And I know that a lot of people say,

"Well, I ain't doing in life. I'm doing

nothing every day." You're not doing

nothing. You're not sitting there

staring at a blank wall. You're doing

lots of technology, which you amount as

nothing, but it's not nothing. You're

intellectually engaged constantly.

You're constantly motivated to do things

that are non-productive, but you're

still doing a lot. I got bullied a lot

playing video games. There was a part of

me that got punished for getting excited

about this. And what you will find by

people who have a lot of insecurities is

early on in their lives that were

punished by excitement and curiosity.

The truth of the matter, the sad, sad,

sad truth of the matter is that human

beings as organisms are driven by trauma

and insecurity. I was motivated by

trauma and insecurity. Getting better

through therapy vanished my motivation.

Help. Recently, I've been doing lots of

de of development inside myself, really

focusing on therapy, shadow work, etc.

From this inside work, I resolved a

wound that kept me trying to prove

myself to others and majorly to myself.

After this, my motivation to achieve

things really disappeared. I do feel a

lot better now, but my motivation to

strive is gone. I never had a an adult

with healthy motivation to mirror and

learn from. How can I start to burn

other fuels to motivate myself? This is

an emotional question, not a rational

one. I do know that there are lots of

things worth doing and striving in this

world. I just can't feel them myself.

How can I become more sensitive to this

new fuels for achieving? So, I used to

be motivated by insecurity and I went to

therapy and I dealt with my insecurities

and now I don't feel like doing

[laughter] anything. So, my wife tells

me, "Oh, look, you should make a video

about all these high performers you work

with. Like, what do they do that other

people don't?" So, I do some executive

coaching, which means I'll work with

CEOs, entrepreneurs, people like that.

But the reason I was reluctant is like

honestly what separates most of the top

performers from the rest of us is that

they were traumatized in the right way.

So I want to tell you all the story

about a client of mine. Client is second

generation. So parents migrated from a

developing country. Dad worked really

hard, became incredibly successful. went

from 0 to $32 million over the course of

about let's say 25 to 35 years of work.

So after about 30 years in the

workforce, you know, they started from

scratch and had a net worth of about $32

million. So as this person who came from

nothing started to become more

successful and started rubbing shoulders

with other people who were more

successful, they entered the world of

the elites, right? So they they they

became successful and they didn't go to

Harvard, but they sure as hell started

going to dinner with people went to

Harvard and Stanford and went this place

and that place and all these prestigious

institutions and people who have

vacation homes and yachts. So as this

person entered this world, as the dad

entered the world, they started to

become a little bit more narcissistic.

Maybe they were a little bit sociopathic

to begin with. And so it became really

important, right? So they started

entering this world of like children as

trophies and everyone is comparing and

so they started to really pressure their

kids. You got to be the best. You got to

do it the right way. This is the way

successful people do it. We're not going

to be these scrubs. We don't care about

compassion or doing good in the world.

You got to be the best. You got to be

the best. You got to be the best. And

this is where there's another thing that

I think really separates out the right

trauma from the wrong trauma, which is

that parents who are hypervigilant,

parents who are always up in their kids'

business, parents who don't let their

children get away with relaxation, those

are the kids that are the most messed

up. So, the really sad thing is that one

of the I think top three or top five

videos in the depression guide is a a

video about conditional love. Basically,

like we talk about unconditional love,

but for many people I've worked with who

are depressed, this is a good example of

of this person. The reason they're

depressed is because they grew up with

conditional love. I'll only love you if

you dot dot dot. Their whole sense of

self is about performance. So, if I

achieve, then I am worthy of love. And

they'll go their whole lives trying to

make their dad happy, trying to make

their dad proud. If you all want to know

what separates high performers from

people who are not high performers, a

big chunk of them, and there's a

selection bias here because a lot of

high performers are loved by their

parents. Arguably, I'm one of them. My

parents certainly loved me and I guess

I'm doing okay now. But honestly, if

y'all want to know, a big part of it is

parents who don't love their kids. Dads

and moms and who say, "If you want my

love, if you want my respect, I want to

be able to show you off to all of my

friends." This is all coded, right? It's

not super explicit, right? That's what

really causes people to achieve. And I

want you all to look at some people with

very public profiles, we won't name

names, who are very successful. How

psychologically happy do you think these

people are? Are these people content?

Peaceful? Is a billion dollars enough?

