How to be happy when you feel like sh*t: Harnessing the ancient power of paradox

By David Bederman Leave a Comment

It was 11pm on a Sunday night. I ordered two skewers of fresh, grilled lamb and headed over to the business class lounge.

I ate my meal, topped it off with a shot of single malt scotch and reclined in the massage chair until they called my flight.

This was my routine. Once every six or seven weeks I’d jump on a twelve-hour overnight flight from Israel to the somewhere in North America.

I loved my job. I was meeting inspiring and successful people, raising money for an exciting project that was making a real difference, and working for an organization that was deeply aligned with my values.

And just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, one day, it all came crashing down.

They let me go. I was crushed.

I identified so deeply with my mission in that job that when I finally got the news, it put me in a tailspin for several weeks and, at the time, it felt like I’d never recover.

But we always recover.

The question is though, how long does it take us to bounce back?

What if, instead of taking days or weeks to recover from difficult situations or negative emotions, we could learn how to feel happy and re-energized in an instant?

Well, I’m about to share with you an ancient technique that helped me turn sadness and suffering on to its head, and it begins with first understanding something about how we’ve learned to think…

Old-School Thinking

First off, some history: Aristotle, the famous Greek Philosopher from 2000 years ago played an important part in shaping how we think in the Western-world. He said:

“It is impossible for the same thing at the same time to belong and not to belong to the same thing in the same respect…”

…which basically means that things that are separate are different.

Black and white are separate, and different, and so are summer and winter.

Common sense right?

This way of reasoning is called Aristotelian logic; it’s the way most of Western society today thinks and it’s how we’re taught to think growing up.

But what if Western thinking was actually hurting your happiness? What if this way of seeing the world actually makes it harder to succeed and realize your dreams in life?

And what if there were another, more “successful” way to think?

Why Western-thinking hurts

The whole point of Aristotelian logic, or Western thinking is that every individual thing in life is disconnected from the next – that the world is basically a giant collection of separate, individual things.

I’m separate from you, you’re separate from that tree and every other “thing” in the world around you is completely separate from the thing next to it.

And if you look around you right now, that pretty much sums up how you experience the world, correct?

Ok, great. Just stick with me here for a minute…

When’s the last time you had an experience of feeling disconnected? Maybe you weren’t invited to a particular party, or you went through a difficult breakup from a friend.

So how does being “disconnected” feel to you?

From my experience, when I’m feeling disconnected, I feel isolated, lonely and even sad.

OK, next question: what words do you associate with the feeling of living life to its fullest?

Like when you’re “on top of the world”, when everything in life is “flowing” and things “couldn’t be better”, what would you call that?

Would you say it’s a feeling of being connected?

Or Plugged-in?

Maybe like you’re at one with everyone or feeling in-sync with everything?

Well now, what if, below the surface, there was more powerful about our feelings of being “connected” than meet the eye?

The Power of Paradox

So the 6th Century BCE philosopher Lao Tse was also into feeling “connected”. In fact, he was part of a school of thought that many called Paradoxical Logic, which is the main influence of Eastern thinking.

See if you connect with what the Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu said:

“That which is one is one. That which is not-one, is also one.”

He also said:

“Gravity is the root of lightness, stillness is the ruler of movement”

Now for Aristotle, that probably sounded like a bad dream – those quotes are full of contradictions!

But Paradoxical Logic is about seeing the Universe and everything in it as interconnected – that every-one and every-thing in existence are somehow connected to each other.

The opposite of Western thinking, Paradoxical logic basically says that Black and White, instead of being unique and separate from each other, are in fact connected.

Since the way we see Black is deeply colored (sorry, couldn’t resist…) by our experience of White, White then is an equal part of the identity of Black. If White didn’t exist – we wouldn’t really understand what Black is all about.

Therefore, while White and Black may indeed be opposites, according to Paradoxical logic, they are not separate.

In fact, White and Black are two parts of a bigger whole, which is exactly the lesson of the Yin-Yang.

