contagious. The thing about complaining that we don't realize is that it keeps you reliving the same negative experience over and over in your brain in vivid detail, which then deepens the neural pathways, which makes future complaining more likely, and you become a negativity magnet.

• 31:49Speaker 00

  For yourself or?

• 31:50Speaker 01

  For yourself and for other people.

• 31:52Speaker 00

  So if someone says, I want to find someone who's always constantly negative because I've got something negative, say, I'm going to go and talk to that person.

• 31:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. And they feed each other because when someone is sharing something negative or complaining and they get the, oh, that's terrible, that's a social reward.

• 32:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:07Speaker 01

  And it feels great because of what's happening in the brain, but it's not helpful because it keeps you stuck. Now, when we look at why people complain, it's generally because they feel powerless in a situation. There's nothing they could do. There's nothing, well, they believe there's nothing they can do. Because the brain likes the ability to predict things, it likes certainty, and it will simulate that by getting you to complain to reinforce that there's nothing you can do because that gives you a sense of certainty. But in actual fact, it blinds you from all the things that you could do. Yes, objectively, something terrible may have happened, but that doesn't mean that you become a prisoner to it. You know, there's this beautiful quote from Eckhart Tolle. Is it Tolle or Tolle?

• 32:48Speaker 01

  Tolle. And it says, he says something like, when you're complaining, you literally only have three options, right? You can accept the situation, change the situation, or leave the situation. Anything else is total madness. And I love that because if you're you either accept it, you change it or you leave it complaining doesn't help anybody. It doesn't help anybody.

• 33:11Speaker 00

  Especially you to complain.

• 33:13Speaker 01

  Especially you. So this is what we see in the third pillar, which is autonomy. When you don't feel like you have choices you can make, when you feel like you have no power, it's undermining your self-trust and fueling your self-doubt because you feel like as an individual, you are powerless to change your circumstances. And then you get stuck in these habits that keep you stuck. So that's autonomy. So really simply, if someone is struggling here, which can happen if you face a number of challenging situations repeatedly, if your business is just not getting anywhere, rather than complaining, rather than, oh, we see a lot of blame, it's your fault that this didn't happen. It's because of him. It's that I took your advice and it's terrible. You're outsourcing responsibility.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  So ask yourself in that moment, actually, let me go back. What we hear a lot, Mark, here is should, oh, I should have done that. I shouldn't have listened to that person. Now, if I were to say to you, Mark, you should sit a little bit further back. When you hear the word should, does your body have an instant reaction?

• 34:15Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 34:16Speaker 01

  What is that instant reaction?

• 34:17Speaker 00

  I immediately think of what.

• 34:19Speaker 01

  Who are you to tell me?

• 34:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, I immediately think to myself, what are you talking about? What am I doing wrong?

• 34:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:23Speaker 00

  So you start, you actually can correct yourself.

• 34:25Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 34:26Speaker 00

  Because I do know that I do slumps too.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  Oh, it was, that was just a little example. So but the idea with should is just, we don't really like being told what we should do.

• 34:36Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 34:37Speaker 01

  And we resist it. Don't tell me what to do. I mean, in your case, you were so sweet. You're like, yeah, maybe I could sit.

• 34:43Speaker 00

  No, I'm well aware of my posture.

• 34:44Speaker 01

  You're very evolved.

• 34:46Speaker 00

  My posture is really important in this game, so.

• 34:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, we'll talk about posture in a sec because it's such a good one. But when we use a language of should on ourselves, it's disempowering. Yeah, I should have done that. I shouldn't have done that. It makes you feel like you made the wrong choice and you get full of regret. So what we know from research, there is one simple switch, move from should to could. Okay, well, I could do this. I could do this. I could do this. I could do this. We call it the I could list. When you feel like you have no power, it's because you're focusing on everything outside of your control. And that's going to make you feel powerless because you are powerless in that situation. Grab a piece of paper on the left side, so divide it in two. On the left side in the left column, write down everything you could do in the moment. This forces you to focus on what is possible.

• 35:29Speaker 01

  You're taking your flashlight and focusing on options and potential solutions. You're not committing to anything, which is great because the brain might resist if you try and commit. You just write it down. This in itself reactivates your prefrontal cortex. You're shining the spotlight on solutions, makes you feel empowered. Your next step is your I will list. Okay, so from everything you wrote down, what's one or two things that you're actually going to do? Just circle them from your list. And then the third step is instead of, you know, okay, well, I will call the investor and I will do this. You shift into what's called empowered language. Language has an incredible ability to change how we feel. So what does that mean? Instead of I will, you say I choose to.

