MAXOUT Your Mind Masterclass Ep. 1 | Winning the Battle in Your Head

25:43You run towards the stuff or you hide from it? You're someone who's favored, who's in the light, who's protected, who's safe, who's strong, who can tap into supernatural power from God anytime you need to? or you hide and you cower and you shrink and you limit and you stop expanding. In fact, you start shrinking. Pressure is a privilege. Pressure means this. Something's going to break. Either you or the obstacle. Being a dad, there's some pressure. Being a mom, there's some pressure. Building the business, there's some pressure. Hitting that putt to win a tournament, there's some pressure. Giving that speech, there's some pressure.

26:18Doing something new, there's some pressure. Walking into a thing that you're uncomfortable doing, whether that's public speaking or something socially or heights or whatever it is, something's going to break. Either the obstacle or you, and you're the person who doesn't break. You start walking like that. It may take me a little bit longer, but I'm in a hurry. I got patience, but I'm a little bit faster than I used to be. You live for this stuff. Most people fear the grind. You crave it. Most people wait for the right moment. You create it. You ain't waiting around for the right time. You ain't waiting around for someone to give you permission.

26:51You're not waiting around to make opportunity. You're going to get your own seat at the table. There's no seat there. You're picking one up. I'll just move my chair over. You crave this stuff. You want to live a great life. All your life you've known you're supposed to. You don't fit in. You're special. I got to tell you something about, I've never been one of the boys. I mean, I like having a cigar with the guys or playing golf, but I've never fit in. I don't want to fit in. I don't want to. In fact, in college, my teammates called me not Eddie Milet, Eddie myself, because I was alone so often.

27:21I'm not one of the guys. I don't want to be in group think. I don't want to think like everybody else. I want to think like me. I want my filter, my lens. Back in the days, most of those guys probably thought I was pretty crazy. Well, they don't think I'm crazy anymore. And I love all those guys, but most of their lives are almost all identical because they were one of the guys or one of the girls. Most of their lives are all the same. I was born to have my life. You were born to have your life, not theirs. You don't need to fit in. You're special. You're different. You don't need to be accepted.

27:53You don't need to be understood. You already know this. You're going to do anything great in your life. Most people aren't going to understand you. You got to become comfortable being misunderstood, being a little controversial, a little criticism. All right, whatever. That just means I'm making other people comfortable. Pardon my progress. Sorry, my progress, my expansion makes you uncomfortable. Sorry, the light I'm living in is shining a light on your small life. And I know that makes you uncomfortable, but I'm not one of the guys and I don't need your approval. And you're not one of the girls and you don't need theirs either.

28:25You're a competitor. You're constantly increasing your purpose. You're a grower. You're in a bigger hurry than most. You are, but you have the discipline to wait for what you want. C.S. Lewis once said this, it's so good. Life with God is not immunity from difficulties, but peace within difficulties. I'm not telling you once you change this, problems aren't going to come your way. What I'm telling you is your perspective about what it means will change. And meaning drives reality in life. Let me ask you a question about meaning. Isn't this good today, by the way? That's the holy spirit. Thank you god If you came up to me in three years and you said to me hey ed I just had the best three years of my life What would you be telling me three years from now?

29:13You're going to arrive somewhere three years from now The only question is where do you even have a plan to get there? Do you know where you're going? Have you enrolled your partner which I hope is god in your life to help you get there? What would you tell me at the last three years? You're not going to believe it Here's what happened in my life. I did this. I started that we help these what is it? What would you be telling me? And by the way What if you begin to move as if you expected it to happen? Huh? I know that's not easy, but what if you actually moved as if you expected Those things over the next three years to happen And I could tell you this I don't know what it is that that thing is but I know it will be connected to something that has meaning to you, that has a purpose, that makes you feel like you're making a difference, that's almost like a mission or a crusade or a cause in your life.

30:04I guarantee you one of the things on that list will not just be money or a car or a house or an island, although it will be some of those things for many of you. Somewhere on that list, the one that will stand out almost more than any will be some difference you made in life, some purpose, some crusade, some mission you're on that became accomplished. That's what it'll be. Hey guys, it's Ed. I rarely do this. As you know, 99.9 % of my content is free, but once a year I do something where I gather a very small group of people in my house. I've done it for two years in a row now, and I'm going to do it again this year.

30:42If you go to maxout2026.com, I'm going to do an experience in my home where I'm going to take you through how to make 2026 the best year of your life, all of the tactics and strategies that I use to plan and organize my own life in detail. Same time, all of the mental rehearsal and visualization techniques that people pay me hundreds of millions of dollars a year to teach them. I will be teaching that day as well. And the other years I've done it, I've had groups of about 25 or 30. I've decided this year I want to shrink the size of the group so that I can get more one-on-one time with each of you.

31:10So I'm going to keep the groups to 12 or 15. It's a chance to spend a day with me in my home, lunch, one-on-one time and group time. And it's not cheap. So if it's something you can't afford, please don't get yourself in any financial trouble or debt doing so. But if it's something you can afford to do, go to maxout2026.com. And I'm looking forward to having you in my home with me very soon for an amazing day, a life-changing day. God bless you. And one thing to know about the fact that you doubt yourself is one, I struggle with it as well. One of the reasons I've had to go learn to build all these tools for myself is because in my life, my baseball career, my academic career, my business career, my speaking career, I've been riddled with self-doubt.

