SUMMARY

INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES

 

FULL TRANSCRIPT

[The following is the full transcript of this episode of The Brendon Show. Please note that this episode, like all TBS episodes, features Brendon speaking extemporaneously–he is unscripted and unedited. Filmed in one take, The Brendon Show has become one of the most viewed unscripted, direct-to-camera self-help series in the history of YouTube. It has also been the #1 Podcast in all of iTunes and is regularly in the top podcasts in Self-Help and Health categories around the globe. Subscribe to the free motivational podcast on iTunes or Stitcher.)

Don’t tie confidence to image. Don’t tie your confidence to image. Don’t tie your confidence to image. Now, for some of you, this is super basic. Right? We’ll go deep, but this is a really basic one. And that is, a lot of people tie their confidence to what? To image. Like, “How do I look?” This is that old thing. It’s like, if you’re not in the perfect body weight, the perfect size jeans, or you don’t have six pack abs, or you hate your hair that day.

Or something in terms of your image is not what you want, then what ends up happening is you lessen your sense of self and you feel like your confidence is lowered.

And this is happening in not just physical manifestations for a lot of people, like, “Well, I don’t like my body, Brendon. So I’m lacking confidence.” I’m like, “Why is your confidence tied to your body?” Or they say, “Well, Brendon, I’m embarrassed by my website. It’s not as nice as other people’s, so I’ve lost confidence in my dream.” I’m like, “Why is your confidence tied to your website?”

“Oh, Brendon, we just got divorced and it’s embarrassing when I walk the dog because I’m not with my husband anymore. And I know what the neighbors are thinking, so I just feel like I’m lacking confidence.” I’m like, “Why is your confidence tied to what you look like when you are walking a dog?” There are all these things. Or, “Brendon, I’m so embarrassed. My Instagram thing, I only have 55 followers and it’s so embarrassing.” I’m like, “Why is your confidence tied to the number of followers?”

What we do is, we externalize our confidence and it causes so much pain.

We got to change this deal, y’all. Listen, that’s okay when you’re in high school, because you don’t know better and you’re immature. But everybody by the end of high school had better learn that confidence should not be tied to external measures or to perception of others based on our image. And I know where this is going to go with a lot of you because I’ve been blessed to coach so many people at high levels.

I know some of you go, “No, no, no, no, Brendon, you’re totally wrong on this one. Because listen, there was a time when I was in terrible shape and I looked terrible. And then I took control of my health Brendon, and I got better looking. I lost some of that weight and I’m happy in my body, Brendon. And I am more confident because I am healthier. I’m lean and mean and trim, and I feel good about that.”

I said, “Oh, well, if you think about it, psychologically, your confidence didn’t come from the fact that you are lean and mean now.” Like, “What?” I said, “Confidence came from that process. The confidence came from your willingness to get in and do it, your belief in your ability to figure out, and the fact that you showed up and you did it.” The progress through the struggle gave you the confidence, the outcome which you’re celebrating. “Oh Brendon, but I’ve lost this weight. I’m better. Here it is.” Okay. That is what a high schooler does. “Oh, this external thing. Now I can be confident. I got an article on the front page of the student newspaper, now I can be confident.”

It’s like we get these external rewards or accolades, and we think it’s the outcome that gives us confidence. But if that’s your life, you’ll never have the confidence that you really, really could have.

Because guess what? Those external image things, the accolade, the award, how you look in the mirror, those things are going to change throughout life. And you know it, because guess what? Now you’re going to hit a certain look and you’re going to want a different look. Or you’re going to have a certain award and want a different award or a bigger award or a certain bank account, and want the next level of bank account. Because those external things are always moving, if your confidence is rooted in those external things moving all the time, you feel like this all the time, right?

A lot of your insecurities is because you’re trying to glom onto all these external things—
image—right? These external things. And I want these external things, but they’re not solid.

And because they’re not solid and they’re always shifting, you don’t feel solid and you feel like you’re always shifting.