• 36:11Speaker 01

  I choose to call the investor at 5pm today to give them the bad news. I choose to go to the gym at 5am because of whatever. That in itself, just shifting to choose or empowered language has been shown to increase self-control, increase willpower and reduce temptation from distracting you just from our language choices.

• 36:32Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 36:32Speaker 01

  It's phenomenal. It's phenomenal.

• 36:34Speaker 00

  I like the thought of using the word choose.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  Choose, because it reminds you, no matter what is happening, you're choosing. Okay, so I once gave a keynote presentation. We work with companies around the world, Microsoft, Deloitte, Google. And I was speaking to Microsoft in India, actually, their India campus in Hyderabad. And I was sharing this with the audience, the idea of choose. And someone raised their hands and said, yeah, but I don't choose to go to work every day. I have to go to work. And I said, how do you feel when you say I have to? And he said, well, it makes me feel really deflated. And I said, okay, so what would happen if you didn't come to work tomorrow? And he said, I'll probably get an email from my manager asking where I am. And I said, what happens if you didn't go to work for the next week? He said, well, I'll probably lose my job. And I said, what would happen then? He goes, well, then I wouldn't be able to pay my mortgage. I would this, that would happen, that would happen.

• 37:18Speaker 01

  I said, okay, so you're actually choosing to go to work because of everything that it gives you.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  You are making that choice because you could choose not to come, but there are consequences. And in that moment, that moment of recognition for him was really powerful because he realized that he may feel like he has to go to work. But if he can frame it as no, I'm choosing to go to work because it allows me to provide for my family, to create the life that I want for myself, because the alternative is choosing not to go, and that's not a future that I want. And that in itself, just moving to empowered language of I'm choosing this, changes so many things.

• 37:56Speaker 00

  It's pretty simple too.

• 37:57Speaker 01

  It's so simple.

• 37:58Speaker 00

  I don't have to, I choose to.

• 37:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. I choose to be here. I choose to have this conversation. I choose to spend time with my family. It just, it really changes.

• 38:06Speaker 00

  It takes away resentment.

• 38:07Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 38:08Speaker 00

  When I have to, I resent.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  Oh, it's the word like I have to call my mother. No, I choose to call my mother.

• 38:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:12Speaker 01

  You know?

• 38:13Speaker 00

  It's a pretty simple switch, sir.

• 38:14Speaker 01

  So simple. That's why I love looking at evidence-based practices, what is working? And then we look at the simplest things to implement. Because if we can start with the simple, then we can develop the habits and develop the attentional focus, and then everything gets easier from there.

• 38:29Speaker 00

  And what's number four?

• 38:30Speaker 01

  Number four. So three was autonomy.

• 38:32Speaker 00

  By the way, are these in any order?

• 38:34Speaker 01

  Well, a lot of people ask that. They're not necessarily in any order, but we do find that this process helps people develop what they need in order to move to the next stage. Because if, let's say, if you don't fundamentally accept yourself, developing any of the other attributes is not going to help.

• 38:52Speaker 00

  So you need all?

• 38:53Speaker 01

  You need all. Okay, so when we get into the, let me share the fourth, and then I'll share how they work together.

• 38:58Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  The fourth one is called adaptability, but it specifically relates to your ability to adapt to your emotional state. So it's how you handle stress, anxiety, overwhelm, everything going on inside. And, I mean, I probably don't need to go into a huge amount of detail here because it's very obvious for people. One of the greatest factors that undermines high performance and success is emotions, specifically stress, chronic stress, the physical damage that that does to you, the psychological damage that that does to you. And so we know that if you can get better at navigating that, everything else gets easier. So two simple tools here. One of them, A lot of people personalize a lot.

• 39:45Speaker 01

  We take on a lot. Someone says something and we have a very strong emotional reaction. Something happens and we have a very strong emotional reaction. I would like everyone to write this down or keep this front of mind. You say to yourself in the moment of the big emotional reaction, I don't have to make this mean so much. I don't have to make this mean so much. It is so simple.

• 40:08Speaker 00

  So another was a reject, someone rejects a meeting with you?