31:47That creeps up all the time in our lives. Am I enough? Am I good enough? Do I deserve this? Is this something that's part of my destiny? Should I be doing this? And if you're a religious person, I believe the adversary, if you believe in the adversary, I believe the adversary's greatest tool that he could use against you to get you to lose in your life is to get you discouraged and doubting. These are two of the most chaotic things that the adversary can do to us or that we do to ourselves in our own minds is to get ourselves doubting, to get ourselves discouraged, because you can't win when you doubt and you can't win when you're discouraged.

32:21What I found out, though, about self-doubt is that you don't overcome it. You build something bigger than it, which means you build your self-confidence. And the greater and greater your self-confidence gets, it minimizes the impact self-doubt has on us. Now, why is that so important? It's important because you have to understand one thing about the doubts and the negative thoughts you have about yourself. As hard as this is to accept these are not your thoughts You weren't born doubting you weren't born discouraged. You weren't born thinking negative things about yourself Those were thoughts that were placed in you and given to you by an external source at some time in your life It could even be our parents.

33:02Don't do that. Be quiet. Sit down. Be a good boy. Be a good girl Maybe it was criticism you received as a as a little one that you may not even remember to this day It could have been a school teacher could have been ridicule at school from other children But when you were young in your formative years these negative thoughts about yourself were planted in you by an external source That's so powerful to understand because these things you think you believe about yourself that have become really true to you You don't even really believe they were not your original thoughts But the power of belief is so incredible in our lives It's so insidious because when we have a belief about something even if it was given to us by somebody else Our mind goes to work on proving to us that this belief is true A belief is almost like this table right here Just the top once we get it and what our mind tries to do is it tries to build legs under the table to reinforce that belief So if somebody told you you weren't enough or you weren't smart enough or pretty enough or fast enough or strong enough Or you don't come from the right place or you're not in the right culture the right race the right religion the right height, the right IQ as a young person, or you were put down and these beliefs were given to you, what happens is your mind tries to prove beliefs true.

34:15So it finds references. So once you think it, your mind finds an example of your life where you weren't enough. Another one where you weren't enough. You weren't smart enough. You weren't pretty enough. You weren't handsome enough. You weren't strong enough. And it finds these references and it builds like a leg and multiple legs on her table and pretty soon you can't move it and it's stuck in there as a firm belief that's why we have to guard our beliefs so preciously because our mind goes to work on finding these legs these references which are real experiences in our life to prove to us that that belief is true and so although you may believe it to be true about you these doubts and negative thoughts you have these were not your original thoughts that's a powerful thing to understand because you weren't born this way you weren't born doubting you were born perfect you were born believing you were going to do something great.

35:02You were born happy. You were born believing you were going to do something special with your life. As a baby, I promise you, you had no negative self-talk. You had no negative self-doubt. These are external sources. It's so important to know because those thoughts aren't really who you are. They're somebody else's thoughts they gave you because of how they felt about themselves. And so today we're going to talk about how to build self-confidence and how to eliminate self-doubt. So how do we build this self-confidence? The The process of building self-confidence is actually very easy, believe it or not.

35:34Self-confidence is self-trust. Self-confidence is building a reputation with yourself that you keep your word to you, that you keep the promises you make to you. When I meet somebody who has a ton of self-confidence, I don't look at that as somebody with a big ego. There's a difference. Somebody with self-confidence has a reputation with themselves that I do the things I say I'm going to do. That's where self-confidence comes from. When I meet someone who is not self-confident, I know this is someone who has consistently made promises to themselves they've not kept. They've started a diet and done it for a while, but not kept it.

36:07They've made a commitment and goals to go make a certain amount of money in business. And they started down the road, but then they didn't deliver on it long term. To get up at a certain time in the morning, and then they don't do it. And so they have a process and a habit in their life, more often than not, of not keeping the promises they don't make to other people. They don't keep the promises they make to themselves. And so the cool thing is self-confidence is an internal game. You do not need external accolades external admiration In order to build self-confidence, you don't need any of those external forces.

36:36It's all done internally You control this and you control this by beginning today to keep the promises you make to yourself And you have to stack the deck in your favor stack the game so you win It's not good enough just to keep the promises you make to yourself You must acknowledge it when you do it to you to give yourself credit to create confidence momentum is what I call it So whether that's setting the deck where you're gonna get up a little bit earlier You're gonna make a certain amount of phone calls your business a certain amount of appointments You're gonna eat a certain amount of calories in your fitness You're gonna spend a certain amount of time with your children or your parents and you begin to do these things You say you're going to do you say simple things like I'm gonna lay out my clothes the night before I go to bed every night Before I go to sleep so when I wake up that decisions made for me and believe it or not the fact that you just do something that Simple that you then deliver on begins to build confidence You say I'm gonna stretch in the morning when I get up and you do it all of a sudden I'm not gonna check my phone for 30 minutes all these habits I teach when you just begin to do the things you tell yourself you're going to do you begin to build self-confidence Which is this reputation with yourself.

37:42So ask yourself a question right now What is one thing right now one promise I can make to myself that I'm going to begin to keep starting this minute? And begin to do it could be how often I'm going to pick up a book and read it But you begin to stack things you commit to do and then you deliver on them and you acknowledge them to yourself You're in the process of building self-confidence. Why is that so important of all the athletes? I coach when my athletes are performing at their peak level. They're at their highest self-confidence level In fact, I love when I watch some of the athletes I coach get interviewed and they kind of do this aw shucks, humble routine in their post-game interviews.