Is a hundred billion enough? Is $20

billion enough? Do people need even more

money? Hey y'all, if you're interested

in applying some of the principles that

we share to actually create change in

your life, [music] check out Dr. K's

guide to mental health. So, this is a

guide that explores this process. How

does experience shape us as human

beings? Trauma is all about walling off

or suppressing [music]

things that are overwhelming. They

cannot control their emotions, so their

emotions control them. So check out the

link in the bio and start your journey

today. The truth of the matter, the sad

sad sad truth of the matter is that

human beings as organisms are driven by

trauma and insecurity. Literally, the

way we're wired is to be driven by this

stuff. There's a really simple way to

understand this. Why do negative

emotions feel so bad? If you ask me my

opinion, I would say shame is the most

painful emotion. Now, I haven't had

crippling depression in the way that

some of my patients have. So, arguably

theirs is worse. But if you think about

why is shame so damn painful, right? So,

our negative emotions hurt so much

because they're designed to induce

behavior. The number of times I got

bullied in my school and was like,

"Never again." The shame that I felt was

so profound. I wanted to change. I

wanted to be a different person. I

wanted to show them. I wanted to work so

hard. Our negative emotions are very

powerful motivation motivators. They're

the most powerful motivators that we

have. And there are many times if you

guys have seen some of the interviews

that we do, you know, sometimes I'll ask

people towards the end of an interview

when they come in with a problem and

I'll be like, "Do you even want to

change this?" And the good ones like

good good ones in the sense that like

the honest people will be like, "No, I

actually don't. I came to you with this

problem. I don't even want to change it

because this is the problem that keeps

me going. This is the problem that

pushes me to succeed." And so if you

want to know why you can't solve your

problems, the first question you should

ask yourself is what is this problem

doing for me? And it's scary. It's so

scary the kinds of answers that you will

get. The reason that I am hopeless

because if I have hope, I can try and I

can fail. And if I fail, that'll hurt a

lot. So I'd rather choose hopeless. I

pick despair over hope because it

protects me more. So, if you're someone

who has been driven by negative

emotions, by insecurity, I want to be

someone. I'm tired of being this

pathetic person. I'm going to turn

myself into someone. And then you find

that you've healed that wound. Oh no,

now your motivation is gone. What do you

do? So, there are a couple of really

good things. You have a lot of good

stuff ahead of you. The first is to

understand time. This is a huge, huge,

huge problem that I see anytime I get

questions, anytime people post on the

internet. You will notice there is an

absence of quantification. No one thinks

in terms of numbers. So people will say

I tried therapy and my question is how

long? No one ever says that. I've tried

therapy three times. How long? What

modalities? This doesn't work. I put

myself out there and it didn't work. How

many times? For how long? So anytime

we're talking about solving problems and

the advice that we get on the internet,

there's no temporal quality. People

don't say you should do this for this

amount of time. So the first thing is

when you solve your motivational

problem, let's say like you you heal

yourself and you have no motivation,

there is absolutely a lag period. This

is the first thing to know. I would say

it's somewhere between 3 months and a

year on average. So I don't know if this

makes sense. Your body doesn't create a

new system while another one works. You

have to fix one thing and then there is

a need and then your body makes the

alternate system. It doesn't plan ahead.

It's just now that this motivational

system is gone, other motivational

systems will start to grow. And a really

good example of this is if you look at

the research on people who go through a

quarter life crisis or a midlife crisis,

they have this particular period where

they have to check out. So, I don't like

this life. I'm going to remove myself

from this life and then I will make a

new life. But that period of limbo is

actually developmentally necessary.

There must be an intentional or even

physical removal from the situation.

Either you need to mentally check out or

you need to physically move yourself out

of the the the space necessary. So you

have to have a limbo period. That's the

first thing to understand. Nothing wrong

with you if you if you've healed your

trauma and you're like now what?

Absolutely. Because for many many years

you've been motivated by this system and

now that the system is gone, you don't

know what to do. It's normal. The good

news is that this is when other things

will start to rise. So your body, your

brain, your mind is naturally designed

to create motivation. Right? So I want

you all to look at how hard people have

to try to be still. A good example of

this is I had a conversation with Steven

Bartlett. I think it was on his podcast

where the thought of being still and

relaxing is like terrifying to him. Most

human beings have a lot of difficulty

being still. And I know that a lot of

people say, "Well, I ain't doing [ __ ] in

life. I'm doing nothing every day.

