How Self-Awareness Leads to Success | Pastor Michael Todd EP 536

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

0:11So one of the greatest tools that I've picked up that's available to everybody, but they just have to submit to it is counseling. You need a therapist. People make excuses of why they all cost too much. I can't find a therapist. But you found 15 bums to date, but you can't find one therapist to talk to. Right. But I'm telling you, it changes you. if they don't even help you understand anything, the fact that you're saying to somebody safe, getting it out of you. It's healing. It's healing. It is. Like when you can just get it out of your body and say, I am 36, I'm single, and I feel insecure. Like just saying that provides room in you to start becoming another version of you.

0:57But if everything, just think if we had a soda bottle here and I just kept shaking it up. And I just kept shaking it up. And I just kept shaking it up. At the moment, the smallest little opening come, it's going to explode. That's what many of us look like in our life. Or we've not moved and just hid so long that now we've become flat. So it's one of the extremes. Either the trauma keeps shaking us up or we don't let nobody touch us. We're not in a relationship with anybody. And so we live a flat life. That doesn't have to be. Like it can be that we let this stuff out and we actually still keep our vibrance and we get healing and we're able to be nutritious and bring virtue and value to other people.

1:43But the first thing you got to realize is the value is still in you. Yes. And that's my main theme of this book is I want people to know no matter how damaged you've been, no matter how much trauma you've experienced, that I believe there is value that is inherent on the inside of you that has to be cultivated out. The value is still in you. Absolutely. What is the challenge that leaders who are rising or people that are put in leadership positions, especially men, as they're rising, what is their biggest challenge that you've seen? Because you work with a lot of high-level individuals. You lead them, you coach them, you counsel and mentor them as well.

2:22What is the biggest challenge and what is it that seasoned male leaders have told you to really watch out for and be prepared for? That's a good question, Louis. The thing that challenges most successful leaders is self-awareness. Like when you're starting something, you're at the beginning stages, you know where your faults are. You know what's happening. But success makes you numb to self-awareness. you have to stay very proactive on making sure am I still looking at me I know it made a hundred thousand I know the views are there but like am I still getting better I know they're clapping for me but am I still doing that self-awareness can subtly start disappearing through success and so one of the things that I was told is like you need to still be able to evaluate yourself in the same way, even though the numbers and the accolades and the attention is great.

3:19Because a lot of times that stuff is just a facade and you can be doing good and not getting better. I would say that's one thing that every leader needs to be intentional about. And then the other thing is a little counterintuitive. And I think I'm going to write about this in my next book. But rest is a weapon. most people in successful spaces, I'll rest when I'm dead. Well, you're going to be dead sooner than you think. I think that many times the same level of grind and hustle that we use to get to a place, even when we reach past where we ever thought we would be, we never change that deer.

3:58And I have found in my tenure, rest is a weapon. My greatest ideas come after I rest. My greatest impact moves come after I rest. Literally the things that come out of me, the content, the creation, collaborations, everything that happens, it happens after I've given my mind, my soul and my spirit a break. And most people don't because of fear. They're afraid of not being able to maintain or get to a level that they want to be at. And so for me, I got to the level that I never even dreamed I get to. And still, you can't turn that off. Yeah, it's like you get to everything. You're like, well, there's more, there's more, there's more.

4:42And there will always be more, except there will not be more of you. And so that's where I challenge people. It's like, okay, tell me what would be enough. What's your number? What's your number? What's the amount? And people have a hard time doing that, honestly, because the truth of the matter is nothing will ever be enough if fear is driving you. because fear, it escalates to the level you're at. So it's like, no, I got to make six figures. Okay, you now make$200 ,000. Now what? I got to make a million. I got to break. And now you're around people who do that. It's like a million, man. I got to make 10 million.

5:17It's never enough. And it will do that until you feel like you have everything you want and nothing has value. Wow. Like, think about it. Or you're still not worthy or happy or lovable. Fulfilledness, the word. Right. Yeah. No fulfillment. Money, cars, houses, relationships, attention, status. No fulfillment. What is the secret to fulfillment? Purpose. None of these books have to sell. I want them to. But like the fact that I know my purpose was to put out a book that added value and to be transparent with it. I want now I could let that not be enough. I could say this book is nothing unless it's another New York Times bestseller.

6:01And I would literally at that moment, because of my perspective, I would diminish the joy of my third book trying to reach and attain something that I have no control of. Right. Like, nobody knows how the New York Times bestseller list works. Like, it's still like an enigma. It doesn't matter. My value was that I finished this.

6:32Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description. That will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on The School of Greatness. And if you are loving The Daily Motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcast right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

7:21Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.