And even though you’ve actually achieved some amazing things, you have the image things, you have the award things, you have the accolade things, you have the successes, you have a bigger bank account than you used to. You still don’t feel confident in self. Why?

Because you are attaching confidence to that outer thing and how it felt like in terms of image in the moment. You didn’t give yourself the appropriate psychological credit and identity as a striver who strived, who knocked it out, who made it happen. You didn’t reward the effort. Instead, you tried to celebrate the outcome. But because the outcomes are now shifting and shaping and you want more and more, you always feel deficient and deficient.

Because the outward, the image—I’m just using that word image—that image thing, the accolade thing, that success thing, it’s moving so much. You have to understand this. It’s why I know people who are literally in their forties, fifties, and they still don’t have confidence.

And I know some of you are like, “But wait a second, Brendon.” Well, listen to this. I have a client, she’s the cover-of-a-magazine type of person. Super famous. I’m working with her right now, taking her through CHPC, just started a couple weeks ago with her. And something really fascinating has happened is, she’s received all these awards in her life and she still doesn’t have the confidence. And I said, “Well, what other awards do you need to achieve?” And she actually said, “Well, I’d like to get this one now. And I’d like to get that one now. And I like to get this one now.” And I said, “But you already got a trail of 10 other ones over here. If those 10 other ones didn’t give you confidence, why do you believe another one will?” Listen very closely my friends, because I love you.

If that last dollar increase in your bank account didn’t give you more confidence, please don’t fool yourself into thinking the next extra dollar in your bank account is going to give you more confidence.

It’s very important to understand right off the bat, that the shifting of the external, the shifting of those things that we want, the shifting of the rewards, of the accolades, of the dollars, of the houses, of the cars, because those will always shift. We’ll always want a different one, a newer one, a fresher one, a better one, including in our body. Then guess what? It’s hard to ever feel fully competent or confident, to ever feel within a sense of goodness. You’ve got to start rewarding yourself based on effort and not outcome.

And I know many of you are aware of those very large sociological studies that have been done and replicated on children’s self-esteem. Right? Instead of like, “Good job, Johnny, that final picture won the best picture over those seven other kids.” Instead of externalizing his good job for that thing. Instead, “Good job, Johnny, you kind of painted in your unique way. You worked hard at that. You spent a lot of time on this.”

In other words, we got to learn to reward our effort, not the image.

I personally believe that confidence, real confidence, deep confidence, soul-driven confidence is really the belief in my ability to figure things out. It’s not about having or even having done that exact thing. It’s, “I believe, inherently in myself, that I can learn it. I can do it. I can learn it. I can do it.” And that belief in confidence in any given moment isn’t—notice it doesn’t say, “I believe I look good.” Could you imagine a kid with broccoli growing out of his head, “Look at this haircut.” I mean, if I literally rooted my confidence in how I appeared in my beginning videos when they were terrible, on stages when I’m not at my best, in the moments that I was trying to build a career and I had no idea what I was doing. That image stuff? I would have never gotten here. I just always believed in my ability to figure things out.

I know you already know this, everybody, but I’m going to give you 10 distinctions here that we’ll really dive deep. But here’s the thing I want you to know, and just be thoughtful about. If you don’t have confidence right now, at the level you need to lead, serve, and earn at the next level, it is not based on what you have currently achieved right now. Because you’ve already achieved things. Because you’ve already struggled through things.

The problem is, you never gave yourself sufficient credit on the struggle, on the effort, on the heads down, on the working through, on the belief, on the desire, of the hunger, on all of the stuff that was going on to get you where you’re at. Because what you’re doing is you’re discounting where you’re at.

You’re like, “Well, I’m only here Brendon and I want to be here. So I don’t feel confident yet.” And I’m like, “Oh-oh, be careful. You’re slipping into tying your confidence to identity.” So let me put it up again. Don’t tie your confidence, can you see that? Don’t tie your confidence to image. One of the fundamentals. One of the fundamentals.