You're not doing nothing. You're not

sitting there staring at a blank wall.

You're doing lots of technology which

you amount as nothing, but it's not

nothing. You're intellectually engaged

constantly. You're constantly motivated

to do things that are non-productive,

but you're still doing a lot. So, the

key thing here is that the positive

motivators are not as evolutionary

potent as the negative motivators.

Curiosity gets drowned out by anxiety

every day of the week. a drive to

create. Creativity gets squashed by

shame every day of the week. And so once

you enter this period of healing, there

will be a feeling of no motivation. But

the creativity is there, the curiosity

is there, the joy for life and to

experience all that stuff is subtle. So

in the yogic system, there's a huge

emphasis on subtlety. They're not like

these big motivational like wallops,

right? This is not like dual wielding

like crahammers or whatever. These are

like smaller motivational things. And

here's the key thing to understand. Just

because they're smaller doesn't mean

that they won't provide you with

sufficient motivation. They just, how

can I say this? Shame will give you 100

points of motivation. Creativity, a

thirst to create will give you 20 points

of motivation. But once the 100 is gone,

20 will be enough. Your body will

acclimatize to the 20 and you'll even

start to work more. So what I tend to

find is that you know what people who

are very very highly negative negatively

motivated they can work anywhere between

40 and 100 hours a week and people who

are creatively motivated can also work

40 to 100 hours a week. It just takes

time. The last thing that makes this

hard is often times in the process of

being motivated by insecurity we went

through an active process of shutting

down positive motivation. So I'll give

you a simple example. I got bullied a

lot playing video games. There was a

part of me that got punished for getting

excited about this. And what you will

find by people who have a lot of

insecurities is early on in their lives,

they were punished by excitement and

curiosity. No one cared about their

excitement. No one cared about their

curiosity. No one cared about their

creativity. It was about shame. It was

about conformism. It was about being

what we want you to be. Right? And when

you have a parent who's worth $32

million and is like, you need to go to

Harvard. I don't give a [ __ ] if you want

to be a painter. Being a painter isn't a

thing. You can paint in your free time.

It's not a job. There's no respect for

painters. This is the real world. So,

there is a second step that sometimes we

have to do in psychotherapy. I think it

comes up on its own, which is to

reawaken your positive things. You have

desires in here that cause you to

gravitate towards something. You're

curious about something. You want to

learn something. You want to help

people. Oh my god, compassion. What a

noob motivation. Let me make the world a

better place. And over time, these

voices will start to grow. They've been

drowned out. The signals are technically

smaller than the negative signals, but

generally speaking, it equilibriates

because your body is homeostatic. And

you know, caffeine stimulates

wakefulness more than your brain does.

But once you get rid of your caffeine,

you'll be perfectly awake without any

any problems. So you'll just

equilibriate. It takes some time. And

then you may need to actively look at

okay what am I curious about what do I

want to create what do I enjoy about

life what is life about this is when you

get to ask those fun questions and the

motivation will come just have to look

for it a little bit and be patient

questions hi Dr. Okay. So, when we went

this I found that I I'm in a place where

I still have this fire within me to

ruthless go whatever I want. Does this

mean I didn't go through it? No, not at

all. So, I I think you all got to

understand something like every person's

journey is a bit unique. And so, often

times just because you've solved your

insecurity doesn't mean that all of your

fire is gone. For some people it's gone

because it's been quenched. But I I

think there's another kind of

motivation. We talk about this a little

bit more on the membership side, but I

think there's a kind of motivation which

is like karmic debt, which is not

insecurity, which is not trauma, but I I

do believe I don't really know, but when

I work with people like I think that

we're we have some motivational system

that I can best describe as karma. So,

we have certain karmic debts which you

will feel a natural impulse that this

should be done, this needs to be taken

care of. A good example is when I work

with people who have bipolar disorder.

Often time they're oftentimes they're

quite creative. This is something that a

lot of people don't understand. So

bipolar disorder is maybe around 1% of

the population. But 4% of the population

is hypomomanic without the bipolar

disorder, which is like an OP OP build

because you only need to sleep four to

six hours a night and you're highly

productive for weeks to months at a

time. And they don't have depressive

crashes in the same way. It's like

completely busted, dude. So, a lot of

these people are creative and if you

felt that creative drive, you know

there's something in you that wants to

be

manifest in the external world. I would

lean into that 100%.