38:18Yeah, you know, just part of the team. You know, I got a lot. I could have done a lot better today. But inside, I know these people are incredibly self-confident people. Any of you athletes listening to this, you know this. The great athletes you know have incredible amounts of self-confidence. You have to believe in you when it's a battle, when you're a hitter against a pitcher. Or when you're a quarterback against a defense. Or you're a defenseman in the NHL against their best offensive player. or you're a golfer and you have to make a nine-foot putt to win a tournament, right? You better have self-confidence.

38:46In fact, the separator, more often than not at the highest level in sports, is not they're a better shooter or a better putter or throw the ball a little bit faster because everybody throws hard in the major leagues nowadays, it seems, right? That separators their self-confidence. It's true in being a parent. It's true in being a business person. It's true in every area of our life. The separator at the top levels is self-confidence. So now you have that first thing that you're going to commit to that you're going to deliver on now What I would ask you to do that now that you've done that is if you really want to build self-confidence Can you begin to extend that list of five eight and ten things that you are going to begin to do that?

39:22You commit to you that you're going to do every single day to begin to stock that self-confidence That's going to change it now Let's go back to the self-doubt for a second self-doubt is the inverse of that. I don't trust me I don't think I'm good enough. These are thoughts placed from the outside inside your mind the minute you acknowledge that That's not my thought that someone else's that's not you begin to eliminate I call it like scratching the CD when I begin to have negative self-talk negative thoughts I literally picture and I'm old by the way, but I picture an old record player or a DVD and I just scratch it I scratch it that thought gets scratched.

39:55I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm not good-looking enough I'm not fast enough strong enough. I'm not prepared enough. I once they enter That's not my thought that's something someone gave me when I was a kid And I scratch it and I literally say to myself scratch it scratch it scratch it And over time, it's like a DVD or a CD or a record player. Over time, that thought can't be played again in your recorder when you scratch it enough times. So I literally picture scratching and I say, scratch it. I experience self-doubt. I experience negative thoughts and I scratch them. I scratch them.

40:25I scratch them. And over time, it almost becomes funny. It's that thought's impact on me starts to be minimized over time. Every time I scratch it, I picture scratching it like a DVD or a record or a CD. and I say it to myself, scratch it, scratch it, scratch it. And what it does is it acknowledges the thought. It loses its power over me. The first time it's still got some impact on me. The second time it might, but the fourth, fifth, seventh time, all of a sudden that thought just doesn't have the impact on me anymore because I acknowledge it's not mine. I've scratched it. And over time, my mind just doesn't want to play that song anymore.

41:01It doesn't want to play that movie anymore. And so that's how I begin to eliminate those thoughts in my mind. I build up my self-confidence and I scratch my self-doubt There's also this misconception from people that you are certain things meaning some people have this misconception that I am what I possess In other words, I am my possessions and so they link their self-confidence to their possessions And so they're constantly trying to acquire more and more possessions thinking that's where they get their self-confidence from That's how they're defined as a person. I am my possessions Couldn't be further from the truth.

41:37It's a hollow way to try to gain self-confidence by possessing things. Nothing wrong with going for material possessions. I have all kinds of them. But I don't link my confidence to those possessions, nor am I deluded into thinking if I could just possess more things, then I'll feel better about myself. So this is a mistake. There's a flawed thought. Number one flawed thought, I am my possessions. Second flawed thought, I am my accomplishments. In other words, my self-confidence is only linked to what I'll accomplish. So because I haven't accomplished certain things, I don't have that certain title, that certain award, that certain recognition, I don't believe in myself.

42:13I'm riddled with self-doubt. I'm defined by my accomplishments. The difficult thing about that is now all your life you're going to have to accomplish more and more and more in order to feel self-confident and eliminate self-doubt. You are not your accomplishments. You are not your possessions. You are you. You are perfect. You are beautiful. You were born to do something great with your life. If you're a person of faith like me, you believe God made you in his image and likeness and wants you to do something great with your life, not that you are your possessions, not that you are your accomplishments.

42:45And this is the social media insidious influence it has in our lives. People are like, I don't feel good about myself. I've got this self-doubt. The gateway to me feeling more self-confidence is if I could possess more things or if I could accomplish more things. Yes, having nice things will make you feel better about yourself. Yes, accomplishing things certainly is a reinforcement for self-confidence, but it's not the pathway to getting it. The pathway to getting it is doing something great with your life where you keep the promises you make to yourself and acknowledge this self-doubt, this self-thought, this negative talk isn't even mine.

43:20It was given to me when it was impossible for me to defend myself as a child. And maybe it even happened in adolescence and probably some of of those instances have happened for you as an adult, and these ones as an adult are like that thing I said earlier, oh it's another time I reinforced the table, I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not prepared enough, I'm not the right race, I'm not the right gender, I don't come from the right kind of family, I don't have the right education. And we find these references as adults to reinforce these self-doubting beliefs we were given by somebody else as a child.

43:51Flawed belief is that you are your possessions, you are your accomplishments. Third flawed belief. I am what other people say I am Wrong. You are not what other people say you are good or bad I see too many people that if someone says something negative about them, they believe that's who they are This is the flawed third belief. I am my possessions. I am my accomplishments and you know what or I am what other people say I am. Let me be clear with you. You are not what other people tell you you are It wasn't true when you were 18 months old, five years old, or 55 years old. You are not what other people say you are.

44:28So stop letting that dictate your self-confidence or fill you with self-doubt. And for the record, you are also not the good things people tell you you are all the time. Don't live for likes. Don't live for comments on your social media. Don't do things in your life just to solicit someone saying something great about you. It's a cheap, shallow, hollow way to try to gain self-esteem and self-confidence. It's fleeting, it's short-term, and it's needy. In fact, the fact that it is a necessity for you to get liked, to get people to say good things, to get comments on your social media, or to do so in your presence, indicates a lack of self-esteem and self-confidence, because we know self-confidence is an internal game where we keep the promises we make to ourselves.

