How To Build Your Self-Awareness & Self-Esteem

0:00Everything that comes into your body from a communication and energy standpoint is affecting you and if you start hanging out with people that want you to win, you will have more self-confidence. If someone's telling you you're beautiful versus telling you you're ugly, if someone's telling you you're awesome instead of you suck, you're a different person. I think a lot about this concept of if you can get your perspective right and view things optimistically and practical versus pessimistically and emotional or delusional and then you can execute in the opportunity that the world provides for you, and right now I really do believe that's sharing your message on social media, well then a lot of what people are gonna seek out in their lives can happen through that framework.

0:47And so I think the thing that will likely transpire on my talk is debating social truths and opportunities, and then articulating the under-priced arbitrage of the moment, you know, and that, you know, means platforms, creative strategies, creative formats, things of that nature. Gotcha. Yeah, I mean, the conference is called Mindset Matters. So when you say that the important part is about sharing your message, what about those people that are, you know, they're super scared to do it, the feedback that decreases them, what do you say then? That I understand, that I'm empathetic, you know that most people are actually built to overvalue other people's opinions, that it's a human norm, even someone as strong as me emotionally has those micro moments, and that that's okay, and that you know, you need to fight for it, just like you fight for losing weight or gaining muscle, just like you fight for it to get better at riding a BMX bike or shooting a basketball or being good at video games.

2:06Like everything in life requires some work and I think that out of everything I can think of, fighting for a better mental perspective that finds balance, that isn't entitled, that isn't about dwelling, that isn't about complaining, that isn't about blaming, but that is also equally kind to oneself. You know, like, just because I often say everything's my fault, but that doesn't mean I feel like a piece of shit. That means I feel empowered to fix it. And so, you know, I think it's exercise of the emotional brain. Not, you know, a lot of people are like, Like it's exercise of the brain. I actually think of that oftentimes as intellect.

2:57I think what I'm talking about is exercising emotional intelligence. Exercising the brain that sits in your stomach. The one that dictates your anxiety or your confidence. So, you know, I think mindset is an interesting word that often translates in my brain into controlling one's perspective. Do you have control of your ability to be positive versus negative, optimistic versus cynical, hopeful versus dwelling? And so, you know, that matters a lot. And then once you get there, then it becomes about execution. And that's where I get excited. I get very excited philosophically and then I get very excited practically.

3:46You know, I get excited about half the speech being about like, enough. fuck, we can actually do this. And then once you feel like you've got people there, it's like, okay, let me tell you how to do this. Here's what's happening in social media. Here's how you produce content. A lot of it has to do with the mental stuff. One of the biggest reasons people struggle at social media creation is they don't have peace of mind. They don't have self-awareness. They have levels of insecurity. They lack curiosity. They lack tenacity. there's a lot that goes into it. And so those are the themes I think about.

4:24Yeah. And I mean, two months ago, I had the fortune of interviewing another mindset specialist in David Goggins. And what he said really motivates him is doing what most people, you know, kind of making himself uncommon amongst the uncommon. What kind of motivates you? Like you've built so much and you've achieved so much. What's that motivating drive behind all of that? the curiosity and the deep belief that I'm required to squeeze out all the juice out of the orange. You know, I'm extremely aware that I am fortunate genetically, DNA wise, parenting, the luck of the draw of parents, the luck of a draw of circumstance, you know, coming from humble beginnings.

5:21A lot of things went right. Timing. I kind of view it like this. I got a grapefruit worth of juice in a world where most people get tangerines. It's now up to me to squeeze that as much as I can. And what that really means to make it more practical to everybody who's listening, I have a gift of communication. It is what it is. I don't think I'm special because of it. It's just I'm good at it. People resonate with the way I communicate. I have incredibly good intent. And I feel a level of responsibility to leave the world happier. Especially now when everyone's getting really good at making people feel unhappy.

6:09I mean, think about how weird it is. I have this great ability to communicate and I'm deeply optimistic at a time where the world collectively is as pessimistic as it's been in a long time. That's a real opportunity and a responsibility and I'm very motivated by that. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and I mean, one of your podcasts recently, you said there are really two ways to build something incredible and that was either you have a deep insecurity that you've used it to fuel yourself or a deep level of confidence and use it to feed yourself. Can you expand more on those two ways? I'm glad you picked up on that.

6:50Actually, I'm going to reverse this a little bit. That hit you, right? Given the way you've navigated, what you're interested by, you can see that, can't you? 100%. It's the same for me. I was like, oh, wait. Because when you're a kid and you're still a young man, you're going through it. When I was a kid, you don't even think about shit like this. You're just living. and then as I started to achieve and started where it really hit me was when I started surrounding myself with fancy other people and I remember very early on in the mid 2000s being like I'm different and not like I'm different better I'm different worse I'm just like I'm not I'm different and very quickly I was like wait a minute a lot of these people that are winning they have a different fuel it's kind of like a what is it like in America at like gas and then petroleum, what's the other thing that's like the other unleaded and like what's the weird gas?

