WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.200 --> 00:00:02.520 What if the life you are living right now is 2 00:00:02.560 --> 00:00:06.519 not actually yours. What if every choice you have made, 3 00:00:06.879 --> 00:00:11.000 every path you have taken, every dream you have quietly buried, 4 00:00:11.359 --> 00:00:14.439 was shaped not by what you truly wanted, but by 5 00:00:14.439 --> 00:00:17.440 what you feared others would think of you. What if 6 00:00:17.480 --> 00:00:21.480 the version of yourself that shows up every single day, 7 00:00:22.559 --> 00:00:26.559 the one that says yes when it means no, the 8 00:00:26.760 --> 00:00:31.039 shrinks in rooms where it should expand that plays it 9 00:00:31.120 --> 00:00:33.840 safe when it is dying to take risks. What if 10 00:00:33.880 --> 00:00:36.719 that version is not the real you at all, but 11 00:00:36.799 --> 00:00:40.840 a performance, a costume you put on so long ago 12 00:00:41.240 --> 00:00:44.359 that you forgot you were wearing it. This audiobook is 13 00:00:44.399 --> 00:00:50.759 about taking it off, not gently, not politely, but completely. 14 00:00:51.159 --> 00:00:53.799 Because here is the truth that no one around you 15 00:00:53.880 --> 00:00:58.000 will ever say out loud. Most people will live and 16 00:00:58.200 --> 00:01:02.799 die as hostages to the opinions of others. They will 17 00:01:02.880 --> 00:01:06.920 choose careers their parents approved of and spend decades quietly 18 00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:10.680 resenting it. They will stay in relationships that look good 19 00:01:10.719 --> 00:01:14.719 from the outside while they feel completely hollow on the inside. 20 00:01:15.359 --> 00:01:18.239 They will post the version of themselves that gets likes 21 00:01:18.519 --> 00:01:21.879 and hide the version that gets real. They will nod 22 00:01:21.959 --> 00:01:26.599 when they disagree, laugh when they are hurting, and smile 23 00:01:27.079 --> 00:01:30.959 when they are completely falling apart, all to avoid one 24 00:01:31.120 --> 00:01:36.159 thing judgment. But here is the question no one ever 25 00:01:36.239 --> 00:01:41.200 stops to ask you. What is all of that costing you? 26 00:01:42.040 --> 00:01:49.000 Not in some vague abstract sense, in real, concrete, devastating terms. 27 00:01:49.120 --> 00:01:52.599 What has the fear of what people think already taken 28 00:01:52.680 --> 00:01:57.120 from you? How many chances did you not take? How 29 00:01:57.159 --> 00:02:00.719 many things did you not say? How may any mornings 30 00:02:00.760 --> 00:02:04.519 did you wake up and put on a mask before 31 00:02:04.519 --> 00:02:08.039 you even got out of bed. How many versions of 32 00:02:08.120 --> 00:02:12.919 yourself have you silenced, buried, or abandoned because you were 33 00:02:13.000 --> 00:02:17.319 afraid of what someone else would think. This audiobook will 34 00:02:17.360 --> 00:02:21.199 answer those questions, and then it will give you something 35 00:02:21.319 --> 00:02:25.199 far more powerful than any approval you have ever chased. 36 00:02:26.039 --> 00:02:29.159 It will give you yourself back. By the time you 37 00:02:29.240 --> 00:02:32.560 finish listening to this, the way you see other people's 38 00:02:32.560 --> 00:02:36.800 opinions will be permanently changed. The invisible weight that has 39 00:02:36.840 --> 00:02:40.159 been pressing down on your chest every time you walk 40 00:02:40.199 --> 00:02:44.199 into a room will begin to lift. The voice in 41 00:02:44.280 --> 00:02:49.560 your head that second guesses every decision, every word, every 42 00:02:49.599 --> 00:02:53.840 move you make. That voice will lose its power, and 43 00:02:53.919 --> 00:02:57.919 you will finally understand what it actually means to live, 44 00:02:58.719 --> 00:03:02.000 not for the crowd, not for the validation, not for 45 00:03:02.039 --> 00:03:07.120 the applause, but for you. Let's begin chapter one, The 46 00:03:07.199 --> 00:03:14.520 invisible Prison, why you were programmed to seek approval Right now, 47 00:03:14.759 --> 00:03:17.599 at this very moment, there is a prison that most 48 00:03:17.639 --> 00:03:21.039 people live inside of their entire lives and never once 49 00:03:21.159 --> 00:03:25.280 realize they are trapped. There are no bars, there are 50 00:03:25.319 --> 00:03:29.759 no walls, there is no guard watching over you. The 51 00:03:29.919 --> 00:03:34.159 door is not even locked. And yet billions of people 52 00:03:34.199 --> 00:03:38.080 on this planet wake up every