i tested positive for the coronavirus

and that

is why you didn't hear from me last week

i said i was going to do this podcast

every single monday

we got off to a bit of a rocky start

because during last week's podcast i

actually

had the virus and i didn't know and it

turns out my

pa had the virus my cameraman who's over

there also had the virus my whole team

around me tested positive for the virus

at the same time and none of us knew

and in terms of the experience that i

had with the virus i had one or two

tricky days there was

one day in particular last week where i

had mild flu symptoms

and then i started to get this really

bizarre muscular pain in my back

and i remember it being three or four

a.m in the morning and i'm lying in bed

thinking how do i stop this pain in my

back

and i ordered um ibuprofen and i think

like painkillers on

delivery which were delivered to my door

at 4am

and that night i remember pulling my

pillows off my bed and sleeping on the

floor of my bedroom to try and

straighten out my back

weird symptoms to get i know um but

that's the virus

the symptoms are so unpredictable and

crazy my assistant lost her taste and

smell which is quite a popular one

jack had a bunch of cold symptoms and

things like that as well but

thankfully we all recovered and that

isn't always the case

and a lot of people especially people

that are a little bit more vulnerable

and have

pre-existing conditions aren't always

that lucky

but it made me reflect it made me

reflect on the craziness

of the world right now isn't it nuts

isn't it absolutely bonkers what's

happened over these last seven or eight

months

all of the lockdowns all of the

restrictions the travel restrictions the

the redundancies the the battles the

political battles it's

absolutely crazy it's been the most

crazy seven months of my life without

exception and hard times

as much as they suck in the moment they

teach us important lessons

and there's some lessons which i've

learned more starkly than others which i

wanted to talk about today

the things that i've been writing about

here in my diary and i'm going to start

there this week i'm going to share one

of the key lessons that i've learnt with

you

so without further ado i'm stephen

butler

and this is the diary of a ceo i hope

nobody is listening

but if you are then please keep this to

yourself

okay so the first thing in my diary this

week is just a lesson that i've learned

because

of this pandemic and because of all the

restrictions and the lockdowns i've just

written in my diary

learn how to contrast in the right

direction let me explain what i mean

you know i had this moment this week

where i started really thinking about

all of the things that i miss and to be

honest i keep slipping back into these

thoughts

you know in the uk and in the us at the

moment what we're seeing is the

government start to talk about further

restrictions and

returning to the lockdowns that we had

in march and every time i hear these

stories and i go on twitter and i see

the headlines i start to reminisce

over my old life you know and i miss

going to the theater i miss how fun my

weekends with my friends used to be i

miss

you know as a big manchester united fan

i miss going to old trafford and

watching my team play

i miss new york city which is where i

lived before

all of this craziness happened and

before they shut the borders and stopped

me getting back in

i miss speaking on stage i used to

travel around the world

speaking to thousands of people in every

corner of the globe i miss being in the

office

with hundreds of our team members

building the business together i miss

my old life but i'm sure i'm sure that

many of you listening to this have

reminisced over your old life and the

things that you miss

in the last few weeks and months pretty

you know

unavoidably and typically when we

do this in a more subconscious way

without really thinking about it

we arrive at a place of sadness a place

of

self-pity a place of grief at least i

know i did

you know and i almost honestly

this is kind of embarrassing to admit

you'll understand why i think this is

embarrassing now that i say it

i almost started feeling sorry for

myself and this

for the love of god is why you have to

interrogate your own thinking

and let me just interrogate exactly what

i've just said to you about all of the

things i miss and let me

try and reframe all of those things

through another perspective

when this global pandemic happened i was

a 27 year old guy

who was able to go to the theater go to

old trafford and watch my favorite team

play

whenever i wanted to i lived in a

beautiful apartment in new york city

eating at the best restaurants in the

world

traveling around the world in business

class getting paid to speak to thousands

of people on stage whilst running a

global business that was full of my

friends

the thing that took me from that is a

global pandemic which has killed

over a million people and it's

devastated people's livelihoods it

stripped them of their

generational family businesses and it's

plunged them into desperation

right now many people can't even pay the

bills

feed their kids many people can't even

bear the thought of their future

meanwhile all of my family are healthy i

have work

i have freedom i can feed myself right

now there are more people than

ever praying for the family praying for

the health praying for the opportunities

and praying for the life

that i have right now and that you have

right now

and then and when you start to think

about it like that

it changes things and if you think about

it like that you'll probably arrive at

the conclusion that 2020

shouldn't make you feel sorry for

yourself it should make you feel so

unbelievably grateful

and this is the power of contrast when

you contrast your life in the wrong

direction you can make yourself

miserable like i did

you know i was on the verge of wallowing

in self-pity because i couldn't go to

the

theater anymore because i couldn't go to

old trafford and watch my

because i didn't get on business class

flights and get to fly to every corner

of the world

even [ __ ] privileged [ __ ] like me

can make the mistake

right so i can't imagine how easy it is

to make this mistake for everybody else

when you contrast your life

up as i was doing to the life you had

back in march

to someone more fortunate than you to

someone that's prettier than you on

instagram or to someone that looks more

successful

than you from the outside you'll quickly

arrive at a place of self-pity

and ungratefulness which is the quickest

way to unhappiness

but if you contrast your life down to

the billions and billions of people that

would do anything to be in your shoes

that would do anything to have the

health of their sick parents back

to have a warm home to have a fridge

full of food to have a secure job

then you'll arrive at gratitude and

honestly gratitude in my life has been

one of the best ways i've

ever known to be happy the world we see

and how we see it is a direct result of

contrast

and the contrast games that you play

every day if you

stroll through the corridor of a

hospital and you peer into the

the wards and you peer in and look at

the different patients

what you'll see is people sick and

suffering and in some cases

unfortunately dying

and suddenly because of that contrast

you'll feel so grateful for your good

health and we i do this all the time

you know i had this problem a couple

years ago with one of my ears where i

woke up one day and there was this faint

ringing sound in my right ear and at

first i thought it was nothing i thought

it would pass