Within Black is also the idea of white, and within White is also the idea of black. Yet, when these two “opposites” come together, something even greater is created in the process – the wholeness of the circle.

Connecting the Dots

So, now isn’t the same true in life?

Don’t we enjoy the heat of summer the most because we’ve survived the freezing winter? If we didn’t have the experience of winter, summer would have far less impact and enjoyment for us.

Likewise, if you were born into a very wealthy family, would you really feel the experience of being rich, or would rich, to you, seem regular? How would you know what it even felt like to be rich, unless you had struggled with the pain of poverty?

And which one is better – hot or cold? Poverty or riches?

Paradoxical logic says they are each just two parts of a bigger whole – like the colors in the yin-yang.

How Does any of this Matter?

So how can this idea of Paradoxical Logic help us feel better? How can it help to live better and achieve more in our lives?

Well, Psychologists say that, as human beings, we crave connection – to each other and to our world.

But what if, instead of seeing ourselves as disconnected from each other, as Western thinking told us, the inter-connection we crave was really all around us?

What if, instead of being separate from each other and from the world around us – we were all actually a part of something much, much greater than our individual “unique” selves?

What if the world that surrounds us gave us living proof of this fact?

Living Proof

Have a look at sound. Really – I want you to look at it.

Watch a guitar string vibrating, back and forth, up and down. It’s a wave. From high to low, side to side – opposite to opposite.

What about light? Same thing, only faster – light waves vibrating at the speed of light.

All of nature is one big, bright expression of opposites, like the back and forth vibration of atoms.

But we don’t experience one side of a musical note’s vibrations; we don’t see one side of a light’s wave vs. the other – we experience the entire vibration as one complete thing. The ups and downs of a guitar string is what makes the sound – you can’t have half a sound or half of a light!

Well the same is true in our lives – our ups and our downs are all connected to each other. Just like exercising actually tears the muscle tissue, after a few days rest it grows back stronger and bigger than before.

So too:

The problems and challenges of life are just the other side of our inevitable success. Click To Tweet

Recognizing that the ups and downs of life as two side of a bigger whole can have a huge impact on how you experience your life.

Conspiring to Inspire You

Most of us have been taught that being happy is the opposite of being sad – that laughing and crying are completely separate from each other.

But now what happens if you look at Happiness and Sadness as two parts of a bigger whole – called life?

What if the challenges in your life, instead of wishing they never happened, become the very things that push you towards your greatest success breakthrough?

What if the Universe was actually conspiring to inspire you, and that by pulling you down into a challenging or uncomfortable situation, you were actually being given the power to catapult yourself even higher?

Sewing it all Together

When I look back now at how painful and scary it was when I lost my job, I am so deeply grateful that it happened. The pain of losing something so meaningful was what caused me to dig deep inside and ask myself what I really wanted to do with my life.

That helped me discover my dream of running my own business and of sharing my message with the world. The pain of feeling disconnected and adrift was only the other side of the joy and passion I now have for the privilege of supporting men and women to discover their true greatness.

It’s like the Zen proverb says:

“Pain is inevitable, suffering is an option.”

So the next time you find yourself with your face-in-your-hands, remember:

All growth comes through breakdown; they’re just two halves of a greater whole. Click To Tweet

Have “hard-times” ever transformed into “amazing opportunities” for you, once you were able to see the big picture? Share your story in the comments below.

Photo credits: Nanl and Joe deSousa

Why you feel unfulfilled: 3 Ideas that will change your life forever

By David Bederman 5 Comments

When I was in grade three they thought I was stupid.

Nobody ever said that to my face, but that’s what my teachers told my parents.

I was the class clown, I never sat still and I didn’t to do so well on tests.

One day I was sent out of class, down the hall to a small room across from the boiler room and told that I had to complete a special test.

I was eight and I thought I was being punished for being a bad kid.