morning, walk inside that prison, 53 00:03:38.479 --> 00:03:40.960 and spend the rest of their day performing for an 54 00:03:41.000 --> 00:03:45.159 audience that is barely even watching. That prison is the 55 00:03:45.240 --> 00:03:48.759 need for other people's approval, and the most insidious thing 56 00:03:48.800 --> 00:03:52.199 about it is this. You were put there before you 57 00:03:52.360 --> 00:03:55.520 ever had a say in the matter. You did not 58 00:03:55.759 --> 00:04:00.639 choose this prison. You did not walk in voluntarily. You 59 00:04:00.680 --> 00:04:04.039 were placed inside of it as a child by a 60 00:04:04.080 --> 00:04:08.560 world that rewarded you for compliance and punished you for authenticity. 61 00:04:09.319 --> 00:04:14.439 And then, over the years, the walls became so familiar 62 00:04:14.840 --> 00:04:18.680 that you stopped noticing them. You started calling them normal, 63 00:04:19.519 --> 00:04:24.040 you started calling them responsible, you started calling them realistic, 64 00:04:24.879 --> 00:04:28.160 and the prison stopped feeling like a prison at all. 65 00:04:29.040 --> 00:04:33.319 It started feeling like just the way life is. But 66 00:04:33.439 --> 00:04:37.839 it is not the way life is. It is a program, 67 00:04:37.959 --> 00:04:42.160 and like any program, once you understand how it was installed, 68 00:04:42.560 --> 00:04:46.160 you can uninstall it. So let's go back to the beginning. 69 00:04:47.120 --> 00:04:50.519 Let's go back to before you ever cared what anyone thought. 70 00:04:51.160 --> 00:04:54.000 When you were a small child, before the world got 71 00:04:54.040 --> 00:04:57.839 to you, you were completely and utterly free. You said 72 00:04:57.879 --> 00:05:02.079 exactly what was on your mind. You laughed too loudly 73 00:05:02.319 --> 00:05:06.519 in quiet places. You danced in grocery stores without a 74 00:05:06.639 --> 00:05:11.560 single thought about who was watching. You wore ridiculous outfits 75 00:05:11.879 --> 00:05:16.480 because they made you happy. You asked embarrassing questions, You 76 00:05:16.600 --> 00:05:20.600 cried when you were sad, screamed when you were angry, 77 00:05:21.319 --> 00:05:25.319 and ran toward what excited you without calculating how it looked. 78 00:05:26.040 --> 00:05:31.560 You were in the truest sense of the word yourself. 79 00:05:32.240 --> 00:05:37.000 And then something started to happen. You began to notice reactions. 80 00:05:37.600 --> 00:05:41.160 You began to notice that certain things you did made 81 00:05:41.199 --> 00:05:45.199 the people around you smile, and other things made them frown, 82 00:05:45.839 --> 00:05:50.240 pull away, or raise their voice. You began to learn, 83 00:05:50.720 --> 00:05:56.439 through countless tiny moments of feedback, that your behavior had consequences, 84 00:05:56.879 --> 00:06:01.279 that who you were the roar, unfiltered, authentic version of 85 00:06:01.319 --> 00:06:06.120 you was not always welcome. That sometimes it needed to 86 00:06:06.120 --> 00:06:14.360 be adjusted, softened, hidden, performed instead of felt. This was 87 00:06:14.399 --> 00:06:18.240 not a conscious lesson. No one sat you down and said, 88 00:06:18.759 --> 00:06:24.040 here is how to lose yourself. It happened gradually, invisibly, 89 00:06:24.720 --> 00:06:29.079 the way water shapes rock. Through the small humiliations of 90 00:06:29.120 --> 00:06:32.920 being laughed at by other kids, Through the sting of 91 00:06:32.959 --> 00:06:37.720 a parent's disapproval, Through the teacher who made an example 92 00:06:37.800 --> 00:06:41.920 of you in front of the class, Through the moment 93 00:06:42.240 --> 00:06:46.360 you said something honest and the room went cold. Through 94 00:06:46.480 --> 00:06:50.720 every single experience that taught you at a cellular level 95 00:06:51.360 --> 00:06:55.399 that being too much of yourself was dangerous, and so 96 00:06:56.639 --> 00:07:02.680 you adapted, because that is what human beings do. We 97 00:07:02.720 --> 00:07:07.759 adapt in order to survive. The need for social approval 98 00:07:07.800 --> 00:07:10.920 is not a character flaw, It is not a weakness. 99 00:07:11.839 --> 00:07:15.120 It is actually one of the most ancient and powerful 100 00:07:15.160 --> 00:07:20.560 survival mechanisms the human brain possesses. For most of human history, 101 00:07:21.319 --> 00:07:26.240 being rejected by your tribe was not just uncomfortable, it 102 00:07:26.360 --> 00:07:30.399 was lethal. If your group cast you out, you died. 103 00:07:31.120 --> 00:07:35.120 There was no surviving alone on the savannah. There was 104 00:07:35.199 --> 00:07:40.639 no getting through the winter without your community. Belonging was survival. 