but after two days my ear was still

ringing i go on google i google it

comes up as something called tinnitus or

tinnitus right and it and i'm reading

through these forums of people saying

that they've had it for their entire

lives it came out of nowhere and it

ruined their lives

it stopped them from sleeping it made

them depressed it stopped them from

focusing

it fundamentally changed their lives and

after 10 days of my ear just ringing

non-stop

faintly i came to terms with the fact

that i was gonna have this for the rest

of my life

and i couldn't stop thinking about it

because when your ears always ringing

it's hard

to ignore right and i couldn't sleep

properly and i started to worry

and in that moment after two weeks of

one of my ears ringing

i can't tell you how much i

longed and wished for my normal hearing

back

for just normal ears for that ringing to

cease and it made me feel so ungrateful

that it took an element where my ear

would just ring constantly for me to

suddenly feel grateful for

my eyesight my ears the fact that i can

walk that i have ten fingers that i can

think

and that's the way that contrasts work

you know the same applies for the

technology in our lives those old

nokia brick phones were the best thing

ever in a world

that didn't have the iphone in it and

your life right now

in the midst of the pandemic in what

month are we in october

is such an amazing privileged life

in a world where you can't remember your

old one the one you had back in march

this year taught me that the grass will

always look

greener on the other side until you

start watering the side that you're on

right now and that's really all you can

do

contrasting up is just such a deadly sin

that we all need to avoid especially in

moments like this

we all have to be aware conscious and

mindful of how we're contrasting because

the world is a crazy place and there's

no guarantee that it's not going to get

crazier right

and if you continue to contrast up

you'll contrast

yourself into depression and despair and

misery and self-pity

like i nearly did like i nearly did when

i started reflecting on my old life and

telling myself all of all of the things

that i missed not the things that i have

having control of your contrast can

fundamentally change the way you see the

world and if it can change the way you

see the world

it can change how you feel and if it can

change how you feel then

it can change your life let's move on

i have a secret to tell you and this is

the second point in my diary this week

it's a secret that i only found out

and started to deeply understand

recently when i say recently i mean

the last 24 months it's a secret that i

really started to understand

honestly being completely honest with

you when i got rich and when i got

rich friends and those rich friends

pulled back

a certain curtain and allowed me to see

behind it i'd always heard about this

i'd always heard that there's

another curtain i heard joe rogan did a

a podcast with um

kevin hart and on the podcast kevin hart

talks about meeting jeff bezos and

realizing that there's this other

level there's this other curtain which

some people have access to

and the more wealthy that i got and the

more you know wealthy people that

started to

to surround me i started to understand

what kevin hart meant

and i started to understand what that

secret is here is the secret

access to information and

information itself that is the real

privilege in this world that's the thing

if your rich parent gives you money

that's like them giving you a fish right

but if they

pull you into the family business and

show you how it works

they're giving you a fishing rod money

is efficient life and information is a

fishing rod and only one of those things

will feed you for a lifetime

and when you get to the level that i'm

at now and you have access to a new

level of information you're

associating with a different level of

person

you realize how much you didn't know

before and you didn't know

because you don't know what you don't

know it they are unknown unknowns

and so back then i was kind of naive i

just thought i knew

everything and where i'm at now i

started to wonder

why no one told me this stuff the stuff

i know now about wealth and finance and

about how these systems work

and you start to realize why the rich

get richer and why the poor

stay poor information and access to

information obviously there's a ton of

systemic issues which are controlling

things but for me

information and access to information is

the single biggest one

when i made my first million i started

studying wealth right and i started

studying investing in finance and i

started to get really obsessed with how

i could turn the money i had into a lot

more money

i started speaking to more millionaires

and billionaires i started spending more

time with billionaires and i got to see

what i refer to to my close friends as

money games

the games that they play and how they

double triple and quadruple their money

just by having certain information and

this is information that most of us

don't have we aren't given we aren't let

in we aren't allowed to see behind the

curtain

and these are games that i never knew

when i was broke games they didn't teach

you

or me in school games that really rich

people have no incentive to teach you

because they're too

busy playing them the people that sell

money and those finance courses on

instagram they aren't rich

right they're selling new courses on

instagram if they knew a better way to

make money they wouldn't be

spending their time selling you courses

on instagram but there's another level

there's another level of information

which is what i think kevin hart was

referring to when he spoke about being

able to peer in behind the

curtain and you know i'm gonna really

disappoint you here after what was

probably one of the biggest

build ups that i've ever done on this

podcast because i don't have enough

time in the hour or so that we have on

this podcast to teach you everything

that i've come to learn

and to be honest even if i did i don't

think that's the most

valuable thing that i could give you in

this hour that we have together today

just like money is a fish right me

telling you today's information is also

a bit of a fish

because things change quite quickly in

the world and even if i could tell you

everything i knew now

about money games it would at some point

expire

it would very quickly change i think the

most valuable

important fishing rod that i could give

you in this hour is in fact a change of

mindset

i think if i can get you to realize that

your monetary

future value and how rich you'll be in

your life is perhaps somewhat equal to

the value of the information you have in

your brain

then maybe maybe just maybe you'll start

to value information and learning and

the pursuit of knowledge

even more and in the world we live in we

all have

access to the to the same information

pretty much

but most of us still don't understand

the true value of it

one of the greatest privileges i think i

could ever give to my future kids

is to teach them the value of learning

gaining experience acquiring information

and

self-education which is something we can

all do now because we all have google

right we all have the internet we all

have social media we will have youtube

you know you're doing it right now some

of you that are watching this online i

think we tend to

over value short-term financial

incentives and

undervalue learning opportunities which

will give us that long-term value

advantage

and all of the young people and even

some of the slightly old people that i