7:45Diesel. Like growing up in America, I don't know if this is the way it is in Australia or this is universal, but like in America, there'd always be this like weird other gas pump that was like diesel and like you'd never see anyone, like I had one friend, big shout out to T. Adam Blum, his car was diesel. I thought it was, but like, and that's how I think about me. I'm like, man, all these people are driven by this insecurity. I think, and of course I have insecurities like anybody else, but I'm like, but predominantly I'm driven by love, not hate. Predominantly I'm driven by hope, not like scarcity.

8:21And I sensed it and that's why I keep an eye on it. And pretty much I feel like the people that I see at the highest levels in the world of achievement are driven by one extreme or the other of confidence and insecurity. And I'm very grateful that mine is around love and confidence. And honestly, I say that as a complete and utter compliment to my parents. I don't think I did much in that. You know, when I look at my companies, when I look at the people I touch, it feels a little bit better. But like, you know, for me, when I talk about myself, that's just talking about what my parents did. Yeah.

9:05Well, so with your parents, so you essentially built your dad's store for your dad. All your 20s, you just dedicated to that, right? Your whole 20s? Yeah, I mean, you know, when people are like, you were handed everything, I'm like, I built my fucking dad's business. When someone poses it the way you did, I often remind people my dad came to America with nothing to his name and built a multi-million dollar, four million dollar a year business. It's pretty fucking remarkable. on the flip side yes from 22 to 34 six to seven days a week 12 hours a day I built my dad's business for him which is which is really rewarding um but you know like when you're 47 you get to look back like I wish I took more vacations and weekends for myself I wish I was able to communicate better to my dad and tell him like hey maybe I should get a little bit more of You learn from that.

10:05But honestly, even though I say I wish, I'm kind of fibbing. I wouldn't change anything. It's one of the great accomplishments of my life to be able to, it's very rare for a child to be able to be a disproportionate impact on their parents' financial situation in a way that wasn't, you just gave it to them. I built alongside my dad. Yes, do I think I was the alpha in that? I do, because I know what happened there. But it wasn't like I won the lottery and bought my parents a house. Like, we were in the trenches together, and my cousin Bobby, and my best friend Brandon, and my brother-in-law Justin, and Jeff DeRose, and so Mikey Anazelli.

10:48It's like fun for me to, I think back to that decade and a half, because it really started even before that. You know, I talk about my career from 22 to 34. The truth is my career was really 16 to 34. From 16 to 22, I barely did school, emotionally and mentally. My brain, my heart, and my soul was in that liquor store. Yeah, well. You talk a lot about self-awareness and self-esteem as well. So how do you, I mean, for the average person that kind of needs help building those two things up, what advice do you have for them to kind to help with self-awareness and self-esteem from a zero standpoint?

11:25Self-esteem, I think, is completely predicated on who you spend time with. Okay. I just don't understand why people don't realize that if they hang out with people that build them up, that that's good. Like, you know, like, I think people need to limit. I think these, if I, you know, this is funny because we're kind of going thoughtful here. I just made pretend you asked me a question and you said, this just happened by the way, this is how the brain works, and you said, just give me one thing, only one. It's the last thing you can say on Earth. I'm gonna kill you right now actually, but you get to say one last thing.

12:04It's funny where my brain went. I think the answer to it would be cut and limit people that are negative as much as you cumulatively can. That doesn't mean you never talk to your mother again, for example or your dad or your brother but if you have a pessimistic negative cynical father or mother i don't think you should never talk to them again but if you're being negatively affected by it you can feel it right now as we're talking back to self-awareness maybe you don't need to talk to them twice a day maybe if your older brother is just debbie downer maybe you don't need to text him six times a day where he's just texting like did you see did you see like maybe you can talk to him once a week and so you know self esteem is an easy one self awareness is going to be hard which is why I'm saving it for the back end of this question self esteem is clear to me at this point in life which is surround yourself with more positive people surround yourself with more positive noise I'll give you an example in America obviously we had a very tumultuous political scene for the last decade.

13:18Right? Yeah. It was fascinating to me how many people stopped watching the news, stopped looking for the content on social and went back to just watching Netflix or listening to music or listening to podcasts from David or other people that were positive, how much it impacted their lives. because I talk about this a lot the amount of emails, DMs and conversations I've had with people who've now begun to limit how much they consume around politics and world events and have gone back to leisure sports positive podcasts lightweight movies and how much better their lives are is profound and I think that's how you become someone who can build self-esteem.

14:14You need to understand that everything that comes into your body, like food, from a communication and energy standpoint, is affecting you. And if you start hanging out with people that want you to win, you will have more self-confidence. If someone's telling you you're beautiful versus telling you you're ugly, if someone's telling you you're awesome instead of you suck you're a different person yeah self-awareness is much harder the only thing i've ever seen that's worked is making people that know you the best feel so safe when you ask them for critical feedback like you literally tell them like no i know johnny i know you're my best friend and i know you think i'm just joking when you're about to shit on me right now you think i'm gonna flip and you're gonna blame me for putting you in that position but I'm telling you the truth.