105 00:07:41.480 --> 00:07:48.920 Approval was oxygen. Your brain knows this even today, even 106 00:07:49.000 --> 00:07:53.879 in a world where social rejection will not literally kill you. 107 00:07:53.879 --> 00:07:58.759 Your brain responds to disapproval the same way it responds 108 00:07:58.839 --> 00:08:03.720 to physical dangers. The same neural circuits light up, the 109 00:08:03.759 --> 00:08:08.680 same stress hormones flood your system, the same primal alarm 110 00:08:08.759 --> 00:08:13.560 goes off. Which is why being criticized, rejected, or judged 111 00:08:14.399 --> 00:08:19.120 does not just feel bad, It feels threatening. It feels 112 00:08:19.199 --> 00:08:26.360 like danger because for hundreds of thousands of years it was. 113 00:08:27.160 --> 00:08:30.279 But here is what your brain has not caught up to. Yet. 114 00:08:31.240 --> 00:08:35.679 You are not on the savannah anymore. The stakes have 115 00:08:35.840 --> 00:08:40.799 changed completely. The tribe that once held the power of 116 00:08:40.879 --> 00:08:44.159 life and death over you is now just a collection 117 00:08:44.279 --> 00:08:48.039 of people with their own insecurities, their own blind spots, 118 00:08:48.279 --> 00:08:53.440 their own unresolved fears, and half formed opinions. Their judgment 119 00:08:53.519 --> 00:08:57.559 of you is not a verdict. It is not a truth. 120 00:08:58.399 --> 00:09:02.120 It is not a death sentence. It is just noise. 121 00:09:02.919 --> 00:09:07.320 It is just one very limited perspective from inside a 122 00:09:07.480 --> 00:09:11.919 very limited experience of life. And yet most people treat 123 00:09:11.960 --> 00:09:16.480 it like gospel. Most people rearrange their entire lives around 124 00:09:16.480 --> 00:09:22.120 what that noise might say. They choose safe careers because 125 00:09:22.559 --> 00:09:28.360 risky ones invite criticism. They dress in ways that disappear 126 00:09:28.399 --> 00:09:33.279 into the crowd because standing out invite scrutiny. They keep 127 00:09:33.320 --> 00:09:38.639 their dreams private because sharing them invites doubt. They swallow 128 00:09:38.679 --> 00:09:44.600 their opinions in conversations because expressing them invites conflict. They 129 00:09:44.679 --> 00:09:48.519 live their entire lives in a crouch, trying to take 130 00:09:48.639 --> 00:09:52.360 up as little space as possible, all to avoid the 131 00:09:52.440 --> 00:09:55.639 thing their ancient brain has been telling them to fear 132 00:09:56.120 --> 00:09:58.799 since the moment they were born. But what they do 133 00:09:58.879 --> 00:10:02.360 not realize, what you are about to realize, is that 134 00:10:02.399 --> 00:10:05.960 the approval they are chasing is not even real. It 135 00:10:06.039 --> 00:10:08.440 is not a fixed thing out there in the world 136 00:10:09.279 --> 00:10:14.039 that you can capture and hold and keep. It is 137 00:10:14.120 --> 00:10:21.279 a moving target. It changes, It shifts, It contradicts itself constantly. 138 00:10:22.080 --> 00:10:25.919 The same person who approves of you today will disapprove 139 00:10:25.960 --> 00:10:29.679 of you tomorrow for a different choice. The crowd that 140 00:10:29.840 --> 00:10:33.039 celebrates you now will turn the moment your choice is 141 00:10:33.120 --> 00:10:35.399 no longer a line with what they want from you. 142 00:10:35.799 --> 00:10:38.639 Approval from other people is like trying to fill a 143 00:10:38.679 --> 00:10:41.759 bucket with a hole in the bottom, No matter how 144 00:10:41.840 --> 00:10:45.519 much you pour in it never stays full. And the 145 00:10:45.559 --> 00:10:50.759 people handing out that approval, they are not gods, They 146 00:10:50.799 --> 00:10:55.480 are not oracles of truth. They are human beings who 147 00:10:55.559 --> 00:10:59.919 are just as lost, just as scared, just as imp 148 00:11:00.039 --> 00:11:03.120 prisoned in their own need for approval as you are. 149 00:11:03.960 --> 00:11:07.720 The person whose opinion you are terrified of. They are 150 00:11:07.840 --> 00:11:11.320 lying awake at night worrying about what someone else thinks 151 00:11:11.320 --> 00:11:14.919 of them. The person you are shrinking yourself to impress, 152 00:11:15.559 --> 00:11:19.399 They are shrinking themselves for someone else Entirely. We are 153 00:11:19.440 --> 00:11:22.840 all performing for audiences who are