get a chance to mentor

this is one of the key lessons i try and

teach them is to be able to spot

short-term value from long-term value

you know and i'm going to go off peace

just a little bit here and i'm going to

tell you a bit of a personal story

um that happened to me actually quite

recently uh and this is the you know

this podcast is the home of the truth so

make sure you do keep this to yourself i

had a a young person

in their early 20s asked to come and

work with me and when i say work with me

i don't mean

you know in the same building as me i

mean with me and because of the

lockdowns and the way the world is

all of my sort of real close team are

literally working with me in my home

or in you know in a small um co-working

space and

this was a in my opinion a fairly unique

opportunity right because we're gonna be

sat together pretty much every day

and they were so persistent that

eventually i ended up offering them

a job and i offered them a job on the

same salary the same wage that they're

earning right now in their current role

and i offered them a guaranteed pay rise

in 60 days time and they effectively

turned the offer down because they

wanted a little bit more money now

and whatever i say from this point

onwards is going to sound petty

and biased and bitter i have no other

way of saying it i'm just gonna be

honest with you

honestly from what i know about their

situation

and from what i know about where they

wanted to go in their career and as

impartially as i could possibly be

that was a [ __ ] stupid decision just

just purely based on the fact

that if you sit next to me or someone

that's fortunate enough to have the

access to the

level of information that i have access

to someone that is willing to give you

that information

and information that's probably going to

help you fulfill the goals that you have

[ __ ] a 2k pay rise that information can

quite

literally make you a millionaire too and

i've seen it make people

millionaires you know much of the reason

why i'm sat here as a millionaire

is because i got to sit next to people

who had gone on the journey that i

wanted to go on

and that's what i mean we tend to

overvalue the short-term financial

incentives and undervalue the learning

opportunities which will give us

long-term value knowing how to make spot

the difference and knowing which is

which will change your life

and sometimes you have to play a long

game you have to delay that

gratification you have to hold off on

that

2k pay rise because the situation you're

in is giving you

real long-term value your long-term

future will be better

if you make long-term decisions or your

life will be slightly better in the

short term if you make short-term

decisions but then your long-term future

is compromised and that's what delaying

gratification is you have to learn to do

that in your careers too

i'm gonna close off this point by

telling you the easiest

simplest change that i've made in my

life to radically radically increase

the amount of information and the amount

of good quality information that i'm

exposed to

one small change but before i tell you

we're going to play a little game

just imagine for a second that you could

pick up an imaginary phone in front of

you and you could just

listen in to the world's smartest minds

the world's smartest minds in

in fitness in business in finance

spirituality and philosophy just imagine

imagine if you could be a fly on the

wall as they discuss

ideas as they seek to understand the

world and as they

talk about what they know and as they

play their money games and enrich

themselves imagine how transformative

that would be

imagine how much that information would

change your life it would change your

health

your happiness and probably your wealth

and imagine if all of that

that access to information was free

it is free that's twitter that's social

media

that's youtube you can literally watch

and listen to the smartest people in the

world

think discuss and ideate so that's big

the question you have to be honest

why the [ __ ] do you still follow jenny

from 10 years ago who you do not give a

f

about as she publicly complains to some

customer service rep on twitter

about her t-mobile data plan being

expensive and slow or

kylie jenner as she publicly advertises

the results of her

plastic surgery and demolishes your

self-esteem in the process all that

clown on facebook that tries to convince

you that 5g internet

the coronavirus and bill gates were all

part of some illuminati conspiracy

theory

why are you choosing that information

why are you allowing

junk to seep into your mental diet where

is that information going to take you

information is the privilege and you

have to be the gatekeeper

and the unapologetic defender of the

information that you consume

i've said this before and in fact it's

proven to be so important in my life

that i'm gonna keep saying it until

i feel like you're listening to me who

you follow online especially if you're

someone that spends hours of day

on the internet and social media like i

do is the single biggest

influence on your life for the love of

god

follow better and unfollow faster

my trick which i'm going to give to you

is i basically mute

everyone 90 of the people on my

instagram are muted probably near 95

percent

i just don't see their stuff i don't see

their stories i don't see their posts

because usually it's actually not that

helpful to me

50 of the people on my twitter are muted

and i'm muting people because

just like you there are real world

consequences of you know unfollowing

friends and people and family and things

like that so i just mute them

it's a nice middle ground where they

don't know and they don't need to know

right

and if i start talking [ __ ] online i

give you permission to unfollow me to

please subscribe to this podcast but i

give you permission to unfollow me too

and this has changed my life honestly

it's the simplest thing the simplest

decision

that has had the single biggest impact

on my life i'm

definitely smarter happier and more

professionally capable because of it

so if there is a small thing that you

can do now to really change the most

important influence on your life it's to

go through your social media timelines

and

every time you see someone who isn't

contributing

towards the values or the information

that you want to consume

boom mew but and here comes a very

important caveat you have to be careful

not to unfollow or mute people just

because they disagree with your opinion

a few years ago if i saw someone in my

timeline that overtly supported like a

different political party

or had a completely opposing opinion to

mine all just like strongly disagreed

with issues that i really care about

i would just unfollow them boom bye

felicia and i think i did that because i

didn't want to feel the frustration that

i felt when i logged in

and saw their posts and tweets and also

i didn't want to keep biting and arguing

and debating with them online

but when you think about that decision

logically it's a pretty terrible

decision

all i'm doing by doing that is narrowing

my world view

and i'm building reinforcing this echo

chamber around me

which is full of people who believe

everything i already believe

and the fundamental truth that we all

have to have the intellectual strength

to believe

is that often there really is no right

or wrong

everything is really just a bunch of

perspectives that's what the world is

full of

very very few things are a case of right

or wrong we'll probably all agree that

the sky is blue

but as it relates to the way the world

should be run our political opinions how