45:18The fourth type of flawed thinking is I am what I look like In other words if I don't look a certain way Like what the magazine says I should or social media says I should if I don't look like these people I shouldn't have self-confidence and that's ridiculous. I can tell you straightforwardly. You're beautiful as you are Especially the ladies listening to this or watching this the world is constantly trying to get you to believe you're not enough You don't look right. You should lose this weight. You should gain this this should be smaller That should be bigger, whatever it might be. They're constantly messaging women.

45:51You're not enough. You're not enough. You're not enough You are what you look like and this is true for men as well Let me tell you straightforwardly. You are not what you look like. You are your soul. You are your spirit. You are your gifts You are the contributions you make you are your intentions You are perfect as you are that doesn't mean we don't want to look better doesn't mean we don't want to get into shape But we want to do that to feel better about ourselves not for the accolades from other people. We want to do that to feel healthier and stronger and be the ultimate version of ourselves.

46:20But by no means does that mean you're not perfect as you are. By no means does it mean you are defined by what you look like. You are not defined by what you look like. You are defined by the content of your character, the way you treat other people, and the difference you make in the world. So the four flawed thoughts that I see most right now is I am my possessions. No, you're not. I am my accomplishments. No, you're not. I am what other people tell me I am and say I am, good or bad. No, you are not. And fourth, you are not what you look like. These are flawed beliefs that lead right to self-doubt and away from self-confidence.

46:54So the things we need to do to change our self-confidence is A, keep the promises we make to ourself, and B, very important, we must begin to give ourselves credit for those things when we deliver on them. I want you to remember this as well. There's a power to the way we use the two Our brain and our body. See, self-confidence can also be a state, a physical state. It's very difficult when you're moving your body, sitting up straight, breathing deeply, right? You're in that physical strong state of being, right? Right after a workout, during a workout is when we feel our most confident because our body's at a peak state.

47:26One way to generate self-confidence is to move your body into a strong state of being. Move your body. Literally movement creates confidence. If you think about some of the peak times of your life, whether that be the fun time you may be having with your partner physically, intimately, or laughter, or peak performance running, right? Or your great accomplishments, yes! There's a commonality to the way our body is moving at that time. If you think about the times when you're the least confident, it's usually when you wake up in the morning, isn't it? It's the most down, the most fearful, the most anxiety, or before you go to bed at night.

48:00These are two times most people experience the most amount of self-doubt is right before bed and right when they wake up. Isn't that interesting? One of the reasons is because of how we're moving. We're laying down. We're hunched over. Our breathing is shallow. There's no physical movement whatsoever. This creates a state of self-doubt right before we sleep, right when we wake up. Or if you're just kind of depressed or sick, self-doubt starts to kick in, doesn't it, right? If you ever had an injury and you couldn't move like you'd like to, that stagnation of the body begins to create self-doubt and strips us of our self-confidence.

48:33So moving our body is a gateway to self-confidence. And then our brain as well. We have to take control of our thoughts. We have to scratch the negative ones when they come in and replace them with great ones. Now, I don't believe self-talk works all the time, but I believe saying I am strong. I am good. I intend. I'm a good man. My intentions are pure. I'm a good person. I make a difference in the world. I'm kind. I'm gentle. I'm generous. I'm strong. I'm faithful. Beginning to repeat these thoughts to myself and these words do generate self-confidence. I keep the promises I make to myself. I'm a man of my word.

49:08Begin to talk to yourself and think these thoughts. When you combine your brain and your body, you scratch the self-doubt. You lose those four stupid beliefs. I am my accomplishments. I am my possessions I am what other people say I am or I am what I look like these are completely flawed beliefs We scratch those we scratch them. We understand the process of stacking self-confidence in our life We know we are the content of our character and lastly Give yourself some credit will you please and I'm going to tell you where to give yourself credit and that is in the area of your intentions A lot of my confidence comes from the fact that I keep the promises I make to myself.

49:46I know my self-doubt are thoughts that were given to me when I couldn't even defend myself as a young little boy. I know that I'm not my accomplishments. I know I'm not my possessions. I know I'm not what I look like. And I know I'm not what other people say I am. I understand the process of building self-confidence. I scratch the negative thoughts of my life. But I can tell you this. The last place I get my confidence from is my faith and my intentions. See, I know I intend to do good. Not enough of you are giving yourself credit for your inherent goodness. And I mean this. You're special in that regard.

50:21You're perfect in that regard. Just ask yourself, what are your intentions? As an individual, as a man or a woman, do you intend to do good in the world? Do you intend to want to help people? Do you intend to be a light in people's lives? Do you intend to make a difference? Do you want to live a good life where you've helped change the world and change other people's lives? Have you ever just asked yourself that? Do you? Because if the answer to that is, you know, I don't spend enough time thinking about how good my intentions are. I don't want to hurt people. I don't want to do bad things. I don't want to take advantage of others.

50:55I really intend to do good. You know what? You need to give yourself more credit for the power of your intentions. There's a power in life of giving ourself credit just for the intentions we have Just ask yourself that there's two types of people in life There's the people who intend to do harm to take advantage of people To cheat to cut corners to cause hurt to others for what they think will be their own game Then there's people who want to be a light They want to make a difference. They want to help. They want to contribute. They want to be somebody they want to honor their god They want to make a difference in the world and their intentions are good Too often in life people with great intentions don't give themselves credit for how beautiful and wonderful those intentions are And so today just take this inventory of all the things that are wonderful about your intentions And then just take an inventory of your faith as a person of faith.