too busy performing to 154 00:11:22.960 --> 00:11:27.759 even watch. This is the invisible prison. This is what 155 00:11:27.799 --> 00:11:30.960 you have been living inside of, and now that you 156 00:11:31.039 --> 00:11:34.519 can see it, really see it for what it is, 157 00:11:35.480 --> 00:11:40.720 the work of getting free can begin. Because freedom does 158 00:11:40.759 --> 00:11:44.799 not come from suddenly not caring at all. It does 159 00:11:44.840 --> 00:11:48.480 not come from some dramatic act of rebellion, or from 160 00:11:48.519 --> 00:11:51.919 becoming the kind of person who is deliberately reckless with 161 00:11:52.000 --> 00:11:56.120 other people's feelings. It comes from something far more powerful 162 00:11:56.120 --> 00:11:59.799 and far more precise. It comes from understanding exactly what 163 00:11:59.799 --> 00:12:03.320 you are actually afraid of, seeing it clearly without flinching, 164 00:12:04.120 --> 00:12:07.879 and then making the conscious, deliberate choice to no longer, 165 00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:11.240 let that fear make your decisions for you. That is 166 00:12:11.240 --> 00:12:15.080 what this audiobook is about, and it starts right now 167 00:12:15.440 --> 00:12:20.039 Chapter two, The high cost of living for others. What 168 00:12:20.240 --> 00:12:24.240 people pleasing is stealing from you. There is a bill 169 00:12:24.360 --> 00:12:27.360 that comes due for living your life in service of 170 00:12:27.480 --> 00:12:33.120 other people's opinions. Most people never see it itemized. They 171 00:12:33.159 --> 00:12:38.960 feel the cost in vague, undefinable ways, a low grade restlessness. 172 00:12:39.000 --> 00:12:43.039 They cannot explain a sense that something important is missing, 173 00:12:43.960 --> 00:12:48.080 a quiet voice somewhere deep inside them that keeps asking 174 00:12:48.919 --> 00:12:54.240 is this really it? But they never trace those feelings 175 00:12:54.279 --> 00:12:57.720 back to their source. They never sit down and add 176 00:12:57.840 --> 00:13:01.600 up exactly what the life they have been performing has 177 00:13:01.720 --> 00:13:05.840 actually cost them. So let's do that right now. Let's 178 00:13:05.879 --> 00:13:10.039 look at the real, concrete, devastating price of living for 179 00:13:10.120 --> 00:13:13.559 the approval of others. The first thing it steals from 180 00:13:13.600 --> 00:13:17.919 you is time, and time is the one resource that, 181 00:13:18.360 --> 00:13:23.440 once spent, can never be recovered. Think about how many 182 00:13:23.600 --> 00:13:26.519 hours of your life you have spent worrying about what 183 00:13:26.759 --> 00:13:32.000 someone else thinks, not doing anything about it, not taking action, 184 00:13:33.039 --> 00:13:38.639 not having a conversation, not solving a problem, just worrying, 185 00:13:39.519 --> 00:13:42.960 just running simulations in your head of how someone might react, 186 00:13:43.799 --> 00:13:46.960 what they might say, what they might think of you. 187 00:13:47.840 --> 00:13:52.559 Studies on rumination, the psychological term for this kind of 188 00:13:52.639 --> 00:13:58.600 repetitive anxious thinking, show that the average person spends enormous 189 00:13:58.679 --> 00:14:04.559 portions of their waking life life mentally rehearsing social scenarios 190 00:14:04.559 --> 00:14:09.399 that will never actually happen the way they imagined, hours 191 00:14:09.600 --> 00:14:14.759 every week, thousands of hours over a lifetime, hours that 192 00:14:14.879 --> 00:14:22.039 could have been spent creating, building, loving, experiencing living, stolen 193 00:14:22.159 --> 00:14:25.279 by a fear of a judgment that, in most cases 194 00:14:26.159 --> 00:14:30.759 never even came. The second thing it steals is your voice, 195 00:14:30.799 --> 00:14:34.039 and losing your voice is one of the most quietly 196 00:14:34.200 --> 00:14:38.080 devastating things that can happen to a human being, because 197 00:14:38.120 --> 00:14:41.720 your voice is how you exist in the world. Your 198 00:14:41.840 --> 00:14:45.399 voice is how you make your mark, how you connect 199 00:14:45.480 --> 00:14:50.519 authentically with others, how you bring your actual self into 200 00:14:50.679 --> 00:14:54.679 contact with reality. When you silence your voice, when you 201 00:14:54.759 --> 00:15:01.159 swallow your opinions, dilute your ideas, soften every edge so 202 00:15:01.279 --> 00:15:05.399 as not to offend anyone, you do not just become quieter, 203 00:15:06.279 --> 00:15:11.879 