Turns out my mother had demanded they give me special IQ testing which proved I was actually pretty smart.

I guess I was so smart that I wasn’t allowed to learn with the normal kids anymore because the next day I had to switch classes.

I was moved into the enhanced program and from now on I would learn exclusively with the other “smart” kids.

That was the worst day of my life.

Because that day I made a mistake which, while I didn’t realize it at the time, would haunt me for the next twenty-five years of my life.

Idea #1 – Who is the hero?

From that day I did worse in school that I ever had before. I had gotten it into my head that I was better than “regular” people and I didn’t need to work hard to get ahead.

I turned the lady who tested me and discovered my “greatness” into a metaphor for life: that being “great” earns you an automatic seat at the VIP table.

Pretty dumb for a smart kid, I know, but that’s how my eight-year-old brain worked.

The older I got, the more this belief was engrained in my psyche and the more confused and disillusioned I became with life.

Nobody ever taught me how to ask for help, they taught me that greatness gets “discovered”. I was hardly Justin Bieber, but still, I waited for someone to come along and fan my tiny spark into a flame.

Finally, many years later, I read Nathaniel Brandon’s book, The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem where he says,

“No one is coming to save you”.

Whoa. Um, excuse me?!

Yup. Four hours into a twelve-hour drive and it finally clicks that you’re driving in the wrong direction…

Then, one day a student of his asked, “But Professor Brandon, you came!”

And Nathaniel Brandon replied, “Yes. And I came to tell you that no one is coming”.

Ouch.

Famous author and mythologist, Joseph Campbell also taught that,

“You are the hero of your story.”

Making the mistake of waiting for someone to come along and save you means that you miss out on everything that could be possible if you would take responsibility for your own life.

Because:

Everything becomes possible in your life, when you take responsibility for everything that happens. Click To Tweet

You are the hero in this story and nobody is coming to save you.

Idea #2: Give yourself permission

Another problem I had for many years was that I didn’t believe in myself. I only knew I was great because other people told me so.

A lady told me I was smart and she gave me permission to move to a different class.

Young girls (and even their mothers) would approach me on the street and in shopping malls and ask to touch my long curly hair, so I believed I was unique.

When someone would fall in love with me, it gave me permission to believe I was lovable.

I wanted to feel smart. I wanted to feel lovable. I wanted to feel talented, and special, and powerful – we all do! Yet, because I never learned how to believe in myself on the inside (yes, that is a skill), I was constantly searching for outside signals to give me permission to believe all those things that I desperately wanted to about myself.

And without permission from others, I was lost, self-conscious and powerless.

Because fulfillment in life never comes through seeking validation from others. Even though getting validation does feel great, there never seems to be enough of it around when need it the most.

It comes through giving yourself permission to be great.

Bill Gates and Paul Allen never asked permission to take over personal computing; they gave it to themselves, broke all the rules and created massive success because of it.

Steve Jobs never asked for permission to redefine the way we look at technology; he gave it to himself and created one of the most successful companies the world has ever seen.

So when I coach people who want to start their own business or want to find a job that really inspires them, this is the first lesson I give them.

To give yourself permission means to believe in your own ability to do, or to become whatever it is you want to become in life.

It means that you believe in your own power as a human being and that you’re not searching for someone to agree with you!

Turning to others for information on how to do something is powerful, but looking for their confirmation that you’re worthy of doing it is not.

If you don’t know how to give yourself permission in life, you’ll never be able to follow your dreams; and here’s why that’s a problem:

Idea #3: Don’t get constipated

Years ago, I wandered into the Old City of Jerusalem wearing a backpack full of SCUBA equipment.

I had just returned from teaching diving in the Red Sea and I was searching for answers to questions like “Who am I?” and “Why am I here?”

One of the greatest answers I ever received in that city is that you are a soul.

You – your soul – has a purpose; a mission in the world.

You are here to do something nobody else can do (and maybe my mission in the world is to tell you this right now!).