• 40:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, because what happens in that moment? I mean, what goes through your head, Mark? If someone rejects a meeting with you and you struggle with self doubt? What happens?

• 40:18Speaker 00

  People say, well, I wasn't good enough for the meeting.

• 40:20Speaker 01

  Completely. Yeah.

• 40:21Speaker 00

  That's what they, they actually say that.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:24Speaker 00

  Then then they affirm in their own mind that they're not good enough.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, which reinforces a belief because that's where their flashlight is pointing, the attention.

• 40:30Speaker 00

  And I often say, go back and say, well, they're probably busy. They've got other stuff going on.

• 40:34Speaker 01

  Exactly. So when you say, I don't have to make this mean so much, the next step is the word maybe. What does that look like? Okay, so maybe is that thought process of, okay, let's come up with all the other reasons that this thing could have happened. Maybe they're busy. Maybe it wasn't a good time. Maybe my email wasn't written in a compelling way. And that separates yourself from the situation.

• 40:57Speaker 00

  And they're just not interested in the subject matter.

• 40:59Speaker 01

  Maybe they're just not interested.

• 41:00Speaker 00

  They've got a million other things to do.

• 41:01Speaker 01

  And you can do this all the time, like, oh, I'm on the road and some idiot, you know, cuts me off on the road. Instead of that full road rage about to take on, I don't have to make this mean so much. Maybe they're in a rush because they're busting to use the toilet. We've all been there. Maybe they're in a rush because they just got a phone call from the hospital and their kid's fallen out of a tree and broken their leg. Maybe their mom has had a fall. It just allows you perspective and instantly reminds you, you're not the center of the universe, which is a really powerful reframe in the moment. Again, if you think about attention, you've gone attention on me. This all means something about me to, no, actually, there's other things going on here.

• 41:39Speaker 00

  Well, they're the one that did the event, so the attention should be on them. So is, but what you mean by adaptability, that's that. The ability to be able to adapt to the situation, your feelings, in other words, it wasn't about me, it's about that particular individual, but potentially. It doesn't really, it doesn't really mean what the, it doesn't matter what the reason is, does it?

• 41:57Speaker 01

  No, it really doesn't, just so long as you don't internalize it.

• 42:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:00Speaker 01

  Unless you know for a fact.

• 42:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, unless they tell you.

• 42:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, then in that case, okay, learn from that.

• 42:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, and if they tell you, look, like, just not interested because I just think, you know, this is not up to my speed, not, not to my, not available enough. Okay, well, I've done something wrong here, I've got to do something better.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:15Speaker 00

  Those four things that you cover those four things by chapters or something?

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, so by parts.

• 42:21Speaker 00

  By parts. And, and, and in terms of, um, in, in terms of covering the issues off, do you also give the, the tips and tricks?

• 42:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, so there's over thirty tips and tricks in here, science-backed, research-based tools.

• 42:32Speaker 00

  So I was gonna say, they're all research-based.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:35Speaker 00

  Your research, and, and literature-based, so you've done literature reviews on all this stuff.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:39Speaker 00

  Was that part of your PhD?

• 42:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was.

• 42:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, so part of your, your sort of PhD sort of, uh, been sort of, um, novelized, so it's been put into a book. That's what you've done, that's very clever. And, um, and, and can I just ask you a couple, a couple of questions about, because as you were speaking, I'm thinking about things.

• 42:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:57Speaker 00

  People often ring me up and they say, you know, people I know, because, you know, I've been around a long time and people think, oh, well, maybe they'll ask Mark something. And they say to me, um, blah, blah, blah, what if this happens and that happens? And I say, my, always my answer is anyway, and I don't know if it's right or wrong. But I take the view, only play what's in front of you.

• 43:17Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 43:18Speaker 00

  Um, like, I, I can't fight fifty fights at once, and particularly in the future. But I'll just fight what's in front of me if I've got a, if I, I don't mean physically, but you know what I mean, like, just deal with what's in front of me. Um, how important is it for people just to learn how to deal with what's just in front of them as opposed to thinking about consequence after consequence after consequence? Because there's so many possibilities in the universe.

• 43:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:38Speaker 00

  It's infinite.

• 43:39Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:39Speaker 00

  Um, should, should you not worry about that sort of stuff and just play what's in front of you?