you become invisible. And the tragedy of invisibility is that 204 00:15:11.919 --> 00:15:15.919 you can be surrounded by people and still feel completely 205 00:15:16.840 --> 00:15:21.759 achingly alone because none of those people are actually seeing you. 206 00:15:22.639 --> 00:15:27.519 They are seeing the performance. They are seeing the careful, curated, 207 00:15:27.960 --> 00:15:33.679 approval seeking version of you, and some deep, knowing part 208 00:15:33.720 --> 00:15:39.039 of you is always aware of that distinction, always aware 209 00:15:39.120 --> 00:15:44.159 that the connection you are experiencing is not real because 210 00:15:44.200 --> 00:15:48.279 the person they are connecting with is not really you. 211 00:15:48.759 --> 00:15:52.600 The third thing people pleasing steals is your energy, and 212 00:15:52.679 --> 00:15:55.600 this is something that does not get talked about enough. 213 00:15:56.480 --> 00:16:05.799 Performing is exhausting. Tering yourself constantly watching every word, managing 214 00:16:06.080 --> 00:16:11.200 every impression, calibrating every behavior to what you think the 215 00:16:11.320 --> 00:16:15.440 room wants from you requires an enormous expenditure of mental 216 00:16:15.480 --> 00:16:19.720 and emotional energy, energy that your mind and body need 217 00:16:19.879 --> 00:16:24.919 for everything else, Energy that should be going toward your creativity, 218 00:16:25.279 --> 00:16:31.120 your work, your relationships, your health, your growth. Instead it 219 00:16:31.200 --> 00:16:35.799 goes into the performance, into the maintenance of an image, 220 00:16:36.360 --> 00:16:40.360 into the constant grinding work of being who everyone else 221 00:16:40.519 --> 00:16:42.799 needs you to be. And at the end of each 222 00:16:42.879 --> 00:16:47.240 day you are left depleted, hollow, and unable to clearly 223 00:16:47.279 --> 00:16:51.000 explain why because you have not been doing anything that 224 00:16:51.080 --> 00:16:55.600 feels like hard work. You have just been existing. But 225 00:16:55.720 --> 00:17:01.320 the truth is existing inauthentically. Is one of the most 226 00:17:01.639 --> 00:17:06.799 energy intensive things a human being can do. The fourth 227 00:17:06.839 --> 00:17:12.000 thing it steals is your relationships. This one is particularly 228 00:17:12.079 --> 00:17:16.559 painful because it is so counterintuitive. You would think that 229 00:17:16.720 --> 00:17:23.119 people pleasing would make you more loved, more accepted, more connected, 230 00:17:23.920 --> 00:17:30.240 and on the surface, it sometimes appears to people. Pleasers 231 00:17:30.480 --> 00:17:35.279 often have wide social circles. They are liked by many, 232 00:17:36.160 --> 00:17:40.200 But there is a distinction that is absolutely critical to understand. 233 00:17:41.160 --> 00:17:46.480 Being liked and being truly known are not the same thing. 234 00:17:47.240 --> 00:17:51.400 You can be liked universally and still feel utterly unknown, 235 00:17:52.359 --> 00:17:56.880 because being liked requires only that people enjoy the version 236 00:17:56.920 --> 00:18:00.400 of you that you present to them. Being truly known 237 00:18:00.839 --> 00:18:05.240 requires something far more vulnerable. It requires you to show 238 00:18:05.279 --> 00:18:09.200 them who you actually are. And when you are always 239 00:18:09.200 --> 00:18:13.640 managing your image, always softening your edges, always saying yes 240 00:18:13.720 --> 00:18:17.599 when you mean no, and agreeing when you actually disagree, 241 00:18:17.640 --> 00:18:21.319 you are not letting anyone actually see you. You are 242 00:18:21.319 --> 00:18:24.799 giving them a character to like instead of a person 243 00:18:24.880 --> 00:18:29.200 to love, and the relationships built on that foundation are 244 00:18:29.599 --> 00:18:33.839 at their core hollow because they are not built between 245 00:18:33.920 --> 00:18:38.079 two real people. They are built between one real person 246 00:18:38.480 --> 00:18:43.599 and one very convincing performance. The fifth thing it steals, 247 00:18:44.119 --> 00:18:48.000 and this may be. The most important of all is 248 00:18:48.079 --> 00:18:57.640 your potential. You're untapped, unlived, undelivered potential because the dreams 249 00:18:57.640 --> 00:19:00.359 that get buried under the fear of what people will 250 00:19:00.359 --> 00:19:05.680 think are not small things. They are not trivial. They 251 00:19:05.680 --> 00:19:09.559 are the things that, if pursued, would have made your 252 