Feeling fulfilled in life, I believe, means tapping into the one thing you love doing, the thing you are better at than anyone else you know and doing that thing in the world.

But here’s the problem.

Have you ever awakened from a dream in the middle of the night? Everything makes perfect sense to you – the dream still feels so powerful and real!

Yet, when you turn to your husband, or you call your best friend the next day to explain the power of your vision, “There was a giant tree, its leaves were like spaghetti. The spaghetti nourished the children of the forest and we were all flying because, in the forest ….”

It makes no sense!!

The more you try to describe your dream to another, the more you realize it’s impossible to explain.

That’s what a dream is…

It’s a powerful vision – a coded message – meant exclusively for you and completely unintelligible to everybody else!

Fulfillment in life comes through connecting with your unique mission – your soul’s purpose. It means doing that thing that lights you up with so much joy that your passion becomes contagious.

Nobody else with “get” it. They won’t share your passion. They won’t champion you forward and encourage you to believe in yourself.

In fact, chances are, the more you try and “share” your vision with people to win their approval, the more they’ll tell you that you’re crazy and to “just go get a job!” (That’s what they said to me.)

The only person who needs to understand your dream is you.

Yet, so many people try and ignore their dreams, because, let’s face it, following your dreams can be scary. Most of us haven’t learned how to believe in our own power to realize them!

We wait quietly for someone to come along and to see the potential burning inside of us.

We share our secret passion with family or friends, in hopes that they will validate us, tell us we can’t fail and to give us permission to follow through with it.

But it never happens.

So we play small. We keep our secret dream of who we’d really love to become out of sight, buried way down deep inside of us.

Then at some point, maybe years down the road, that feeling of being unfulfilled starts creeping in.

We start realizing that we’re capable of doing more in the world and of inspiring others with our work.

We start feeling like a chainsaw cutting paper.

I call that pain spiritual constipation; it’s what happens when you live your life disconnected from your dreams, your purpose and from what you’re truly capable of.

True fulfillment in life comes from sharing your unique gifts with the world. For me, that gift is coaching – helping others to achieve greatness – it’s what I’m best at and most passionate about doing.

But I only realized that after I discovered that nobody was coming to save me, after I had learned to give myself permission, and after I believed in my dream that I could help people, that I could become great at doing it, and that sharing my story could make a difference in the world.

But I almost missed the chance…

So what about you? Where do you feel you could be making the biggest impact? Share your story with me below.

How I cured my depression: Exposing the world’s greatest lie

By David Bederman Leave a Comment

“I want to die”

“Life is so painful, everything is a mess and I can’t take it. I just wish I was dead!”

That was me.

I’ve probably screamed that phrase at the top of my lungs at least 200 times in my life.

I had a really hard time growing up.

It’s why I left home at 17.

Why I dropped out of high school and followed the Grateful Dead around North America.

Why I moved out to the Islands of British Columbia and lived on a sailboat.

I was running.

Running from the pain of depression.

From the feeling that nobody loved me or really understood me.

From feeling that I was alone.

I figured that the more I traveled, the more likely I was to run into someone who could save me.

Who would love me.

Who could help me find happiness.

Who would give me answers to my existential questions.

Outrunning pain

All of my teens and twenties were basically spent trying to distract myself from that constant emotional pain.

Whenever I had too much time alone, I’d loose myself in thinking, and I would slowly work myself into another depression.

It was like a never ending spiral.

So I got good at running. Good at inventing distractions. Good at collecting stamps in a worn-out passport.

I looked at the world like a gigantic bottle of Tylenol, and I was constantly searching for new and interesting ways to numb the pain.

Alcohol, drugs, constant parties, short-term relationships, concerts, raves, and traveling…any excuse to hit the road and go traveling again.

But getting depressed on the other side of the world really sucked.

It was dangerous.

I was in a trance and the mantra playing in my head was, “Have fun. Just keep having fun David, and you won’t notice how much pain you’re really in.”