And if you have a ruthless kind of

drive, it doesn't mean that you haven't

healed. Like maybe your insecurity is

gone and what's left often times what's

left is like a healthier version of that

thing. And I don't know if this makes

sense, but okay, I'm going to try to

explain. So, you're like a human being

and you have certain natural ambitions,

certain natural tendencies. Let's call

call it a karmic debt. Then what happens

if you get traumatized or you get a

bunch of shame or a bunch of insecurity?

I don't know if this makes sense, but

that insecurity latches on to the person

that you are. If I take a hundred

different kids and I bully them and make

them insecure, the kind of insecurity

they have won't be the same. Does that

make sense? I can chop down a 100 trees

and if I look at the rings in the

middle, they're not going to all be the

same. Trauma may make us insecure, but

the way in which it makes us insecure is

specific to who we are. So often times

that insecurity

latches on to or takes control of a

natural impulse. And here's how you kind

of know, right? So when I'm insecure or

when I'm made to feel insecure, there's

a particular vision of what I have of of

what I want to be. Sorry. I want to be

this way. This means I'm healed. People

are going to respect me. Either it's

[ __ ] on my arms or it's a fancy car

or it's respect or it's being a hero or

it's my dad saying I love me uh uh I

love you and that would be the thing

right so dad is like oh look I'm sorry I

love myself

so often times even when you deal with

the insecurity there's a certain element

that is you which is specific to you and

ambition can come from that so I I don't

think it means that you're not healed or

not fixed in fact I think everyone is

unique. Yeah. So, we had um one of our

best So, someone's asking, "How do you

deal with crippling shame?" We have a

2-hour video uh about shame. So, we've

got a couple of other lectures on the

channel, but then on the membership

side, we we we did a deep dive into

shame. Highly recommend you all check it

out. Um you know, how do you deal with

crippling shame? I think there are a

couple of different ways. The first is

to understand where it came from. Second

is to act in spite of it and practice

acting in spite of it. I think that's

hard, but I think a lot of shame is like

getting new experience.

So, I I don't know if this makes sense,

but you know, the majority of people,

we'll say like, okay, you should go see

a therapist. That's a good answer. But

the majority of people who have problems

do not overcome those problems with the

help of a therapist. Most human beings

on the planet just overcome problems on

their own or with the support of their

social circle. And so a big part of this

is if you're someone who's like stuck

with a problem. I think the most common

reason why people stay stuck is that

their dayto-day experience does not

change at all. Like it's really hard to

dig yourself out of a hole if you're

like in the same environment that put

you in the hole. So if your day is I get

up, I go to work, I come home, I do

laundry, I play video games, I go to

sleep, I get up, I go to work, I come

home, I get high, I go to sleep, I day I

get up, I I go to work, I come home, my

parents yell at me. If that's your day,

that environment has produced your

current state. And that's why we stay in

these situations for so long because

like we're in this state that is shaping

us in this way. Which is why it was

really helpful for me like I had to go

to an ashram and and that's where like I

want y'all to really understand there

are certain principles that shape the

way that we perceive ourselves and

environment is huge. So often times when

people are really stuck I try to start

with like what is the smallest thing

that you can do and I'm not the only one

right? People will say that and what you

really have to understand is there's one

very simple principle which is that the

person that you will wake up as tomorrow

is influenced by the actions that you

take today and the really tricky thing

is there is that if you're very very

ashamed or you have a lot of mental

problems right I don't mean that like in

a bad way like as in like oh you have a

lot of mental problem like I mean

literally if your mind has many

different difficulties that exist within

it I want you to think about how many

days have you had that contrib

contribute to your state of mind and

generally speaking you need a lot to fix

that now the good news is it's nowhere

near 1:1 with intentional effort I think

somewhere between 10 to 25% of the time

that things have been bad is how long it

takes to fix so if someone has been

depressed for 10 years I think it takes

somewhere between one and and 2 and 1/2

years to fix that that's like my back of

the napkin clinical experience it's a

lot of work but with intentional little

effort, it can be done. Hey y'all, hope

you enjoyed today's video. We talk about

a bunch of topics like this on the

channel, so be sure to subscribe for

more. If you're already subscribed, GG

and we'll see you in chat.