• 43:43Speaker 01

  I like that you've asked this question because there's two responses here. On the one hand, again, going back to the analogy of attention and the brain being like a flashlight. If you take that flashlight from what's in front of you to everything else, it can create a lot of anxiety, unnecessary anxiety. So if you shift it to just the next step, it reduces the load in our brain, makes it much easier. That said, I want to share with you this really great story about Michael Phelps. So Michael Phelps- The swimmer. The swimmer, one of the greatest. You're really good at doing that, like filling in little, little pieces, very skilled, I noticed. So the swimmer, Michael Phelps, he's in the 2008 Olympics for the finals of the butterfly. I have never been able to do the butterfly, so I have so much respect for anyone who can. So he was in the Olympics.

• 44:25Speaker 01

  Now, his coach used to say that Michael Phelps had this remarkable skill or talent of visualizing. He would visualize everything, but not visualizing success. I mean, he'd do that too, but he really focused on visualizing everything that could go wrong. He would visualize his goggles snapping, slipping on the starting block, losing his, his rhythm mid-race. He'd visualize all of these things and then visualize what he would do if they happened, so that he could ingrain it in his nervous system. Because his view was if I can do that, then if it happens, I know exactly how to respond. I have my coping plan and I don't have to think about it in the moment. I'm prepped. I'm prepped.

• 45:08Speaker 01

  And that was a remarkably powerful tool in the 2008 Olympics, because what happened was he dove into the pool. Within about 25 meters, his goggles filled up with water. He was swimming and he couldn't see a thing. But he didn't stress, he didn't get overwhelmed, he didn't start focusing on what the other competitors are doing. He just defaulted to his mental training, because he'd already been there before in his mind. He ends up winning gold and breaking a world record. He swam blind for 175 meters out of a 200 fly. He wins gold and breaks a world record, purely because he'd been there before. Now, what is the insight we can take from this? It's called an implementation intention in the literature, when we look at goal-setting research.

• 45:53Speaker 01

  The idea is that if you can come up with an implementation plan, so if this happens, then I will. For everything that could go wrong, I know what I'll do. And I always say that when it comes to high stakes moments.

• 46:05Speaker 00

  Should you write this stuff down?

• 46:07Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 46:08Speaker 00

  Should one write it down?

• 46:09Speaker 01

  Totally. I am a big proponent of everything being written handwritten. Because we also know, again, lots of research has been done. When you've got a physical pen, I mean, it doesn't have to be physical pen. I think you can use like the style of the whatever.

• 46:22Speaker 00

  But it's the movement of your hand.

• 46:23Speaker 01

  The movement of the hand, because it activates different parts of the brain.

• 46:25Speaker 00

  As opposed to typing it in.

• 46:26Speaker 01

  As opposed to typing or tapping on your phone. It activates different parts of your brain, helps you with emotional processing and helps with learning and retention. So I'm a big proponent of that. Go back to physically writing it down. So when it comes to a high stakes moment, like, let's say someone's pitching for funding for their business. That's a high stakes moment. And if you only focus on what's ahead of you, which is I'm going to show up to the pitch and pitch. You might get stuck when your microphone stops working. Or there's an issue with your slides, or you forget what you're about to say mid-sentence. So if you can map out everything that could happen in that high stakes moment and what you will do. Okay, if my microphone stops working, I'm going to make a joke to the audience and then just take two minutes and go off and swap it.

• 47:11Speaker 01

  If I forget what I'm saying mid-sentence, I have a question I'll ask the audience so that I can go off and look at my notes. If I this, it just allows you to know what to do in those moments so that if they happen, you've been there before. You're not going to stress out. You can respond appropriately. Not only that, it boosts your agency. This is the second pillar, which is the I can do this.

• 47:32Speaker 00

  Because it's like experience, having experienced every one of those things without having the experience.

• 47:36Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 47:37Speaker 00

  So it's like you're prepared for the experience.

• 47:38Speaker 01

  Exactly. And from a brain perspective, you're desensitizing yourself to that experience because you've lived it before. You've got the evidence of, hey, I was able to survive this, even if it's only in your brain from visualization. Because visualizing activates the same or similar parts of the brain to actually physically doing the thing. So you are giving yourself mental reps, even if it's just in your head. So going back to your question, is it better to just focus on what's in front of you? Or think about everything that could go wrong? It depends on the situation. If it's a high stake situation, go through that process. I once shared this with a student of one of our programs and he said, it gave me so much anxiety because I mapped out everything that could go wrong. And suddenly I realized I'm not going to be able to do this. And I said, okay, that's great.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  That's step one, but did you do step two?