people should be treated

there's typically quite a lot of

variants and

those perspectives that perfectly agree

with yours are actually

the least valuable they're not going to

challenge you or broaden your

perspective or teach you anything

only the perspectives that differ from

yours can do that

whether they differ because they're you

know a little bit more developed on your

opinions or

because they disagree but it's not easy

and i'd be lying to you if i pretend

that it was i've

genuinely and i this is a weekly battle

i've genuinely struggled to keep people

on my social media timelines within my

social media bubble

that say things i really disagree with

and that support ideas that i despise

but i also think if i'm being completely

honest with myself

i'm better off because of it listen i'm

not i'm not going to let ryan on

facebook tell me that 5g internet caused

coronavirus

but i am going to fill my social bubble

and my circle online

with people who honestly disagree people

who can respectfully

explain why they disagree and people who

view the world differently to me

you know i i hope this is the last time

that i make this point

on this podcast but it just keeps coming

to the front of my mind so if you've not

cleansed your social media following

please do it now i really really hope

this is the last time i feel like

if i can convince you to do this now

today this week

it will be for some of you the greatest

thing i was

ever able to do for you the greatest

gift i can give you for listening to

this podcast

also you know turn all the unifications

off all of them

but we'll save that topic for another

time

okay so the third point in my diary is

about changing the shape of your brain

you can change the shape of your brain

what a load of nonsense over the

over the last couple of years i've heard

a lot of people people that i respect a

lot

including tom bill you who came on this

podcast tell me

that you can quite literally change the

shape of your brain

and at first i'll be honest i thought

this was potentially some

you know some of that self-development

fluff and nonsense that we read a lot

about you know the

hocus pocus nonsense [ __ ] um and i

thought to myself how could you possibly

change the shape and composition of your

brain

without having some type of evasive

surgery but i hold my hands up it turns

out i was wrong and i wasn't just a

little bit wrong i was really really

really really wrong

over the last few months as i've gone on

the journey of writing my book which is

coming out called happy sexy millionaire

the unexpected truth about fulfillment

love and success which you can get right

now on amazon

i started to develop a bit of an

obsession

with neuroscience and i'm not gonna i'm

not gonna go do too deep into the

science because you don't necessarily

need to know that stuff

but i'm to tell you about some of the

things that i learned on that journey

and particularly one thing that changed

my life

and here it is our brains are malleable

just like play-doh and our experiences

determine their shape

this process is almost best compared to

physical exercise where

you know 30 reps today isn't going to

make you super muscular and big right

but 30 reps every day for a year will

and the same is true for your brain the

science says that whatever you focus

your mind upon be

anger or self-doubt or fear your brain

will eventually

literally change in shape and i sound

like i'm talking nonsense i can hear

myself saying this it sounds like

some hocus-pocus magic but i promise you

this is the truth

and listen i'm if you know me you know

i'm just as immune to self-development

nonsense and fluff as you are so i only

share things with you that i think are

fundamentally true and that's supported

by some kind of evidence let me give you

an example if you're a compulsive

warrior the science shows that your

brain will quite literally change

to become a finely tuned anxiety and

worry machine you'll get your brain will

become

tuned for worry and i've looked through

the research i've looked at before and

after pictures of brain scans of people

who've overcome

worry and addiction and negative

thinking about themselves and other more

serious psychological conditions and

honestly blew my socks off

i've always believed that we are you

know we are what we think

but the science shows us that we quite

literally from a neurological

perspective

become what we think you know i read

this great piece

online by this neurological expert

called brian penny and he has this lab

where they've worked on being able to

predict the age of your brain just by

looking at it on brain scans

and your brain age is associated with

increased mortality risk cognitive

decline

increased risk of dementia and overall

general

poorer physical functioning they can

literally see

how a life change that you make a

decision you make in your life will

change the shape of your brain over a

number of years

they can see how a person that gives up

x y or zed

then has a completely different brain

just a few years later

just like how if you stopped going to

the gym or you started going to the gym

you'd have a completely different body a

few years later

and they've identified a number of

methods just

simple everyday choices and cognitive

tools that science suggests

can positively change the shape of your

brain i'm just going to tell you about

one of them today and it's the one that

fascinated me the most

it's called observation without

engagement

this is basically what they call

self-observation which is a

pretty big part of meditation if you've

ever meditated you'll understand this

and it really helps you do exactly that

it involves like mindfully observing

your thoughts and your feelings and your

bodily sensations

the best example i can give you is you

know if i asked you to observe

right now how how tense your body feels

instantly you might you know take a step

back and start focusing on your sore toe

or the tightness in your chest or that

headache

which you didn't notice before but you

can only notice when you start to

observe yourself

if i ask you to observe your thoughts

and your feelings you can also do that

too you might start to think about

the things you're worrying about or that

particular unsolved situation in your

life or about your family's health

because of this virus

the things that are going on

subconsciously which you didn't really

notice

about that big decision on your future

which you're procrastinating making

the point is you can take an observer's

perspective

on your anxious thoughts on your

feelings and on your bodily sensations

you don't have to try and live inside of

the problem all the time you don't have

to live inside of your feelings or your

emotions

and when you do this don't try and

engage you're not supposed to try and

fix it just

observe let me give you another metaphor

which i think explains this best it's

called the clouds metaphor

imagine your thoughts and feelings or

bodily sensations

as just clouds that are floating through

the sky and sometimes those clouds are

dark sometimes they're

angry sometimes it's you know raining

and sometimes they're light and

sometimes they're calm and thin

but you're not the clouds you're the

blue sky who just observes the clouds as

they're passing without engaging in them

you simply

observe and you let them pass you by and

as the 20-something ceo of a big

company who knows that every time i look

at my emails and my whatsapp in the

morning there's gonna be

a ton of unpredictable yet unfortunately

inevitable [ __ ] not just small

[ __ ] severe [ __ ] i'm talking

ruin your day [ __ ]