But the only problem was that I did notice the pain and, the longer I tried to outrun it and the more I tried to distract myself from it, the more it came back to haunt me and heavier it would hit.

It took me more than 20 years to figure out why I was constantly falling out and back into depression.

This is what I teach my kids now, so they won’t make the same mistake:

But before I share what I discovered, a disclaimer: I’m not a doctor. Depression is serious. If you’re depressed, you should probably get help. Depression can be caused by chemical imbalances in the brain and, in some cases, might need medication to correct it. Don’t try and face depression alone.

I feel horrible.

So what about you? What’s the worst you’ve ever felt?

When’s the most recent time you felt bad, or low, or upset?

What happened exactly?

Take a second.

Picture the last time you felt significantly less than awesome and replay the situation leading up to it in your mind.

Did somebody say something insulting to you?

Or hurtful?

Or mean…insensitive…or selfish?

Or were you all by yourself, like I was, just feeling sad, and low and shitty without any clue why?

What creates how we feel?

If our feelings get created through our interactions with others, then why was I getting depressed all by myself?

If we create our own feelings, then why do other people seem to affect us so much?

Mom, where do feelings come from?

Eleanor Roosevelt knew where feelings come from. That’s why she said:

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

But what was she getting at?

She was getting at research that now shows how our feelings are created by our thoughts.

Yes! What you think creates how you feel.

So, if that’s true, then the reason you feel bad when somebody calls you a loser, or fat, or (fill in the blank), is because you “agreed” with them.

You believed that you are a loser.

And how does it feel to believe you’re a loser?

You tell me.

I can tell you how it feels to believe that you’re different than other people…

Or strange. Or that something’s wrong with you.

It feels painful!

When you get into a cycle of believing negative thoughts about yourself you feel horrible.

Horrible about yourself. Horrible about life.

Horrible.

You may even end up depressed.

That’s why Byron Katie, one of the most notable figures doing work in this field today, says (and if you haven’t heard of her, look her up – her books will change your life):

“Don’t believe everything you think.”

Why not?

Because what you think becomes your reality!

Like Gandhi said:

“A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes. “

The biggest mistake you can make

So when I first learned about this concept, it was hard for me to digest, probably because I remember being depressed at the time.

When I used to get depressed, I felt so bad that the only thing I could do was to lock myself away from the world in my room, and sleep.

Sometimes, I would sleep for three days at a time.

Sleep was the only thing that helped me avoid wanting to self-destruct.

But sleep wasn’t the cure. It was only a reset button.

The cure for my depression was learning to tune into the thoughts I was thinking – and subsequently believing – about myself.

The mistake I made for most of my life is the same mistake many of my clients make when we first start working together.

They believe: “The voice inside my head is my voice, therefor whatever I am thinking is the truth”.

But that is a lie.

And believing that lie is like setting off to sail around the world, but cutting huge gaping holes into the fabric of your sails.

It’s like driving in a Formula 1 race, but dumping 90% of your fuel at the starting line.

It’s like SCUBA diving in the most exotic place in the world but letting out 90% of your air before you even put your head under water.

It’s the greatest lie in the world and believing it is the biggest mistake you can ever make.

Because…

The thoughts in your head are not you; you are the consciousness witnessing those thoughts. Click To Tweet

Many ancient traditions say that.

Your mind is only a machine. It’s not you.

Just like your heart was designed to pump, and it never stops pumping, your ears were designed to hear, and they never stop hearing, your mind was designed to think…and thoughts never stop rolling through it.

The key to success lies in learning to use the mind, instead of being used by it. Click To Tweet

Thoughts pass through your head all day, just like clouds in the sky, and your mind will pull you into discussion over every one of them if you let it!

But the question to be asking is: “Does it serve me to believe this thought right now?”

“Is it true?”

“Will focusing on and believing this thought take me where I want to go or lead me off course?”

And that really is the million dollar question:

“Where do you want to go?”