• 48:25Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 48:25Speaker 01

  Did you write down the solutions? He goes, oh, whoops, completely forgot to do the solutions.

• 48:29Speaker 00

  That's sort of more what I meant by it. You know, it's a funny story. I have a funny story. So many, many years ago, a long time ago, it'd be 25 years ago. Anthony Robbins asked me to do a speech at one of his functions in Sydney. And I had never done a speech and there was like a thousand people there. And I was at the casino in Sydney. And so what I did is I prepared the speech on little, those days, little.

• 48:51Speaker 01

  Palm cards?

• 48:52Speaker 00

  Cards, you know, like I might've had 20, just like had a four or five ball of points on each page. And like if you know, the palm of my hand. And, and someone told me to do that, so I did that. And when I went out there on the stage, before I went on the stage, someone said to me, um, one of the stage manager goes, look, all the people are standing up on the chairs, because Tony just walked off. They're all standing up on the chairs and they're all chanting. And like, it was like they were in some sort of hypnotic state, you know, they're doing something. He said, they won't stop unless when you get up there, you're going to go, whoa, you've got to do this with your arms and then bring them down. And he said, they'll all sit down and then that's like some hypnotic state that he creates from. Cause he had them there from six in the morning to 11 at night. Anyway, I'd never done anything like this before. I was quite young.

• 49:36Speaker 00

  I was like 40 or something and I walked out with these things and I did that. And all my cards went all over the stage. And that would have been a good opportunity. That's a Michael Phelps moment. That's when your goggles come off and you've still got 150 meters to go. And maybe what you could, what I could have done is make a joke about it. You know, like, oh, there go my notes and pretend to walk off or something. You know what I'm saying? That would be, and then I, then that would have sort of put me in a more relaxed state. Yeah. Ah, cool, especially if I got a laugh from them, that would have been pretty fun. Um, yeah, that's, that's brilliant. So it's your book. So, so I mean, as a topic, where do we get it from?

• 50:15Speaker 01

  Anyway, anywhere that books are sold.

• 50:17Speaker 00

  So it's called Big Trust. So you've got your four aspects. So that lands at big trust. That lands at trusting your, trusting what?

• 50:24Speaker 01

  Trusting yourself.

• 50:25Speaker 00

  Yourself.

• 50:26Speaker 01

  Specifically, your worthiness, your capability.

• 50:30Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 50:30Speaker 01

  Your control, your ability to influence what you can control. And your ability to manage the emotions that you feel lining up with each of these four attributes. Now, what's really cool, Mark, is that this is not just like my ideas. These four, the psychological drivers behind these four have been shown in decades worth of research. When they come together, I always see it like Power Rangers. When they come together, they predict your job performance, your career success, your satisfaction in your career, even how much money you make. And it's even been shown to influence your relationships. So if you have greater self-trust, it impacts every single area of your life. And you can see why you're not stuck in your head so much. You're not stuck in the overthinking. You're actually living in your life rather than living in your head.

• 51:15Speaker 00

  It's interesting you, you, you use the word trust because it's sort of a bit of an elusive word.

• 51:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:20Speaker 00

  As to what it means. Um, we use it all the time, but, and the, one of the ways I sort of try to reconcile the word relative to, for example, brands, building a brand. Everyone goes, I want to have a brand that's trusted. And, um, and I often say, for me, trust is about familiarity. So I trust what I'm most familiar with. So I trust my family because I raised them. I've been with them. I've seen how they react in a certain circumstance. The four sons are all different. They all react differently, but I know, so I know what I'm going to get. So I am familiar with the situation, therefore I trust them.

• 52:00Speaker 00

  Where in terms of familiarity, where would that sit in your trust thesis? So is it about being familiar with your responses? Is that what it is? It's like, I know what's potentially, I know what's gonna happen.

• 52:16Speaker 01

  It absolutely does. So what we mapped, these four elements, they shape someone's doubt profile, which is almost like their psychological fingerprint for how doubt shows up. And once you understand your baseline and where you are, that gives you that level of familiarity because you know that in this particular situation, when I'm being asked a question on the spot and I'm in the middle of a meeting, a high stakes meeting, my acceptance is going to be speaking to me because it's low, it's gonna say, you don't even deserve to be here. My agency is gonna be questioning, you don't even have the skills to articulate what you wanna do. So I know that that's my default response, which then means I know what I need to focus on as a solution. It's not just one big blob of solution.