[ __ ] that can rear its head from any

corner or person

in a global business of 700 people as as

that guy

this mechanism has quite literally saved

me i really really believe that and from

my conversations with dom

who's my business partner who's been

with me this whole time you know which i

had on this podcast in chapter 10 where

he described that running the business

made him an alcoholic made him anxious

and made him

experience some pretty severe mental

health problems i genuinely believe

that this this technique was the

fundamental difference between me and

him

self-observation which is something that

for some reason i've always defaulted to

we both had the same intense stressful

experience over the last 10 years

but in his words i survived it and he

nearly didn't

he said right and this is a horrible

thing for me to talk about he said

he considered jumping in front of a

train and killing himself

because things at one point were so

almost unbearable

and the difference is here it's in your

mind and the mechanisms you rely on to

deal with your portion of unpredictable

life [ __ ] which is coming your way

whether you like it or not

i've said in this podcast before that i

viewed the hardest moments in my life as

as

really a video game i naturally and

again

i don't want to take too much credit for

this because it's not something that i

did consciously i naturally adopted this

strange

video game mindset where i would almost

see

the situation i was in like a game of

chess like i was removed

from it when things got really really

hard i told myself without thinking

about it

that this was all just a game yeah like

a like a game of chess

and i'm not the pieces on the chessboard

because they can be killed i'm the

person responsible for moving the pieces

and whatever happens i'll be fine just

like

you know like a game of call of duty i'm

not the character in the screen running

with the gun

the one at danger of standing on a land

mine i'm the person holding the

controller sat at home

and even if i stand on a land mine or

two that's fine i can just

restart and rejuvenate and you know go

again

and for me this perspective which is

very similar to what i've described with

this self-observation

was the most liberating thing in my

whole career it allowed me to develop my

own calm within any form of chaos and it

allowed me

to think clearly without being clouded

by emotion and if you're

a ceo if you're running a business

that's so incredibly important

and i genuinely also think that my

business partner don was inside the game

he was the pawn on the chessboard he was

the soldier running through the

battlefield in the call of duty he was

taking

the enemy fire so he internalized that

pain he internalized the stress and he

became the conflict

and honestly nobody can survive that

nobody not even me

but fortunately for whatever reason i

was removing myself

and that helped self-observation isn't

just handy for

increasing your like self-awareness it

genuinely provides you with a sense of

detachment in the most

challenging situations you'll find

yourself in instead of being controlled

by the situation and the thoughts that

come with the situation

and all of those feelings it gave you

gives you this ability to

hold out in front of you to observe it

and to let it come

and to let it go without impacting you

too much

and the brain research they've done on

this topic completely supports this

they've studied the part of your brain

that becomes active

when you're drifting from thought to

thought and overthinking and worrying

and they've seen clearly how this can

have a detrimental impact on your

personal well-being

and over a number of years the shape of

your brain

they've then also observed how that

attachment which you can achieve from

self-observation and that video game

mindset where

you become the sky not the clouds can

quiet that part of your brain

and there's one particular study that

shows that people who meditate have

reduced activity

in that part of their brain versus

people that don't meditate

and listen when we talk about meditation

i was a bit of a skeptic on the whole

topic

meditation doesn't have to be sitting

with your legs crossed

humming to yourself right it can

literally just be taking a few minutes

out to relax

and pause and for me meditation is

usually in the form of a massage it's

the time where

i can stop i can pause and i can detach

and that for me is crucial crucial

crucial for

everybody no matter what walk of life

you're in you have to find your paws

and listen this isn't going to stop you

getting anxious or worried or stressed

but

learning the habit of self-observation

and that video game mindset and becoming

the sky as i'll call it

will allow your problems to come go and

limit the impact they have on you

without having to always engage in them

and therefore

making them worse than they have to be

without making a mountain

out of what could have just been a

molehill

for the next point in my diary i've just

written less answers and more

questions you know so much of the the

self-development career progression

advice that i got when i was younger

told me to speak up more

you know make sure i'm heard and to get

my point across whenever i can and i'm

telling you

the older i've got and the further i've

traveled in the business world the more

i've learned that that's really

shitty advice in the real world it's

impressive

to know an answer of course but it's

also impressive to admit that you don't

it's impressive to say and to have the

sense of yourself to say

i don't know to say you're probably

right to say

that's not my area of expertise to say i

don't know but i'm going to find out or

just to remain silent the least

impressive thing you can do is

speak for the sake of speaking we all

know people like this and they typically

do that because they are insecure

and because they think if they have

nothing to say then they're not very

valuable

we all have this contribution reputation

let me call it a contribution score

you won't know what your contribution

score is but you'll probably know the

score of the people around you the

people in your friendship groups and in

your family

you'll know that person within your

friendship group or a colleague at work

that just seems to speak for the sake of

speaking and most of the time

when they add something to the

conversation people kind of like roll

their eyes and

you know and they think to themselves

that was a really dumb thing to say

and it gets to the point that before

they speak everyone in the room presumes

it's going to be something dumb again or

weird or

unhelpful or irrelevant i think you'll