Like the famous quote attributed to Alice in Wonderland (but it doesn’t actually appear in the book…):

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.”

At very least, our feelings are the bi-product of random thoughts going through our head.

At worst, they’re the bi-product of very negative thoughts about ourselves that we are believing to be true!

The key to overcoming my depression

My depression was caused by thinking and believing negative thoughts about myself over and over again and the resulting collection of unbearable negative emotions that would create.

If you want to learn how to overcome negative emotions and save yourself years of suffering, anxiety and depression, here’s the key:

1. Notice the thinking

Learn to notice the thoughts going through your mind. Just observe them, like clouds passing in the sky. “Oh look, there’s a thought in my head now saying I’m fat.”, or “Hey, there is a thought that is saying I’m a miserable failure.” At first, your habit may be to respond and react to these thoughts, but return to the practice of simply noticing them, without trying to own them. Try this for two weeks. When you get good at noticing the thinking going on in your mind without reacting to it, then you can move to step #2.

2. Is it true?

Now that you’ve learned to put “some distance” between “you” and “your thoughts” without automatically owning or believing them, you can now start to take control over what you choose to believe. If a negative thought about yourself comes up, take control of the conversation and ask yourself, “Is this true? Is it true that I am a failure? Will believing that help me achieve more?” Remember, belief is a choice – and you’re life will always be a reflection of what you choose to believe. (In coaching, I listen for the beliefs that underlie what my clients say. Often times, what’s in the way from getting the results we want in life, is only what we’re believing!)

3. What do I want to create?

Once you get used to taking control of the conversation in your mind, ask yourself the question: “What do I want to create?” If what you want is to open your own business or find a job that excites and challenges you, ask yourself, “What do I need to believe – about myself and about the world – in order to create that?” Believing that you are worthless or a failure may be familiar (it was to me!) but it will not help you create what you want. Beveling instead, “I am determined, smart and every mistake makes me wiser!” for example, will probably take you a lot farther towards where you want to go, and you’ll feel better and more empowered along the way.

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Breaking out of the glass bubble: Why fear is the way to freedom

By David Bederman 1 Comment

“It feels like I’m in a glass bubble,” he said.

“I’m making a good salary and I enjoy my work…but I’m not happy”.

“I feel like I’m capable of so much more!”

Robert was a senior manager in an international high-tech firm.

“I don’t know what that means or how to begin moving in that direction, but I feel stuck, and every time I start thinking about what else could really be possible for me, a tremendous wave of fear takes over me.”

“What about the glass bubble?” I asked him

“I know I have an entrepreneurial spirit David. I know there is something inside me that’s waiting to create something that could make a real difference in the world; I really feel that.

But I don’t even know how to begin exploring it, plus, I’ve got a family depending on me and, the truth is, maybe it’s just irresponsible – or even selfish – of me to be thinking of shaking things up at all!

That’s the glass bubble: I feel safe and secure on the one hand, but I’m afraid if I make a move, it could all just shatter to pieces.”

As Robert continued to share the challenge he was experiencing, I could hear how much fear was at the center of his story.

The Gift of Fear

In his book The Gift of Fear Gavin De Becker writes about how our natural fear instinct guides us to safety, often, even if we aren’t consciously aware that we’re in any any danger at all.

It’s kind of like our own built-in autopilot.

What’s interesting though is that fear is processed by a very primitive part of the brain that isn’t capable of logic or reason. It’s only real decision is – life or death? Fight or flight?

So if that’s true, then why does fear show up even when we aren’t facing a life or death situation?

Why does a significant growth opportunity, like introducing yourself to a woman at the bar, approaching your boss for a raise, or venturing out to begin your entrepreneurial journey often bring up the same emotional experience you might have if we were staring down the barrel of a gun?

The curse of safety

The idea of “safety” is a two-edged sword. On the one side, when face-to-face with a sabre-toothed tiger and your back is against a wall, “safety” is, without a doubt, the preferred option.

