If You're Struggling with LOW SELF-ESTEEM - WATCH THIS | Jay Shetty

Summary

The transcript discusses how ego manifests in both high and low self-esteem, with ego often driving extremes. The conversation delves into how ego pushes individuals to view themselves as either superior or inferior. It emphasizes that true balance comes from self-honesty and service to others, which shifts focus away from self-centeredness. By engaging in acts of service, individuals discover more about themselves and contribute meaningfully to others. The speaker also reflects on balancing personal goals with maintaining humility, highlighting the importance of focusing on the process rather than the outcome.

Takeaways

• 🤔 Low self-esteem and lack of confidence can be linked to ego, which manifests in extremes like thinking you're either the best or the worst.
• 📖 The Bhagavad Gita discusses ego as being at both extremes — either thinking you're superior or inferior to everyone else.
• 🎯 Ego seeks to put you either at the top or the bottom, distorting your sense of balance and self-awareness.
• 🛑 The antidote to ego is self-honesty, being truthful about what you're good at and what you're not.
• 🧠 Focusing on oneself and centering on personal pain reinforces ego and leads to more suffering.
• 💡 Serving others helps you learn more about yourself and can diminish the ego by shifting focus away from self-centeredness.
• 🧘 Success often comes from serving others by solving problems, whether through charity, music, or innovation.
• 📊 Balancing the desire for success with the need for humility requires focusing on the process, not the outcome.
• 📝 Writers and creators must detach from future results and focus on perfecting their craft in the present moment.
• 🔑 A meaningful life comes from purpose and service, and success is often a byproduct of focusing on helping others, not personal gain.

Q & A

What is the concept of ego as discussed in the script?

The ego is described as pushing individuals to extremes. It manifests either by making someone feel superior ('I am the best') or by making them feel inferior ('I am the worst'). The ego doesn't allow for balance or reality and always seeks to place the individual at the top or the bottom.

How does the ego relate to low self-esteem or lack of confidence?

The ego can still be present in people with low self-esteem or lack of confidence. It pushes them to feel like they have the worst life, or that they are worse than everyone else, reinforcing a self-centered focus that keeps them from finding balance and reality.

What is the antidote to ego, according to the script?

The antidote to ego is self-honesty. This involves acknowledging one's strengths, weaknesses, and areas where one is average. Honesty helps people avoid the extremes of ego, whether that is feeling superior or inferior.

How does focusing on oneself contribute to ego, even when feeling like a failure?

Focusing on oneself, even when feeling like a failure, contributes to ego because it centers all attention on one's own pain. By constantly immersing in self-centered thoughts, one amplifies their suffering instead of finding balance.

How does helping others remove the focus from oneself and reduce ego?

Helping others shifts the focus from oneself and reduces ego by allowing people to engage in service. When individuals help others, they experience different aspects of themselves and grow from these interactions, breaking free from self-centered thinking.

Why is service important for personal growth?

Service is important for personal growth because it helps individuals learn more about themselves through their interactions with others. By serving others, people expand their understanding of their own capacities and discover new parts of their character.

What is the relationship between success and service, as explained in the script?

Success is closely tied to service, as successful individuals solve problems for others. Whether in business, music, or philanthropy, success often comes from fulfilling the needs of others, which builds lasting relationships and accomplishments.

How can individuals balance serving others while still seeking personal success?

Individuals can balance serving others while seeking personal success by focusing on the process, not the outcome. The script emphasizes that it's important to serve with the intent to help, while separating from the desire for praise or results. By doing so, success becomes a byproduct of service.

How did the speaker deal with the pressure after achieving initial success?

The speaker struggled with the pressure after a viral video, fearing they would not live up to the success of their previous work. This led to self-doubt and a temporary pause in creating content. However, they overcame it by focusing on serving others rather than on the outcomes.

What is the key to overcoming the fear of not living up to past success?

The key to overcoming the fear of not living up to past success is to focus on the preparation, process, and practice, without becoming attached to the result. The speaker emphasizes that while individuals can control their effort, the outcome is beyond their control, and detachment from the result leads to growth.

Outlines

00:00

🤔 Exploring Ego in Low Self-Esteem

The speaker discusses how low self-esteem and lack of confidence can actually stem from an ego issue. Drawing on insights from the Bhagavad Gita, it’s explained that ego manifests in extremes—either believing you're the best or the worst. This dichotomy drives self-centeredness and the antidote is self-honesty, where one acknowledges both strengths and weaknesses. The conversation emphasizes that being overly focused on oneself, whether in a negative or positive light, fuels ego, which can be mitigated by serving others.

05:02

🙏 The Impact of Service on Humility

The speaker shares a personal reflection on maintaining humility amid success and discusses the balance between desiring success and serving others. They highlight how focusing on the customer’s pain and needs, especially in sales, leads to better outcomes. The speaker recounts moments of self-doubt following viral success but realized that stepping away from ego and returning to a mindset of service helped them continue creating. The Gita's teachings on controlling the process, not the result, guide this balance between ambition and selfless action.