51:50I know that I'm favored I know that God wants me to do good in the world. I know that I was made in his image and likeness There's a power to that. There's a comfort to that. There's a confidence that comes from that. Kind of a swagger. See, people aren't smirking at me anymore. I'm smirking at them. See, I know I'm not what I look like. I know I'm not my possessions. I know I'm not my accomplishments. I'm not what other people say I am. I understand the keys of keeping the promises I make to myself. I understand scratching those limiting beliefs. I know I intend to do good. I don't always do good.

52:24I make mistakes all the time. I'm not a deity. I'm not a god. I'm a man, but I intend to do good And my guess is so do you start to give yourself a little credit just for your intentions Know you're perfect as you are and then to begin to take these massive action steps The final piece of the puzzle is this is that you have to believe you deserve to win And sometimes it's not just that we think we're good, but that we've done so much. We must be worthy of winning See there's this adage in life good people in life won't take more from the table of life than they think they're worthy of and they deserve See in business sometimes short term we've all seen this someone with bad intentions can get ahead short term But you always reap what you sow karma is always a real thing And eventually the people that take shortcuts that cheat that hurt other people that have ill intent The world the universe god sort of finds a way eventually to get them where they're supposed to be But good people will never take more when they think they're worth which is why the mandatory requirement for good people to win Is they believe they deserve it?

53:31They believe they're worth winning and sometimes it's not just who we are that we need to believe in but what we've done in this sense That sometimes you've got to outwork everybody and you've got to be willing to do the things nobody else is willing to do So you begin to convince yourself man. I'm doing all the things everybody else is unwilling to do so I deserve to get the results other people aren't going to get. I'm doing the things other people aren't willing to do. I'm paying a price that's so much greater than other people that I'm worth it, that I deserve to get results they don't deserve to get because I've been willing to do the things they've been unwilling to do.

54:07So the last piece is often self-confidence can just frankly come from outworking everybody and convincing ourself, man, I've been doing the things nobody else is willing to do. I deserve to get the results nobody else deserves to get. And that's a shift in building self-confidence. If being hard on yourself worked, it would have already worked by now, right? And one of the things I think we have to ask ourselves is, is what I'm doing working? You know, how's this working out for me? And so far, not so good when you're really difficult on yourself. You would never talk to other people the way that you speak to yourself.

54:44You teach other people how to treat you with what you're willing to accept, with what you're willing to tolerate. And you teach yourself how to treat you. And for many of us, since some age we were at, and you could draw a line for almost all of us. Some of us have happened much later in life. Some of us have started happening in childhood. We started treating ourselves poorly. And if we treat ourselves poorly, how are we ever going to ask other people to treat us well? And by the way, whatever your belief systems are, you all know that I'm a Christian, but I also believe in inspiration. I believe in vibrational frequency.

55:15See, if you're not treating yourself well, how do you expect the universe to treat you well? How do you expect to have good things come your way when you don't even treat yourself well? You know, it's probably the number one mistake that I see people make. That's their invisible enemy is themselves. So they go into things like I do it when I speak on stage. And ironically, sometimes we're the most difficult on ourselves if the things were actually the most anointed and best at. If you were to ask me, what's the area of my life that I am probably the most hard on myself, the most abusive to myself, I will tell you that it's my public speaking.

55:51That when I get off the stage, I think maybe three times in my life has someone asked me, how did you do? And I said, very well or great. But probably 15 ,000 or 30 ,000 times, depending on how many times I've spoken on stage, I've said not so good. I should have done this. I could have done that. Okay. Or terrible. And then I spend a bunch of time lamenting the things I said that I shouldn't have or things I forgot to say or things that didn't go well. You know, the other area that I'm very difficult on myself, if I step back and look at it, is in parenting. Yet, kind of if I stepped way away from it, I'm a pretty good parent.

56:28So it's ironic that sometimes we beat ourselves up in the number one place with a best at. Here's what I figured out. As a person of faith, I believe in the adversary or you can call it the devil, whatever you want to be. If you don't believe in any of that, it could just be negative and positive. And I can tell you that I believe the adversary or the devil attacks us in our thoughts. And when we begin to listen to our thoughts, we're really doing the work of the bad guy, the dude downstairs. Or if you don't believe in any of that, negative vibrational frequency. It attacks us in our thoughts.

57:01But when God's working on us, he speaks to our hearts. He speaks to our spirits. and I've learned to stop listening to my thoughts because that's where I'm attacked. That's where you get attacked is in your thoughts. But if you can get quiet and listen to your heart, that's God speaking to you. Remember this, God talks to our hearts. The devil talks to our minds. If you don't believe any of that, highest vibrational frequency is in the heart, heart center. Lowest vibrational frequency is actually in the mind. and the thing that vibrates at the lowest possible frequency is a lie. And so when you tell yourself a lie about yourself, you are now reducing your vibrational frequency.

57:46Not only is it not true, not only does it beat you up, not only does it program your reticular activating system to find more bad things about you or have you make more mistakes, but you're reducing your vibrational frequency because it's not true and it's a lie. And when we lie to ourselves, we reduce our frequency. Truth, on the other hand, vibrates at the highest possible frequency. And that's why it comes from God. What I want to challenge you to do this week is to begin to listen to your heart, that whisper, that quiet voice that you have to be still or quiet to hear. And drown out the noise, the vast majority of which that noise is being created by you in your mind or the adversary in your mind.