00:19:09.599 --> 00:19:16.160 life feel genuinely, deeply meaningful. The business you never started 253 00:19:16.799 --> 00:19:20.200 because people might have thought it was too ambitious, The 254 00:19:20.319 --> 00:19:23.640 creative work you never shared because people might have thought 255 00:19:23.680 --> 00:19:27.799 it was not good enough. The relationship you never pursued 256 00:19:28.200 --> 00:19:30.920 because people might have thought it was not the right fit. 257 00:19:31.680 --> 00:19:34.559 The path you never walked because it did not look 258 00:19:34.599 --> 00:19:37.960 the way paths are supposed to look. Every one of 259 00:19:38.000 --> 00:19:45.000 those unlived possibilities is a cost, a real, permanent, irreversible cost. 260 00:19:45.720 --> 00:19:50.160 Because time moves in only one direction, the years spent 261 00:19:50.279 --> 00:19:54.880 performing do not come back. The potential that goes unrealized 262 00:19:54.920 --> 00:19:58.759 while you wait for permission does not get stored somewhere 263 00:19:58.759 --> 00:20:03.400 for later. It simply disappears now Here. Is what makes 264 00:20:03.480 --> 00:20:07.119 all of this even harder to accept. Most of the 265 00:20:07.160 --> 00:20:10.359 people whose approval you have been sacrificing all of this 266 00:20:10.559 --> 00:20:14.079 for are not even thinking about you. This is not 267 00:20:14.200 --> 00:20:17.240 a cruel thing to say it is actually one of 268 00:20:17.240 --> 00:20:21.319 the most liberating truths you will encounter in this entire 269 00:20:21.440 --> 00:20:29.160 audio book. People are fundamentally, almost entirely preoccupied with themselves, 270 00:20:29.200 --> 00:20:33.559 with their own fears, their own insecurities, their own performances, 271 00:20:33.960 --> 00:20:37.839 their own lives. The mental energy you are spending on 272 00:20:38.160 --> 00:20:42.240 imagining what they think of you is energy they are 273 00:20:42.400 --> 00:20:46.720 almost certainly not spending thinking about you at all. The 274 00:20:46.799 --> 00:20:51.240 audience you are performing for is largely not watching, and 275 00:20:51.319 --> 00:20:54.319 the critics you are terrified of are too busy managing 276 00:20:54.400 --> 00:20:58.039 their own stage fright to spend much time critiquing yours, 277 00:20:58.759 --> 00:21:02.839 which means the bill you you have been paying, the enormous, compounding, 278 00:21:03.240 --> 00:21:06.480 life altering bill of living for other people's approval, is 279 00:21:06.519 --> 00:21:09.799 being paid for a service that is barely even being rendered. 280 00:21:10.079 --> 00:21:14.000 You are giving up your time, your voice, your energy, 281 00:21:14.319 --> 00:21:18.119 your relationships, and your potential to manage the opinions of 282 00:21:18.160 --> 00:21:21.279 people who are mostly not forming the opinions you think 283 00:21:21.319 --> 00:21:25.720 they are. That is the cost. That is what people 284 00:21:25.799 --> 00:21:29.480 pleasing is actually stealing from you, and the moment you 285 00:21:29.559 --> 00:21:32.680 see it clearly not as an abstract idea, but as 286 00:21:32.720 --> 00:21:36.240 a real, felt, personal accounting of what has actually been 287 00:21:36.279 --> 00:21:41.960 taken the urgency of change becomes impossible to ignore. Chapter three, 288 00:21:42.200 --> 00:21:47.480 the Route of the fear, where it all began. To 289 00:21:47.559 --> 00:21:51.960 stop caring what people think, you first have to understand 290 00:21:52.200 --> 00:21:55.720 why you care so much in the first place, not 291 00:21:55.880 --> 00:21:59.519 at the level of evolutionary biology, which we have already 292 00:21:59.559 --> 00:22:03.519 touched on, but at the personal level, the level of 293 00:22:03.559 --> 00:22:11.200 your specific life, your specific experiences, your specific wounds. Because 294 00:22:11.240 --> 00:22:15.759 the fear of judgment is not just a species wide phenomenon, 295 00:22:16.400 --> 00:22:20.160 it is a deeply personal one, and for most people 296 00:22:21.240 --> 00:22:23.440 it has roots that go all the way back to 297 00:22:23.519 --> 00:22:27.200 some of the earliest and most formative moments of their lives. 