know that person

and that is because their contribution

score is low

that is what a contribution score is it

really really matters because if you

constantly speak

for the sake of speaking or you you know

you speak when you're not informed on a

topic

people will gradually stop listening to

you they will receive your id

ideas with a pre-conceived bias

that you're probably going to say

something that doesn't matter and so

your ideas suffer

even if they're good because of that

preconceived bias and that preconceived

opinion of what you have to say

so even when you do have something

valuable to add

everybody will disregard it they'll

pre-devalue it

before it's even come out of your mouth

and that's because just like a credit

score we all have a contribution score

and in that case it's because you've

ruined yours by always feeling the need

to chime in

even when you don't know what you're

talking about even when you shouldn't

if you don't know the answer to

something at least know the value of

admitting that you don't

or staying quiet as someone that's you

know had the pleasure and sometimes

displeasure of working in boardrooms and

in creative brainstorms

and in intense investor meetings with

big personalities and sometimes

competitive personalities for the last

decade i've seen how someone

you know can ruin their contribution

score by constantly feeling the need to

say something or add something when they

don't know the answer

and when this isn't their field of

expertise and i've also seen the

opposite i've seen people who will sit

and listen humbly and just observe and

often

learn and the people that walk out of

the room with their respect and

contribution score intact to always

those that are secure enough to admit

that they

don't know and to in many cases stay

quiet and the ones that lose respect

are those that try and pretend they know

something that isn't in their field of

expertise

or that they know something about

usually because they're insecure and

this is why as a general rule for life

it's always better to have more

questions than you have answers and to

be able to admit

when you don't have the answers your

contribution score really really matters

and i think you come to learn that the

further you go

in your career it's the thing that for

me made investors believe me

you know this this notion i think they

have in their head which is when stephen

speaks

it's probably something informed and

something worth listening to

it's the things that you know makes

employees trust you as a ceo

it's a thing that as a colleague earns

respect

and ultimately if you have the humility

to learn to listen

in areas that are outside your expertise

it'll be the thing that expands your

knowledge

and again that that will change your

life

and this brings me to the next point in

my diary and i've written in my diary

what are some of the most important

questions

i ask myself regularly and i when i say

this i mean in all areas of my life

if it's more important to know the right

question to ask them to have the answer

what are the questions that you should

ask yourself every single day

and um the first one in my diary

is which part of this situation can i

control you know as a ceo but just as a

human being that's living life like we

all are

there are so many times where i

encounter a situation of conflict or

stress or chaos

um and i'm desperate to fix it and i

start committing

energy to trying to solve the problem

usually

and this is something that i've come to

learn there's really only like three or

four things that i can control in this

situation

and if i know what those things are i

can

invest my energy in those levers in

pulling those levers

and that gives me the best chance of

getting out of the situation

it also is a great tool for liberating

yourself from all of the stress

of worrying about things that are

completely outside of your control and

that you can do nothing about

and i've done this over the last two

years in particular where i will hone in

and i will sometimes even write in my

diary the two or three things in the

situation i'm in now that i that i can

control

gives me that clarity it liberates me

from stress and it focuses me

on the things that will actually help me

get out of the situation

i'm in and the second question which i

ask myself religiously at least once a

day

and is actually held as a permanent

point on my to-do list

is what am i avoiding right now this is

something that i

i dare you to try and ask yourself every

day because for me

understanding what i'm avoiding helps me

overcome it and as near ielts said on

this podcast we are creatures that

seek to avoid discomfort so there's

nearly always a reason

why i'm procrastinating or avoiding

something and if i can become

conscious about that thing and the

psychological discomfort that's

making me avoid it it helps me to

overcome it and usually the things we

avoid are actually really really

important

and that's part of the reason they're

causing us discomfort so that's a

question that i recommend

everybody asks themselves every day make

a list of the things you want to ask

yourself the first is what part of this

situation can i control

and the second is what am i avoiding the

third is what would my idols think about

this decision and this is a question

which i religiously ask myself when i'm

facing

a big life choice because i think we all

understand the values and the principles

that our idols lived by we study you

know we study their lives we

read their books their podcasts whatever

we understand the way that they think

but when we're in a situation when we're

facing a big decision

sometimes we kind of relapse back to

our own innate fear-driven

decision-making mechanisms

and we lose sight of how our idols the

people we want to be like

would make that decision so every time i

make a big

life decision i almost like interrogate

it against what i know that my idols

would do because my idols are my idols

because they have

values that i admire and so if i can

kind of

sense check my own decision-making

against what i think they would do which

is sometimes

easier than knowing the right thing to

do i tend to make a better decision

and the next question i religiously ask

myself is what would future steve think

of this decision

and this question is super handy to ask

yourself whenever you can

because future you is going to pay the

price for the decisions you make today

so future you is quite a selfish person

they want to be they want to have a

six-pack they want to be super smart

they want to be rich

and that is almost all of our north star

our future self