58:27And it's a lie. Here's the bottom line. It's not working out so good for you. and you need to begin to separate your behavior sometimes and your choices and or your performance from who you really are. Here's the truth. Not every singer nails every note every time they sing a song. It doesn't mean they can't sing. It doesn't mean they're not great. I promise you, take your favorite musical artist of all time. I don't care who you're listening to right now. It doesn't matter, right? I can promise you they have off nights. I can promise you some nights are better than others, but I doubt that they beat themselves up to the point where they don't at least open up the opportunity for another great night in the future.

59:04You're probably going to have a bad call, a bad speech, a bad meeting, a bad exchange with somebody that you love. And if you beat yourself up about it, you've opened up the possibility of you doing it again, not less. We think, well, if I beat myself up about this bad sales call I just had, I'm punishing me, then I won't want to do it again. Because when I was a little boy or a little girl, I would get punished when I behaved poorly. And the truth of the matter is that's not how life works. It's not about punishment. That doesn't mean we don't want to course correct. So, for example, learn to say this.

59:38That's not like me. One of the things I teach my professional golfers when they miss a putt, what do most golfers say do you think when they miss a putt? I suck. Right? I'm terrible. Effing dummy. That's what you say when you miss a putt. And what you're doing is reinforcing the fact that you're more likely to miss another one. But when you separate yourself from your behavior and realize that's not who you are It was a behavior. It was a motor movement. It was a a word you said it was a moment of weakness It's not who you are. So what I teach my golfers to say when they miss it is that's not like me Gosh, that's not like me The greatest athletes in the world when they make a mistake they correct it But that's not like me because if you believe that's like you you will act in accordance with who you believe you are and we don't want to act in accordance if we believe we can't putt or I suck.

1:00:28So separate from the outcome who you are. That's not like me. If I have a bad speech, that's not like me. Huh, let's get back to me. What is more me? And then I step into the positive me, the higher vibrational frequency me, the true me. And so in any event, I want to remind you to stop beating yourself up and to begin to become your own biggest fan, your own biggest cheerleader, your own biggest support. Heck, if you could just get to neutral for most of us, that's an upgrade. It's not like you to have a bad sales call. It's not like you to miss a speech. It's not like you to respond in anger.

1:01:00It's not like you to make a mistake with your kids. It's not like you to forget to call a friend back. That's not like you. I believe something very deeply, that once you have rapport with somebody, so there's some sort of trust or rapport, the more certain person always influences the less certain person when there is some sort of rapport. And so, and by the way, my wife has proven this now for 30 years. Just about every single fight we've ever had, she ends up winning, even when she's wrong, because she's more certain she's right than I am that I'm right. And the most certain person always influences the less certain person.

1:01:35Why is that so important? Because we, when we're in a sales environment or we're coaching somebody or anything we're doing, speaking from stage, interacting with anybody about trying to make a point, talking them about our faith, our politics, whatever it is, the more certain person always has influence over the less one. So the less certain persons, what we spend most of our time doing is refining the PowerPoint, refining the presentation, the words we're going to say exactly how we're going to frame things, what it's going to look like. And we don't spend all of the time we need to on increasing our own true certainty level.

1:02:05Now, by the way, you can't transfer to somebody that which you truly aren't experiencing. It's not authentic. So you have to actually be certain. And I don't think enough people work on certainty of themselves and their product or service both There's two things that need to come across in an exchange with somebody one is certainty about self That's the hard one. That's the one that takes some digging And that's why I always say link your certainty or your confidence to your intentions Not just your abilities because you're in you know about your intentions You know that's to be true when you connect with your intent You can come across much more certain i'm certain.

1:02:40I want to help I'm certain I want to serve. And that increases your certainty level. But the other thing not enough people do is increase their certainty about their product or service. They don't do enough third-party reading. I am constantly reading, I mean all the time, articles that validate the different companies that I own and their products and services or our ideas or our concept or validating that the market's getting bigger or there's a need for us or that we're unique and different. And I like to validate it with third-party stuff, whether that's a book, an article, something online, a story I see, and I'm always feeding my certainty.

1:03:14One of the things I've realized about myself over the last, you know, I don't know, 10 or 15 years is this is sort of one of my superpowers. When people ask you why you're successful, sometimes it's very difficult for successful people to answer that question if they're successful in an area. And by the way, I'm unsuccessful in many areas and successful in some, but the ones that I am oftentimes, even on my show, when I ask people, they don't know why, because they begin to do things habitually and reflexively, it's become part of their pattern. So they, they're almost oblivious to the fact that they do it like any other pattern.

1:03:45And one of my patterns and habits for a very long time is to just be ferocious with working on my certainty level about myself, about my product and service. And I do it over and over and I'll share it with people that I work with. See, look at, see, so-and-so said, look at this thing here. Look how much the competitors are doing it wrong. Look at, and I'm constantly increasing certainty because as you increase certainty, you increase the propensity to perform. And that's why it's so important, as I discussed, to not beat yourself up. People who beat themselves up, here's what they lack, certainty.

1:04:15They lack certainty. They've not worked preemptively, proactively on their certainty level about themselves or their product or service. And so this isn't something you can do during a presentation or during an exchange with a friend. It's done before. It's preemptive. It's preparation. preparation is not just the words or the thoughts or the and the concept preparation is the belief you transfer belief to people the more certain person influences the less certain person and so if that's really true then we have to work on that more than any other element of our being in terms of persuasion with people is certainty and you have to actually believe it so this week I want to challenge you.