• 52:58Speaker 01

  It's, well, I need to develop my acceptance in that step space and strengthen my agency. So that idea of familiarity comes from self-awareness. The problem with self-doubt, which is why it's such a big problem today, is there are so many distractions that we have lost touch with ourselves.

• 53:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:13Speaker 01

  Because so many people are so stuck in the doing, even if the doing is spending an hour scrolling on social media.

• 53:17Speaker 00

  Consuming, consuming, consuming.

• 53:18Speaker 01

  Consuming, consuming, not allowing ourselves to be with ourselves.

• 53:22Speaker 00

  Have a moment bored for a change.

• 53:23Speaker 01

  Oh, my goodness, it's amazing how we've lost the ability to be bored.

• 53:26Speaker 00

  And feel comfortable.

• 53:28Speaker 01

  And feel comfortable with being bored.

• 53:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:30Speaker 01

  So we've, we actually have an online tool. So we, the idea of big trust, it's a form of self-leadership. Self-leadership, the definition of self-leadership is leading your thoughts and your behaviors to get the outcomes that you want. You know, we understand leadership in terms of other people. We rarely talk about it from ourselves. It's an incredible skill. And in fact, I do believe that over the next few years, especially as AI is taking off, especially as the world is changing so rapidly, self-leadership is going to be the ultimate competitive advantage.

• 54:00Speaker 00

  Because we're giving agency to everything else at the moment.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  Exactly. It's not about how many skills you have or how talented you are. It's whether you take action based on what you know. And that comes down to big trust and that self-leadership. So if anyone listening wants to figure out what their doubt profile is, we've got an online assessment. I mean, yeah, get the book if you want it.

• 54:18Speaker 00

  Where is it?

• 54:18Speaker 01

  It's called selfleadershiptest.com.

• 54:21Speaker 00

  Selfleadershiptest.com.

• 54:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:24Speaker 00

  And, and do you discuss that in here?

• 54:26Speaker 01

  Yes, and it goes through, and there's actually a 12-question quiz at the beginning.

• 54:30Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 54:30Speaker 01

  Which is based on a research-backed tool. And it breaks it down, so you find out your score across the four dimensions.

• 54:38Speaker 00

  Self-assessment.

• 54:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, the self.

• 54:39Speaker 00

  Self-doubt profile.

• 54:40Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 54:41Speaker 00

  And just finally, if you don't mind, shall I, just one thing, finally. Let's say, and this happens all the time in the small business community particularly, particularly those who are in technology or that, that a lot of Australians are in America and what have you. And they have this view that they've got a network and they've got to turn up to functions and they've got to meet because there might, there might be investors there or there might be other technologists there or there might be other successful people there who can give some tips as to how they should run their business and someone there might be there that could potentially ask to become an advisor on the advisory board.

• 55:15Speaker 00

  Yet, you know, you're, and let's say you're a female in, it's harder when you're a female because like most of these things are dominated by guys.

• 55:25Speaker 00

  The self-doubt creeps in very quickly.

• 55:30Speaker 00

  Like, it's probably critical because I, I, I go to these things sometimes, I see them, I, I can tell. And they're dying to come and talk to me or go and talk to someone else. But they don't, but they're there for that purpose. That's the reason they're there. But they don't end up, because they're probably being rejected or maybe someone's, when they did talk to somebody, someone didn't show any interest in them. And they admittedly take that as, I'm not very interesting, therefore next time I go, I'm going to be careful. As opposed to saying, well, that guy might have been of a bad day or potentially he just lost an investor.

• 56:01Speaker 01

  The maybes, you know, maybe this or maybe that, yeah.

• 56:04Speaker 00

  What would you say to these people who, because I, because I, you know, you, you, you have to be known.

• 56:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:09Speaker 00

  In the various communities, because that's, unless people know you, they're not going to lend to you or invest in you, whatever the case may be. What do you say to those people about, in terms of the four things you just talked about?

• 56:21Speaker 01

  I'm going to give an obvious response. Quack your duck.

• 56:24Speaker 00

  Quack your duck.