10:03

🧘‍♂️ Finding Purpose Through Mental Wellness

This section transitions into discussing purpose, noting that lack of purpose can manifest in feeling pressure to know one’s life path, losing interest in life, and feeling disconnected from one's skills. The speaker introduces Calm, a mental health and wellness app, which offers tools like meditations and sleep stories. The speaker has partnered with Calm to offer a series called ‘The Daily J,’ which provides short, effective tools to improve mindset and mental health.

Keywords

💡Ego

Ego in this context refers to a distorted sense of self that either elevates or diminishes one's self-worth. The video explains that ego manifests in extremes, where a person either feels superior to everyone or believes their suffering is uniquely the worst. The speaker connects ego to both high and low self-esteem, highlighting how both extremes center on an inflated sense of self-importance.

💡Self-honesty

Self-honesty is presented as the antidote to ego. It involves being truthful about one’s strengths and weaknesses without overestimating or underestimating them. In the video, it’s suggested that individuals should honestly assess their abilities to avoid falling into the trap of either superiority or inferiority complexes, maintaining a balanced perspective on themselves.

💡Service

Service, or serving others, is a major theme in the video and is proposed as a solution to ego-driven self-centeredness. The speaker emphasizes that focusing on helping others, rather than fixating on oneself, helps mitigate ego. Examples include helping the underprivileged or producing content that helps people, suggesting that service leads to personal growth and a better understanding of oneself.

💡Empathy

Empathy is presented as a critical skill for success, particularly in relation to connecting with others. In the video, empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others, which is crucial in service-oriented roles such as sales. By focusing on the needs and pain points of others, individuals can navigate the balance between self-interest and service more effectively.

💡Attachment

Attachment refers to being overly invested in outcomes rather than the process. The speaker describes how being overly focused on results, like wanting to create a best-selling book or viral video, can cause anxiety and pull one away from the present moment. By focusing on the process—such as writing the best book or creating the best video—one can detach from the uncertainty of results.

💡Process

Process is discussed as the means by which a person can focus their efforts in a healthy way. Instead of fixating on the results, the speaker encourages being 'addicted to the process.' For example, writing a book should be about the effort and attention to the craft, not just aiming for a bestseller. This idea ties into the broader theme of detachment from results and living in the present.

💡Low self-esteem

Low self-esteem is described as a form of ego that causes people to think they are worse than others. In the video, low self-esteem is tied to an ego issue because it still centers the self, but in a negative light. The speaker explains that the ego drives individuals to think they have the worst circumstances, which prevents them from seeing their situation clearly and honestly.

💡Self-centeredness

Self-centeredness is the tendency to focus exclusively on oneself, often leading to immersion in personal pain and suffering. The video contrasts this with service, arguing that self-centeredness can trap a person in their own problems, while helping others can bring a broader perspective and personal growth. The idea is that by centering on others, we can escape the narrow focus on our own issues.

💡Purpose

Purpose is presented as something people struggle to find, especially when they feel disconnected from their life or unsure of their skills. The video addresses how a lack of purpose can make people feel lost. Finding purpose, often through serving others or solving meaningful problems, can help guide a person’s life and bring structure to their day-to-day activities.

💡Success

Success is framed as a byproduct of service and solving problems for others. The speaker explains that famous figures like Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates became successful by addressing widespread problems. Success, whether in business or personal life, is tied to serving others and addressing their needs. This contrasts with the notion of self-serving ego-driven pursuits, which do not lead to lasting success.

Highlights

Low self-esteem and lack of confidence can be manifestations of an ego issue.

Ego can manifest as either an inflated sense of self-importance or an extreme self-deprecation.

Ego pushes individuals to extreme positions, avoiding balance and reality.

Self-honesty is the antidote to ego, involving a balanced view of one's strengths and weaknesses.

Service to others can help mitigate ego by shifting focus away from oneself.

Gandhi's quote about finding oneself in the service of others emphasizes self-discovery through altruism.

Helping others allows for self-growth and understanding, contrary to the misconception of selflessness.

Success, whether financial or otherwise, is rooted in service to others.

Service is not limited to charity; it can be a continuous act in everyday interactions.

Empathy is crucial for effective service, as it aligns the server with the needs of others.

The process of creation should be driven by service, not the anticipation of outcomes.

Control over the process is within an individual's power, while the outcome is not.

Living in service means focusing on the preparation and practice, rather than the potential result.

Attachment to outcomes is a form of ego, whereas service is about the act of giving without expectation.

The desire to share valuable experiences is not ego-driven but stems from a place of service.

Striking a balance between wanting success and being sensitive to the response involves focusing on empathy and service.

The concept of being addicted to the process but detached from the outcome is key to navigating success and service.

Three signs of a lack of purpose include feeling pressured to know one's life path, disinterest in one's own life, and uncertainty about one's skills.

Purpose and meaning in life provide guidance and structure, which can be supported through practices like meditation and mindfulness.