298 00:22:27.920 --> 00:22:30.720 Think back, really, think back to the first time you 299 00:22:30.759 --> 00:22:35.559 can remember feeling ashamed, not embarrassed in a minor passing way, 300 00:22:36.599 --> 00:22:46.000 truly ashamed, that hot, sinking, wanting to disappear, feeling that 301 00:22:46.160 --> 00:22:49.559 comes when you sense that something about you has been 302 00:22:49.640 --> 00:22:55.920 exposed and found wanting, when someone saw something in you, 303 00:22:56.279 --> 00:23:00.200 something you said, something you did, something you were and 304 00:23:00.319 --> 00:23:05.680 the message you received, loud and clear, was that is 305 00:23:05.880 --> 00:23:11.440 not okay. You are not okay. For some people, that 306 00:23:11.680 --> 00:23:18.319 memory is loud and dramatic, a public humiliation, a parent's fury, 307 00:23:19.279 --> 00:23:22.960 a moment of being mocked by peers in front of others, 308 00:23:23.720 --> 00:23:27.799 something that left a mark so obvious they can still 309 00:23:27.839 --> 00:23:32.799 feel it. For others, the memory is quieter, more subtle. 310 00:23:33.519 --> 00:23:38.000 A parent who loved them but expressed that love conditionally, 311 00:23:38.559 --> 00:23:43.359 who was warm when they succeeded, and withdrawn when they failed. 312 00:23:44.039 --> 00:23:48.680 A home where emotional expression was not safe, where showing 313 00:23:48.799 --> 00:23:53.440 too much feeling was seen as weakness, where the unspoken 314 00:23:53.599 --> 00:23:59.599 rule was that you earned love through performance. A school 315 00:23:59.680 --> 00:24:04.799 environs where being different was a social liability, where standing 316 00:24:04.839 --> 00:24:09.480 out meant standing alone, where the safest strategy was to 317 00:24:09.559 --> 00:24:13.519 blend in and be invisible. But here is what matters 318 00:24:13.559 --> 00:24:19.319 about all of those experiences, whether dramatic or quiet, obvious 319 00:24:19.640 --> 00:24:24.519 or subtle, they all delivered the same message, the message 320 00:24:24.559 --> 00:24:28.119 that who you are, in your raw and unfiltered state, 321 00:24:28.599 --> 00:24:35.240 carries risk. That being yourself fully and without editing might 322 00:24:35.359 --> 00:24:40.039 cost you the love, the acceptance, the belonging that you need. 323 00:24:40.759 --> 00:24:44.759 And so the solution your young mind arrived at was logical, 324 00:24:45.559 --> 00:24:50.079 It was adaptive, it was even in many ways brilliant. 325 00:24:50.759 --> 00:24:55.400 The solution was, I will monitor myself, I will manage 326 00:24:55.640 --> 00:24:59.319 how I am seen, I will edit the parts of myself. 327 00:24:59.319 --> 00:25:02.839 That seem unwe welcome and amplify the parts that seem 328 00:25:02.960 --> 00:25:07.160 to get approval. I will make myself safe by making 329 00:25:07.160 --> 00:25:12.720 myself palatable. And that strategy worked at least for a while, 330 00:25:13.680 --> 00:25:17.400 at least in the environments where it was formed. But 331 00:25:17.519 --> 00:25:20.599 here is the problem with solutions that form in childhood. 332 00:25:21.400 --> 00:25:25.519 They do not update themselves automatically when the environment changes. 333 00:25:26.359 --> 00:25:29.799 They do not come with an expiration date. They get 334 00:25:29.880 --> 00:25:33.880 wired in, deep in the neural architecture of your brain, 335 00:25:34.880 --> 00:25:38.440 and they keep running long after the original threat has passed, 336 00:25:39.119 --> 00:25:42.519 long after you have left the home, the school, the 337 00:25:42.559 --> 00:25:46.680 social group that made the strategy necessary, long after you 338 00:25:46.720 --> 00:25:51.279 are fully capable of surviving disapproval, long after the consequences 339 00:25:51.319 --> 00:25:54.000 of some one not approving of you are by any 340 00:25:54.039 --> 00:25:59.440 objective measure, completely manageable. Psychologists have a term for this. 341 00:26:00.559 --> 00:26:05.400 They call them core beliefs, the deep foundational assumptions about 342 00:26:05.400 --> 00:26:09.400 yourself and the world that form early in life and 343 00:26:09.440 --> 00:26:12.079 then act as a filter through which you process all 344 00:26:12.119 --> 00:26:16.640 of your subsequent experience. Core beliefs operate below the level 345 00:26:16.720 --> 00:26:20.720 of conscious thought. You do not sit there and deliberately think. 346 00:26:21.480 --> 00:26:24.599 I believe that if people see the real me, they 347 00:26:24.640 --> 00:26:28.880 will reject me. It just runs. It just shapes the 348 00:26:28.920 --> 00:26:33.960 way you see situations, the way you interpret other people's behavior, 349 00:26:34.759 --> 00:26:38.359 the decisions you make about how to act. It feels 350 00:26:38.440 --> 00:26:42.640 like reality rather than like belief. It feels like just 351 00:26:42.759 --> 00:26:46.319 the way things are, rather than like a story your 352 00:26:46.400 --> 00:26:50.519 younger self wrote to make sense of a painful experience. 