1:05:03What are you doing externally, outside your business, outside your normal routine to increase your certainty about yourself or your product service, your company? And it's got to be a habit. It's got to be daily, in my opinion. If at a minimum weekly, you're reading things, you're sharing things, you're feeding it, feeding it. It's like this, it's like this, I was going to say monster or beast, but it's really not. It's like this beautiful spirit you're feeding that you can transfer. So, you know, sometimes it's a monster or a beast where you're like, man, we got it. You know, you got that. But other times it's this beautiful spirit of just confidence.

1:05:39I was watching politically. I don't care where you lie politically, but two of the people that I really studied a lot of are Kennedy and Reagan. Ironically, one from the left and one from the right. But I've studied these two as leaders. And one of the things that both of them uniquely had in common was this really sly smirk under pressure. Literally, they were both known like when the pressure increased, they didn't scowl more. They smirked and smiled more. And it was like this reflexive, habitual thing that both of them did. Isn't that interesting? Yet very different people, but at different ages when they were president, by a mile.

1:06:17different parties, different philosophies in some cases, yet under pressure, their staff and team and family both commented individually about both of them. They would smirk. You go back and look at Reagan and debates. You can go back and look at Kennedy and debates, videos under pressure, big speeches they made. They had this thing. And the reason that the people around them said that as the pressure increased, their certainty level about their decision-making increased under pressure, that they felt more and more certain about the decisions that they were making. It's really, really fascinating study of leadership and of human beings that actually most people cower under pressure and shrink.

1:07:02These two leaders knew to increase their certainty level under pressure, and they had done that work preemptively so that when the pressure hit, when the moment hit, they were the best them decisively in those moments processing information in those moments persuading their team and staff persuading other world leaders i mean imagine the amount of persuasion that has to happen and so it requires a gigantic level of certainty and so no matter what you believe politically most people think that both of those guys were pretty darn good presidents depending upon if they believe in the left or the right depending on their party the point is under pressure they got lighter not heavier and that's because they had worked on their certainty level.

1:07:39So I want you to change this. You know, ships don't sink because the water around them. Ships sink because of the water that gets in them. It's not what's going on around you. It's what's going on within you. There's an enemy within you and it's you. You have to remember this. You are not your thoughts. Your thoughts don't come from you. There's nothing wrong with having high standards. In fact, I recommend it. Having high standards for yourself is completely different than being hard on yourself. And because I talk about having high standards all the time, I think people conflate these two things and think, well, if I don't live up to my standards, then I have to beat myself up as if if I beat myself up somehow, that's how I'm going to change.

1:08:19And where's this really stem from in our lives? This enemy within this enemy within comes from this notion that when we were little kids, when we did something bad, we got punished. And somehow over time, we've decided I'm going to punish myself. And somehow that's going to get me to reach my standards. Nothing could be further from the truth. And so you have to stop doing this. The ship is sinking because you're letting the water within you drown you literally in your thoughts. Remember this self-talk leads to self-thoughts. And by the way, vice versa, negative self-thoughts lead to negative self-talk and human beings, you and I are designed to live consistently with the story we tell ourselves about us.

1:09:03And so if you're telling yourself this story, you're going to live congruent with it. You're going to find more situations that are negative, more situations to let yourself down, more situations to beat yourself up. You're going to get more and more of what you keep saying and thinking about yourself because that's how the mind works. That's how life works. Thoughts are like magnets. We literally draw to ourselves exactly what we're thinking about. So if you're thinking something negative about yourself, and I know many of you think, no, I know a lot of successful people that are very hard on themselves.

1:09:33It's different. They're hard on the behavior, not on themselves. So when you watch a great athlete and they miss a bunch of shots, they're thinking, that's not like me. That is not like me. They're not thinking, I suck at shooting. And so there's this fine line between living up to our standards and talking to ourselves as if we're our own worst enemy. And what's really sad about that is that you're going to get to the end of your life and you're going to live with no peace because you've had to live with you, your own enemy. Can you imagine the person closest to you, the one person in your life who's going to spend every second of your life is one of your great antagonists?

1:10:12Or you may say, well, Ed, I'm not really antagonistic on myself or to myself. Let me ask you this. Are you your own biggest fan? Are you praising yourself regularly? Lifting yourself up regularly? Rooting for yourself regularly? believing in yourself regularly. So maybe it's not for some of you. And for a lot of us, it literally is we're our own worst enemy, biggest enemy, right? And some of you listeners go, well, that doesn't really apply to me. Well, let me ask you this. Do you talk to yourself like Jesus would or like your version of God would? Do you talk to yourself like you would hope someone would speak to your children?

1:10:47If you have children, do you talk to yourself like your best friend is you? Do you? Are you your own biggest fan, your own biggest supporter, your own biggest cheerleader? The person who believes in you on earth the most is you. I'm talking about on earth is you. If you're a person of faith, do you truly believe that you were made in the image and likeness of God? Do you really believe that he's holding you in the palm of his hand? And so you can't love yourself conditionally. Well, I'll love myself when the conditions are right. I'll believe in myself once I'm winning. See, we have to have unconditional love for ourselves, which means the conditions don't dictate how much I love me or how much I believe in me.