and so if you ask yourself genuinely ask

yourself the question

what would future steve the happiest

version the best version of me

think about this decision i'm about to

make to eat this entire

double pizza to myself

usually that allows you to see if this

decision you're about to make is in line

with your values

and the next question that i like to ask

myself regularly

is if i'm saying yes to this thing then

what am i saying no to

i think it was steve jobs who once said

that it's only by saying no to things

that you can concentrate on what's

important in your life

and i love this line because it really

helped me to realize the potency of that

question

be it in our relationships or our career

or in our health or in our mental health

um i think it's important and i think we

need to reflect on what we hold most

dear

now in this moment in order to live a

life and to attain a future

that is in line with our values and we

need to become aware of how a yes

decision is going to prevent us from

doing other things

that we also consider to be relatively

important it's a question that

appreciates

that you can't do everything and be

everything and that life is about

prioritization

prioritizing the things that are most

important and so before i say yes to

something

i like to consider all of the things

that i'm saying no to as a consequence

of that yes it helps me to make better

decisions today

and it's a sign a signal and a nod

to how much i respect the limited amount

of time i have

and the last question which i've written

in my diary

that i ask myself religiously is a much

more direct question which is

does this thing align with my values you

know people often make decisions that

don't

align with their values i know that i do

it every day and there are

tons of reasons people do this you know

they uh they binge on alcohol

they they smoke 20 cigarettes a day they

have

big mac you can't have a big mac pizza

they have big mac burgers and domino's

pizzas

religiously even though they know that

their future values of health and being

around to see their kids grow up

and those kinds of things are in

conflict with those short-term

detrimental actions

and often we do this because we don't

stop to ask ourselves this simple

question and we don't really stop to

think about this simple question

which is how does this short-term

decision

align with my long-term values next time

you're doing something

and it doesn't feel quite right and it

feels a little bit naughty ask yourself

how it's serving

what you value most in life and that

having you know

the obsession i have now with

continually cross-checking

the decisions i'm about to make versus

the person i want to be or the life i

want to attain

has been transformative for me honestly

it's really really changed my life

and i'm going to throw in a bonus

question i did say that was the last one

but i'm going to give you a bonus

question which i've just

i've just been thinking about it's a

little bit cliche but i promise you it's

helped me

overcome you know some of the most

fearful moments of my life

the question is what's the worst that

will happen if i attempt this and i

remember being

really really young 16 years old when

someone first asked me to speak on stage

and then 17 and then 18 and then the

stage is getting bigger and the audience

is getting bigger i remember one day

speaking in barcelona in front of about

10

000 people and being stood backstage and

starting to feel a little bit of that

anxiety which we all feel

and i i for some reason just like the

video game mindset which i've talked

about in this podcast

i default to asking myself what is the

worst thing that can happen

and i don't just ask myself that

question in the cliche way that friend

might turn to you and say

i genuinely run through the process of

what you know

what is the worst thing that can happen

i could walk up on stage and as i'm

walking on stage

i trip on the first step i fall i smash

my face

my trousers come down people see my

underwear and my you know my willy

and i walk up on stage and then i

deliver the worst speech in my life

and people start walking out and

throwing stuff at me and i walk off

stage and

and to be honest it's nearly always the

case that the worst thing that can

happen

isn't actually as bad as you think we

tend to you know before we

confront it and rationalize it that way

and look at it in that way

we tend to i guess think it's death i

think i think we think we're gonna die

and everyone's gonna hate us and

and then you ask yourself this sub

question which is if the worst thing

that i think could happen happens what

is the long-term impact of that on my

life

and even if i fell on the step hit my

you know hit my eye

walked on stage with a bleeding eye and

then did the worst speech of my life

it doesn't actually have any long-term

impact on my life okay i wouldn't get

booked to speak there again but the

the material long-term impact of my life

is pretty much

nil and so it doesn't make sense to be

fearful because the

worst possible outcome has no long

long-term impact on your life

and for me that's the question that i

really hold dear and it's a question

that i still turn to

in moments of intense pressure and fear

um fear of failure and i think it's a

question that can change your life

if you're a very fearful person those

are my questions

and i i am i think it's important to

have questions and be armed with

questions because as i

say in life it turns out that having the

questions is much more important than

having all the answers

okay so the last point in my diary this

week is it's just a sentence and i'm

going to read that sentence to you

the thing that invalidates you when

you're younger will be the things you

seek validation from when you're an

adult and this is um

this is something that it really took me

about 30 years the 28 years i've been

alive to learn

um when i was younger as a lot of you

will know if you've listened to this

podcast before

i came from a background in a family

that didn't have a whole lot of

money right we were pretty much bankrupt

for my whole

um my whole childhood at least the last

part of my my

my time living at home we lived in a

house that was beat up

um the window on the front of our house

was smashed for a good decade so

you know you'd get the draught coming in

from outside we live my back garden

the grass in the background is about six

foot high and there are fridges and

tv sets and all kinds of nonsense in

there in fact the back half of my house

was actually knocked down because i

think at one point my mom thought we had

the money to do a renovation