15:05I don't know if I'm a good artist or I don't know if I'm good at this job. Just tell me what you think. And then also doing that with 10 people because you know that people have different opinions. That's been one of the things I've thought about. Creating a safety net for people that know you best to actually give you candorous feedback but not letting one opinion in that environment carry the day. Getting that from 10 people. And then if all 10 of them say that you're a little lazy and you don't see it, there's probably a good chance you're lazy. Awesome. I might take a turn back into the marketing niff and niff the end.

15:41So right now, what are you seeing in terms of what platforms where we should pay our attention to in terms of creating content? For Australia, Facebook Reels, YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn are three that are completely underpriced and you can get a lot more awareness for your bang for the buck of the content you make. Those three. Okay. And is that still a focus on organic or also paid ads or both? Both. Starting with organic and when something over indexes, then put paid against it. You also mentioned that you think what you're doing right now is minor leagues compared to what you will do at 50 to 60.

16:18So, do you want to expand that a bit for us? You know, I still, you know, I think 50 to 60 is extremely young. you know as I've watched I don't see I do see more of a tail off from 70 to 80 than I from 50 to 60 when you're 60 excuse me when you're 50 when you're 60 to 70 62, 64, 60 I do see a bigger drop I watch people very carefully I feel like more people by percentage really age change energy from 60 to 70 much more than from 40 to 50, 50 to 60. So, and by the way, I know unlimited people with unlimited energy at 70 to 80, but I literally think there's no fundamental difference between 50 to 60 than 40 to 50, like none.

17:12Now, when I say these things, I hope everyone who's listening understands, of course, for individual people, there's a million variables. There's some people that age crazy between 20 and 30. Like, you know, like things happen, but I have gotten so much stronger in my emotional and tactical business capabilities professionally in each decade. I mean, I can't believe how much more impact, how much more capable I am between 40 and 50 than I was between 30 and 40. And between 20 and 30, like I was a killer from 20 to 30, but that killer would have been knocked out in the first round by 30 to 40 year old me.

17:55and 30 to 40 year old me would have been knocked out in the third round by 40 to 50 year old me, I just feel like 50 to 60 year old me is going to be a fucking juggernaut. Nice. And so you say a lot about patience as well. So when you say patience, you don't mean like go slow, right? Right. Yeah. I'm so blown away that people hear me say patience and they think that I'm saying be complacent. I'm not saying don't go hard. I'm not saying don't be ambitious. I'm not saying don't have tenacity. I'm not saying don't go get it. I'm saying don't burn yourself the fuck out. I'm saying be strategic and realize that if you put six years into something, I'm saying get your shit right.

18:42Do you know how many people promote something that's half pregnant and then promote it with all their might but it doesn't do well because once everyone buys it, they don't like it? Get your product right. If you spend three years on getting your product right, it's gonna do much better long term than if you spend eight months getting your product right and then you go hard promoting it for a decade. Like, you know, patience matters. Build real relationships. You know, like, if you want something from everyone right away, you're not gonna have real relationships if you're asking. Like, be patient with your relationships.

19:16Give. Be thoughtful. So, yeah, I mean, I'm stunned by how many people think I'm saying be passive or be, you know, or be complacent or be lazy. I mean, I just laugh. I watch these clips sometimes in my feed. Nothing gets me more excited than when someone says, don't listen to Gary Vee or Gary Vee's wrong. Because what's fun in that is I don't get competitive. Well, let me phrase that. I get as competitive as I do curious. Like I love changing my mind. I love being wrong. I love relying on my conviction and my humility equally. So anytime there's a little bit of clip on that, but the one that most people have gotten wrong is this one.

20:01There's plenty of people who love on a podcast be like, don't listen Gary Vee, patience is crazy. This is your 20s, you need to focus. I just laugh at that to no end. Normally because I have context on the person that's saying it and I'm like, I go harder in a day than you do in a year.

20:19No, it's awesome.

20:23All right, last one. So for someone that wants to kind of start from zero, they want to build a personal brand, what advice would you give to them? They have to do it around something they love, because if they're doing it around something they think there's money in, they're going to not make it. They need to figure out how they communicate. There are too many people that are great writers, that suck on video that are trying to make TikToks instead of writing blog posts on LinkedIn. So self-awareness around how you produce content. Right? Like, I can't write the way Ryan Holiday or Tim Ferriss write.

20:58So I don't blog. Right? You know, if I could rap, I would be Russ. You know what I mean? So like, you gotta know your way. and that's huge. And then I would say you have to be unbelievable at PAC, which stands for platforms and culture. What I think I do well and what I think others that I pay attention to, brands or people that do well, is they understand how to make social media content or podcasts or videos. Mr. Beast understands the platform and the culture of YouTube, right? Joe Rogan and Call Your Daddy understood the concept of platform and culture on a podcast, right? Charlie D 'Amelio understood the platform and the culture in TikTok.

21:50I understand the platform and culture around social media overall, which is why I'm strong in every platform in a world where most people are stronger than one or two. So, you know, I think self-awareness of how you communicate, be deeply passionate that you're making the personal brand around things you like it can't feel like work or you're gonna not get there and then third be a practitioner in PAC platforms and culture awesome thank you very much Gary cheers I can't wait to see all of you in Australia thank you I'll see you then cheers bye bye see you soon

22:35Thank you.