1:11:30Now, I'm not saying self-love is never to be honest with yourself where you're not living up to a standard that you have. That's different than thinking you are your behaviors. There's a fine line. I could tell you that I know, you know, people that perform at a pretty high level and although they are hard on the behavior, they're not hard on themselves, meaning they don't begin to believe that they are the way they're performing. They actually believe the inverse of that. They believe they're better than they're performing. And so this internal belief causes them to be frustrated with the result, yes, or wanna work harder and change it or be honest with themselves about what needs to change.

1:12:08But there's a difference between not thinking you're good enough and then proving it and thinking you're better than what you're doing and wanting to live up to it. And so what most of us do is we love ourselves conditionally, which means we get very little of it because we have to be doing great in order to feel loved. We have to be doing great in order to believe in ourselves. So this becomes this tale that we end up chasing all of our lives. And so we begin to think it's the water around my boat. It's the haters. It's the circumstances. It's the market. It's my lack of opportunity. It's whatever it is.

1:12:39And it's not. It's the water within the boat. It's not the words being said and the thoughts about you outside of you. It's the words that are being said and the thoughts about you and or insight of you that is holding you back in your life. Not only holding you back from the results you want to get, but holding you back from the emotions you want to experience. Because your closest ally, you, who's with you every second of every day, doesn't even believe in you and love you the way that you're worthy of right now. Because you will do everything in your life to confirm what you believe about yourself, to make it true, to live in congruency with the real thoughts, the real beliefs you have to be true about yourself.

1:13:18I say often that one of the most powerful forces in the world, if not beyond God, is to live in congruency with our identity, is to live in a way that's congruent with the identity that we hold for ourselves. And as you climb higher in your life, and I know you intend to, just realize this, new levels, new devils. The higher you climb, the more you have to have your own back. People think, well, if I could just have my back down here, no, all the way up because new levels, new devils. And a lot of times that devil is within you. It begins to be your own thoughts. I'm higher than I've ever been.

1:13:53I don't know that I belong up here. I'm not sure I can get, I never thought I'd get this far, so I can't get any further. I never thought I'd get this happy or this wealthy or this fit. I start to doubt myself. And the new levels could be new devils around you, but it could be new devils in your thoughts. And so what I'm saying to you here today, my dear friend, is that you have to love yourself unconditionally, meaning regardless of the conditions. Self-love or self-talk does not mean you accept everything about yourself. In fact, what it really means is that you expect better from yourself because you believe so deeply in you.

1:14:28And that fine line is misunderstood by about 99 % of the population. They see successful people demanding high standards for themselves, wanting to grow, wanting to get better, wanting to improve, and not realizing it comes from a place of deep self-belief. And what they do is they flip it and they begin to think, no, it comes from a place of self-loathing or not believing in oneself or being hypercritical of oneself. Hypercritical of oneself doesn't work. I can tell you that, you know, one of the things that I'm, you know, one of the best at in the world, according to other people, and even in my own mind, is speaking on stage.

1:15:04yet it's the place I'm the most hard on myself, the most self-loathing, the most beating myself up, the most picking it apart. And so as a consequence, although I am really good at it, for many, many years, I didn't enjoy doing it. And once I stopped doing that and I began to give myself the grace of believing I was great at it, I began to enjoy it more. And because I began to enjoy it more, I shifted into a state of much higher inspiration, much higher vibrational frequency, and I got better at that very thing that I thought I was great at. So that one area where you think you're great, where you're really hard on yourself, if you begin to give yourself some grace, you'll even get better at it, more you're in flow, and you can only be in flow when you're enjoying it, when you're at peace doing it.

1:15:48And so I messaged to you today, and I hope this really hits home for you, everything we've covered today, is you must begin to be your own biggest fan, your own biggest supporter. That's with what you think, that's with what you feel, and that's what you say out loud and inside about yourself. And I would just say, my friend, you're worthy of it. Give yourself more grace, a little bit more grace. Will you please give yourself a break? You're not going to get out of this alive. You're not going to get out of this alive. And what if the person closest to you was your own biggest enemy, or at a minimum, wasn't even your biggest supporter?

1:16:24You're with you every single second of every single day. a little grace, a little patience, a little gratitude, a little love, a little bit of support. In fact, a lot of all that would change your life today. And I just want to tell you as a friend who I may or may not have met you, you were born to do something great with your life. You were born one of a kind. You're the only human being on earth today with your talents, gifts, and experience all combined into one soul. And I believe God wants to use you in other people's lives in an even bigger way than he already is. And the only way that that's going to happen is that you accept you in your own life in a bigger and more loving and warmer way.

1:17:11Demand high standards of yourself because you know you're better, because you know you're worth it, because you know you're great, because you know you were born to do something great with your when you were a little boy or a little girl, was there anybody who made you feel special? I pray for so many people that they at least had that one person. Maybe you did. It was your grandmother or grandfather or a mom or a dad or a coach or a pastor or a teacher. Was there somebody in your life, an auntie, an uncle that they would just look at you and you'd feel special? You just knew it. That one person made you feel a certain way.

1:17:43If they exist or existed, just picture their precious face just for a second. Close your eyes just for a second. For me, it was my grandfather, Papa. I can just picture his face, just how he would look at me and what he would say to me. I felt, I am special Papa. If you had that person in your life and you picture their face, I bet that makes you emotional. And the reason that it makes you emotional is they saw the real you. you. They were right about you. They were right about you. If they're alive, make them proud of you while they're still here. If they passed away, honor them with the man or woman you become.

1:18:23And if that person doesn't exist, I apply for that position from a distance. And I really recommend you step into that role starting right now as that person who looks at you that way. All right. God bless you, everybody. This is the Ed Mylon Show.