but we didn't have the money so they

just the builders just knocked the house

down and just left it as a derelict

house so one of the the doors you know

which used to go into one of the rooms

was actually would just actually take

you outside

and we just removed the handle so that

no one could really break into our house

the front of our house was the same we

had you know the grass was

you know a good meter and a half high at

times and it was

fairly embarrassing um growing up as a

black kid in an all-white school who

already felt a little bit different

with my curly hair knowing that our

house also looked so

marked you know remarkably different and

that my life was remarkably different

from a financial perspective we didn't

have

um christmases and birthdays by the time

i was about 10 10 11 years old because

of the financial situation we're in

and i know that it created a real deep

insecurity within me i remember

christmas days

sat in my brother kevin's room on the

floor as we joked about the things we

were going to pretend we got for

christmas

you know like and i have to make i have

to to bring

context to this right like i know now as

an adult

that this was a terribly naive selfish

immature way to think

i know now that i should have been

looking at all the things i did have

which was a loving family

two parents that were together and loved

me a roof over my head

food on the table i know now that those

were the important things but back then

when you're a young little kid who

doesn't really understand the world you

feel sorry for yourself

you engage in self-pity and i did and i

would go to school embarrassed and i

would go to school and lie

about our financial situation and it

made me insecure it invalidated me

you know it was one of the the biggest

worries or you know

insecurities i had as a kid and so at 14

years old i started to

really really value money money for me

just felt so important

the lack of money we had in our life was

the reason that i had so much shame it

was the reason that

my mum and dad would scream at each

other so much about

our house and about our finances and

about christmas

and about all of these other things and

money was the problem so i grew up

thinking

and pretty obsessed with attaining money

or if i went to university at 18 years

old dropped out started a business to

try and make loads of money

and then when i finally got money set 21

22 years old

i had a really unhealthy relationship

with it

and i went to nightclubs and i spent i

think one year like 50 60

000 pounds on champagne in a nightclub

at 22 23 years old

just to try and impress people and then

i went out to the countryside and bought

this seven bedroom mansion with a

tennis court at the bottom of the garden

and two living rooms and an outhouse and

big gates and a 100 meter driveway

just to try and impress people and this

is

this is a force in our lives which will

ruin our lives

if we don't understand it and the thing

that i came to learn after literally

like 25 years

and after being a puppet you know the

puppet master being this thing that

happened to me as a kid

after being a puppet that didn't know

why he was doing what he was doing but

was just buying these tables and

nightclubs and

buying material things and trying to

show off to people

i came to learn that the thing that

invalidated me when i was younger

had become the thing that i sought

validation from

as an adult and that will be true for

you no matter what it is

no matter if it's romantic affection no

matter if it's validation

no matter if it's money no matter what

it is the thing that invalidated you

when you were younger

will be this the thing that you seek

validation from as an adult and until

you understand

what that thing is it risks being the

number one thing

that can ruin your life i've like gone

through

every like corner of my childhood to try

and understand the things that made me

feel invalid

in order to understand some of the

forces that are in play

in my life right now as an adult and

honestly it has

liberated me i wrote in my diary one day

the reasons i'll go broke

and it was pretty much this it was

because i was broke

when i was a kid and because that

developed a really

you know psychological issue with money

where money for me became

a plaster it became the thing that would

make me feel the opposite to whatever

shame is

and i just think it's so important for

everyone to to think about the things

that happened when they were young

and to understand the forces that

invalidated them because if you don't

understand them and if you can't make

them conscious and

hold them out in front of you and

examine them they will control your life

subconsciously somewhere

and honestly i've got to be honest do i

think i'll ever really

overcome this unhealthy relationship i

had with money

i don't think i'll ever truly overcome

it completely

because it is so deeply hard-wired into

me

at a time in my life when i was so

impressionable and when every emotion

just seemed to cut more and carve into

me

but that's not really my aim my aim

isn't to overcome it my aim is to become

conscious of it

and if i can become conscious of it it

has less impact over me and fortunately

where i'm at in my life now i don't make

those stupid dumb decisions all of the

time

sometimes i make dumb decisions like i'm

not gonna pretend i'm some [ __ ] like

profit that you know lives their life

perfectly and always makes decisions

that are in line with their values

sometimes i do things to impress people

but it's like 99

less than i used to and that's because

i'm holding out

my sort of psychological relationship

with money in front of me

and i'm able to look at it and i'm able

to question myself and interrogate my

decisions against this known

flaw that i have in my psychology steve

why are you trying to buy a rolls royce

you don't really like rolls royces you

don't know anything about them because

you think oh yeah

because you think it's going to impress

somebody

because you think somewhere deep inside

of you that

child that had nothing will feel more

fulfilled if he has that range rover or

that rolls royce or that mansion

and whenever i go to make these big

decisions now

it's the first thing i think of so i

don't think i've overcome it

but i've definitely been able to

understand it and if you can understand

it if you can understand the thing that

invalidated you and your kid

that's as good as overcoming it and that

will help you stop seeking validation

from it as an adult

and that that will change your life

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oh

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you