353 00:26:51.240 --> 00:26:54.160 Some of the most common core beliefs that drive the 354 00:26:54.240 --> 00:26:58.480 fear of judgment sound like this. I am not enough 355 00:26:58.880 --> 00:27:03.160 as I am. I need other people's approval to feel 356 00:27:03.279 --> 00:27:08.440 okay about myself. If I show people who I really am, 357 00:27:08.720 --> 00:27:12.440 they will not like what they see. My worth depends 358 00:27:12.519 --> 00:27:17.279 on what others think of me. Disapproval means I have failed. 359 00:27:18.160 --> 00:27:24.279 Being different is dangerous. Standing out is not safe. Do 360 00:27:24.440 --> 00:27:28.559 any of those sound familiar not because you have consciously 361 00:27:28.720 --> 00:27:32.680 articulated them to yourself, but because you can feel them 362 00:27:33.039 --> 00:27:37.200 operating in the background of your life. In the hesitation 363 00:27:37.400 --> 00:27:40.599 before you share an opinion. In the way your heart 364 00:27:40.680 --> 00:27:44.519 rate spikes when you sense that someone is disappointed with you. 365 00:27:45.519 --> 00:27:49.240 In the way a single critical comment can undo days 366 00:27:49.279 --> 00:27:53.359 of positive feedback. In the way you find yourself working 367 00:27:53.440 --> 00:27:56.960 incredibly hard for the approval of people who if you 368 00:27:57.039 --> 00:28:02.440 are honest, you do not even particularly respect. These beliefs 369 00:28:02.480 --> 00:28:07.799 are not facts. They feel like facts. They feel solid 370 00:28:07.839 --> 00:28:12.000 and permanent and true, the way the beliefs we absorb 371 00:28:12.200 --> 00:28:17.119 earliest always do. But they are not. They are conclusions 372 00:28:18.160 --> 00:28:22.880 a young mind drew from a limited set of experiences 373 00:28:22.920 --> 00:28:26.759 in a particular environment. They are a map drawn from 374 00:28:26.759 --> 00:28:35.559 a very small territory and then applied mistakenly, automatically, without examination, 375 00:28:36.400 --> 00:28:40.440 to a much larger world. And the reason understanding this 376 00:28:40.599 --> 00:28:44.400 matters so profoundly is that you cannot dismantle what you 377 00:28:44.559 --> 00:28:47.839 cannot see. You cannot change a program you do not 378 00:28:48.039 --> 00:28:52.119 know is running. Most people spend their whole lives reacting 379 00:28:52.160 --> 00:28:55.960 to the symptoms of these deep beliefs, the anxiety, the 380 00:28:56.000 --> 00:29:01.559 people pleasing, the shrinking, the over excit explaining, the need 381 00:29:01.599 --> 00:29:05.759 to be liked, without ever tracing those symptoms back to 382 00:29:05.799 --> 00:29:10.519 their source. They try to manage the outputs without touching 383 00:29:10.599 --> 00:29:15.920 the inputs, and so nothing fundamentally changes, no matter how 384 00:29:16.039 --> 00:29:20.039 much they want it to. What changes everything is seeing 385 00:29:20.079 --> 00:29:24.880 the belief clearly, naming it, holding it up to the light, 386 00:29:25.400 --> 00:29:31.039 and asking, with real honesty, is this actually true? Not? 387 00:29:31.160 --> 00:29:33.559 Does it feel true? Of course, it feels true. It 388 00:29:33.599 --> 00:29:37.200 has been running in your brain for decades. But is 389 00:29:37.240 --> 00:29:43.480 it actually objectively, verifiably true. Is it true that you 390 00:29:43.559 --> 00:29:47.359 are not enough as you are? Is it true that 391 00:29:47.400 --> 00:29:52.039 your worth depends on other people's opinions? Is it true 392 00:29:52.559 --> 00:29:58.240 that being yourself fully and without apology will lead to 393 00:29:58.319 --> 00:30:02.880 rejection and disaster? And when you look at the evidence, 394 00:30:02.960 --> 00:30:06.160 not through the filter of the old belief, but as 395 00:30:06.319 --> 00:30:10.680 clearly and honestly as you can, you will find something extraordinary. 396 00:30:11.480 --> 00:30:15.039 You will find that the belief does not hold up. 397 00:30:15.640 --> 00:30:20.279 That you have survived disapproval, that you have been rejected 398 00:30:20.319 --> 00:30:22.960 and gotten through it. That the things you were most 399 00:30:22.960 --> 00:30:26.519 afraid people would think of you have, in many cases 400 00:30:26.839 --> 00:30:31.240 already been thought, and the consequences were not the catastrophe 401 00:30:31.279 --> 00:30:34.599