• 56:24Speaker 01

  Okay, there's a story that goes with it. It's a short one. When I started my career, so I started working in the law, I'm a lawyer by background, and I moved into banking. When I first moved into banking, I was so full of self-doubt and I started in a call centre. And I was, I mean, who calls a bank unhappy customers?

• 56:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:40Speaker 01

  So this call center was getting hammered by extremely, extremely irate customers, to the point that people on the floor would regularly have to go outside to cry, to like expel the emotion. So what management did is a genius, genius strategy. They gave everyone a quack duck. What are they like, the squeaky ducks?

• 56:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 56:59Speaker 01

  That make a little squack sound?

• 57:00Speaker 00

  The one little kids play with in the bath.

• 57:00Speaker 01

  Exactly. They gave everyone on the floor one of these and they created a tally board. So they said, every time you get an unhappy customer, quack your duck so the rest of the people can hear it. Walk yourself over to the tally board and calculate your unhappy customer tally. And remarkably, within a couple of days, people weren't going outside to cry. They were quacking their duck, getting some giggles from the people around them and tallying it up. They had turned something really negative and highly emotionally charged into something fun. They gamified it and they made it less about the negative customer and more about the, hey, I did the thing again, I showed up. Again, giving your brain proof points of I can be yelled at and swore at and be okay. And so this is the idea of just showing up anyway and counting the times you showed up,

• 57:43Speaker 01

  not the times that it was successful, not the times that you had someone respond with a positive enthusiasm. So if you're going to any of these events, if you're doing anything and you're doubting yourself and maybe you've been rejected or you've had people say no to you, give yourself a tick. Tally that up. You showed up, you went and asked. Get yourself a duck if it, if it helps you remember that.

• 58:03Speaker 00

  Or just have some fun thing at home.

• 58:05Speaker 01

  Anything, it can be anything. The idea is it's just a pattern interrupt.

• 58:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:09Speaker 01

  You know, like a recorder or a bell or something. Again, you get home from that event, you're like, you know what? No one talked to me, I'm ringing my bell, I showed up. I'm gonna do it again the next time.

• 58:18Speaker 00

  And have a laugh at yourself.

• 58:18Speaker 01

  And have a laugh. And you can say, you know what? This year I went to 300 events and I didn't get a single call back. That's a record. Cool, how many can I do? Okay, look, if you get to 300 and no one's calling you back, there's an issue. So then.

• 58:29Speaker 00

  But then you gotta work out what can I learn from that?

• 58:31Speaker 01

  Exactly. What can I learn from this? Maybe I need to get better at how I'm presenting myself. Maybe I'm going to the wrong kinds of events. Maybe I need another avenue. Bring it back to what can I do, which is your autonomy. Remind yourself, it's not a reflection of your value. That goes back to acceptance. Focus on how you can get better with the skill of meeting people and interacting and networking. That's agency. And then learn to navigate the emotions that come with it with the quacking of the duck. So that's my guidance. Don't allow it to stop you. Learn from it. Keep going, keep showing up because unless you show up, you will never get to where you want to go to.

• 59:04Speaker 00

  No, you've got to show up. And then it's interesting that I was just thinking that the quacking of the duck, whether people do that literally or not. But that's an example of, um, you already know that you're going to do that if it doesn't work out. It's a bit like your goggles, goggles coming off. That's like an adaptability. You're making yourself much more adaptable.

• 59:21Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 59:21Speaker 00

  To shitty situations, like something to work out the way I want to do. And I might just ask you just quickly, if you don't mind at the end. Well, should we put too much importance on that event? So there's a networking event on Monday and you know, you want to go because there's a. But how do we do it and take the importance away though? And but at the same time, make sure that we're ready, we're on. You know, like, because if you go off, it's not important. Well, you turn up and you act like it's not important. How do you sort of get that balance right?

• 59:47Speaker 01

  Two things. The first one is I don't have to make this mean so much. Remember we talked about that as an adaptability tool? I don't have to make this mean so much. But also instead of what if, what if no one talks to me? What if it goes badly? Shift into, I wonder whether, I wonder whether I'll meet someone who's interested in my business tonight. I wonder who I'll meet. I want shifting from what so what ifs is that idea of the flashlight? We're shining it on threat. All the things that could go wrong. I wonder whether shifts it into possibility. And again, you could go through the Phelps scenario or just stick with something as simple as, I wonder whether. It changes your state. It changes your state, which then shapes how you're showing up, which shapes how you're responding to people and how they respond to you, which then changes outcomes. One final tip here as well.