But when facing your dreams, your unexpressed potential and the power for change that you know you in your soul you’re capable of creating in the world – when the choice is between upping your game or “pushing through” and living an unfulfilled life, that’s when “safety” can become a curse.

That’s because, while our “animal brain” is conditioned to keep us “safe”, it can’t tell the difference between a real life-threatening situation, like a tiger in an alley, and going outside of your comfort zone – which can be dangerous for your ego – like when asking a girl out or asking for a raise.

Our physical response to both real danger and simply uncomfortable situations are often the same: heart pounding, sweaty palms, heavy breathing…and an instinct to run!

Killing your ego to save your soul

For the butterfly to be born, the caterpillar must die.

There is no going back. It’s all-in or nothing at all.

You're not really afraid of failure. You're used to it. It's success that really scares you Click To Tweet

If there is a dream burning inside of you; if you have a passion for change, for stepping away from the daily grind of your current situation and for bringing something new into the world, then something will need to change in order for that dream to come to life…

That something is YOU.

In order to bring your dreams, your power and your passion into the world, you’re going to need a new set of tools.

You’ll need a new a new identity.

You’ll need new confidence, a new relationship to risk and you’ll need to re-align your relationship to fear.

To break out of the glass bubble, you’ll need to step into the most powerful version of yourself.

But what does the most powerful version of you look like? How does he speak? How does he carry himself in public? What does he wear? Eat?

How do you become that person?

Well it starts with making some big life changes, like building more confidence, letting go of familiar patterns of behavior and stepping out of your comfort zone.

But stepping out of your comfort zone is like death to your ego.

And what does the brain do when it senses you (or your ego!) are in danger?

In order to protect you, it creates a whole lot of fear!

So if you’re tired of living inside of a glass bubble – if you’re ready to begin exploring what might really be possible for you in life, you’ll need to create a new relationship…with fear.

When fear becomes your best friend

Your ego is the part of you that’s afraid to fail. It’s afraid to be embarrassed and hates to make mistakes.

When you see that fear is pointing you towards your greatness, it becomes your best friend Click To Tweet

Your ego wants you to be safe, and to stay inside your comfort zone….forever!

But greatness is never created from the safety of the comfort zone. Greatness comes through being at your edge.

So the next time you start dreaming of all that you know is possible for you, and immediately after you’re gripped by a terrible, paralyzing fear, do the following exercise:

Look over your shoulder and scan for any threat of real physical danger.
In absence of any real physical danger, lean directly into the fear! (ie. do exactly what you’re afraid of doing)
Then ask the question: “What is one action I can take right now to bring me one step closer to this goal/dream?”
Repeat.

And remember, when the fear you’re experiencing is not connected to impending physical danger… then it’s showing you exactly the direction you need to be heading in order to grow 🙂

If you know someone struggling with fear and dreaming of becoming great, click the buttons below and share this with them.

I’m successful but I feel small: 3 DIY tools to build unshakable confidence

By David Bederman 4 Comments

The other day I was sitting with a CEO who shared a challenge he was facing.

Let’s call him Jim.

On the one hand, Jim was feeling incredibly confident, powerful and successful when it came to leading his team and facing the challenges that hit him day in and day out at the office.

On the other hand, when it came to his personal life, at home with his wife and children, Jim felt like a different person.

Instead of feeling powerful, Jim felt powerless. Instead of feeling confident and successful, at home he felt like a failure and was constantly second-guessing himself. Jim’s wife said he complained non-stop about all the things he didn’t like.

Because of his struggle, Jim looked forward to his frequent business trips and, while he loved his family very much, he never really looked forward to returning home.

Jim opened up to me that he had never shared these feelings with anyone before, but it was causing him a lot of distress and he wanted some support.

The more he shared, the more I started to get a feeling for what I believed might be happening. [Read more…] about I’m successful but I feel small: 3 DIY tools to build unshakable confidence