• 1:00:33Speaker 01

  It's something called embodied cognition. So think about the person you want to be. Think about the person that they're going to be interested in. Think about the person that they're going to invest in. How does that person show up in rooms? How do they speak? How do they dress? How do they walk into that event? And then be that before it's come to you.

• 1:00:53Speaker 00

  Perform.

• 1:00:54Speaker 01

  Perform, but authentically. You're not trying to become someone else.

• 1:00:57Speaker 00

  Don't bullshit.

• 1:00:58Speaker 01

  You're just, exactly. You're just stepping into that next version of you. Fascinatingly, studies have shown in neuroscience and cognitive behavior. When you do this, when you show up as that person, remember the brain responds to proof and evidence. So if you're showing up as the person you want to be, your brain is getting evidence and proof points of the person that you want to be, which then makes you start to feel that you are already that, which then changes how you're going to have the conversation, how you're going to speak with the person.

• 1:01:26Speaker 00

  So plasticity.

• 1:01:27Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:01:28Speaker 00

  It's brain plasticity.

• 1:01:28Speaker 01

  Completely. And again, it all comes down to training and this idea of attention. And that's another example of big trust. You trust that you have what it takes. And if they recognize it, great. If they don't, you will still come to the next one.

• 1:01:40Speaker 00

  Or to some extent, it's their bad luck.

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, that's a beautiful way to look at it. It's not rejection, it's redirection.

• 1:01:45Speaker 00

  They don't really understand this stuff. That's, you know, maybe I'll talk to them again. If I get a chance, I'll get through to them. Otherwise, maybe I can't be bothered. I'll just go to the next station.

• 1:01:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:56Speaker 00

  Catch the next train.

• 1:01:57Speaker 01

  So much. All right, bye.

• 1:01:58Speaker 00

  It's amazing how we can actually manipulate our own brain.

• 1:02:00Speaker 01

  It's phenomenal. It's phenomenal. It also makes us realize how fallible we are.

• 1:02:04Speaker 00

  But tell me something, if that's the case, if I'm manipulating my own neurons,

• 1:02:10Speaker 00

  what am I using to manipulate my own neurons? I mean, what neurons are you using to change my own neurons?

• 1:02:16Speaker 01

  Okay, so this is a good question. It all comes down to the conscious mind versus the subconscious or unconscious mind. So a lot of, you know, when we're not consciously using our mind, which means you're just thinking about the day and the beliefs are popping up and you're not good enough. That is the unconscious subconscious realm driven by beliefs. So how we change our neurons is by using the conscious mind, which in my, in my view is like you're taking consciously taking your flashlight and pointing it somewhere else. And when you use your conscious mind to change your thoughts and you do that enough times over time, that is how you create a new neural pathway.

• 1:02:49Speaker 00

  A new set of beliefs.

• 1:02:50Speaker 01

  A new set of beliefs. Now, it takes time because these beliefs have been developed very early on in life. But like anything, practice, practice, practice, repetition, build. Oh, one other thing we didn't get to touch on. Practice what we call conscious affiliation, which means be aware of who you spend time with. Because they have such a huge influence on who you are, how you feel, how you show up, your beliefs, your perspectives. It's called the social spillover effect. In fact, one study was done at a tech firm and they found if you sit within 25 feet of a high performer, your own productivity goes up on average about 15%.

• 1:03:26Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:03:26Speaker 01

  So it has productivity benefits, but also this idea of emotional contagion. We catch the emotions of the people around us, but we also catch their beliefs. If they believe in us and believe that we are capable, we are more likely to believe that we are capable and more likely to actually succeed. If they do not believe in us, we are less likely to believe in ourselves and more likely to live down to their expectations. So the people around you cap your potential. So choose your circle wisely.

• 1:03:54Speaker 00

  Or pick someone way above you, but aspire to be like him or her.

• 1:03:58Speaker 01

  Emulate, not compare.

• 1:03:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, aspire or be better.

• 1:04:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, or be better or even better.

• 1:04:03Speaker 00

  Really nice. That was fantastic.

• 1:04:04Speaker 01

  This is great. Thank you so much.

• 1:04:06Speaker 00

  Thank you.