Transcripts

i just said this this week to somebody

look at me like i was crazy and i talked

about i said some of your low

self-esteem and your lack of confidence

is actually an ego issue that you have

and the person stared back at me like

how in the world is someone with no comp

or low confidence or low self-esteem

struggling from an ego issue and i don't

know that i articulated it well enough

although it's in one of the podcasts

that i've released one of my solo

podcasts but you articulate it

right on so talk about that for a second

yes

it's an interesting concept and it's

talked about in the bhagavad

bhagavad-gita another monk text and and

in the book it talks about how like

ego

is demonstrated in two ways so ego is

either i am the best in the world and i

think i'm better than everyone

or ego says you're the worst in the

world you're the worst than everyone

you're you're much worse than everyone

or you say my life is the best and the

greatest

my life is the worst right my life is

far worse than anyone else so the ego

likes to push you to the extreme it

doesn't like to give you balance and

honesty and reality it likes to it wants

to make you feel like you've got the

worst life in the world and no one else

understands it no one gets there only

you get in you get the worst or you're

the best and no one else gets you you're

untouchable

and and people miss that they're like

how does that make sense exactly like

you said but it does make sense

because the ego wants to be the top

or the bottom but the top of the bottom

yes he doesn't just want to be at the

bottom

of the bottom yeah it's going to be the

bottom of the bottom of the bottom but

the top of the bottom right well yeah

and so we get lost in that and we don't

think of it as ego yeah and that's why

the only antidote to either ego

is

self-honesty is being honest and honesty

is i'm good at these things i'm great at

these things and i suck at these things

right that's honestly like and we could

all sit down me and you could sit down

with a list of our skills

and map out what we were great at what

we were average at and what we knew we

were terrible at yes and that's honesty

that keeps you so away from either ego

do you think part of it too is that when

you're suffering from my life is the

worst that you're focusing on you and

you're centering on you and there's an

ego connection to that too and that this

pathway you talked about earlier about

getting into the service of other people

yeah removes you from you which begins

to remove the ego absolutely i mean

that's a huge point you just made right

there like you just dropped some serious

like there's like a you know please

don't underestimate that point

everyone's listening like

the the challenge with all

self-centeredness is that all you then

indulge yourself in is your own pain

well very good right you just indulge

you just submerge and like immerse

yourself in pain because it's all about

you yeah and you know i think gandhi

said it best is that you find yourself

when you lose yourself in the service of

others

and what i love about that statement is

that

what he means by that is and and empaths

get this mixed up sometimes so i want to

clarify because a lot of people who are

empaths who are listening like jay i'm

always trying to help people but then i

get screwed over so here's the answer

you're not helping people so that they

can thank you

you're not helping people so that they

can be grateful to you you're helping

people because you know it's the right

thing to do but more importantly you're

helping people because you get to

understand and experiment and experience

different parts of yourself

when i helped

kids growing up in india that were that

didn't have food and we were giving them

free food i learned so much about myself

when i was able to go and give talks

that help people or now i make videos or

podcasts you learn more about yourself

when you help people

you don't learn anything about yourself

when you're just sitting there

filling out a quiz going who am i what

am i like you don't figure but you learn

about yourself when you help people

and and this is what we don't realize i

can't remember who said it recently it

was someone saying about jeff bezos but

they were saying that

you know the scale at which you succeed

is the depth of the problem you solve

and so even if you look at someone like

jeff bezos who's extremely successful

he's successful because he solved a

problem

that many people have bill gates is

successful because he solved the problem

so even if you look at monetary success

even if you look at financial success it

comes from service

any success comes from service a

musician is famous because they're

serving they're serving you by

understanding your feelings making music

you now feel comforted so you follow

them they have served you wow so don't

think of services just charity and

giving money which are beautiful things

which we all should do but don't just

limit your life to thinking i serve on

the weekends or i serve once a year you

can serve every moment this podcast is

the same no question right it's your

service because you're serving people by

giving them an alternative to just

watching some trash show

but they're actually here learning from

you and learning from the people that

you bring on the show i've watched you

to that point this is a personal thing

because i'm i'm such a believer that

you're you move the needle in the world

that you can help change consciousness

i'm in my little way people say why do

you in my small way i would love to

think i'm uh like in that ocean that you

see out there like a drop of water and

altering the consciousness of

the world just just a skosh not me but

who i can share with people and my own

messages and i believe you're one of

those people and so i will tell you

as i've watched this meteoric rise of

yours

i've actually privately a few times

not every day but a few times i've

actually prayed for you that you

that you would keep this level of

humility and so this is an interesting

thing i wanted to ask you but it will

serve everybody else there is this

balance isn't there of wanting this book

to do well

right you don't want to sell two copies

you want to do very well

when you put a video out

there's probably of this there's got to

be a little part of you that's like how

well did it do

and i think that line right there i'm

not even sure

if you or i know the answer entirely but

do you

struggle with that balance of i'm doing

this in the service of people

yet i'm sensitive to the response of

what i'm doing because i think someone

listens right now who's going to have a

present sales presentation tomorrow they

want to be in the service of that person

but there's this part of them that is in

that balance we've talked about earlier

about what's the response going to be

how am i going to be received i want

people to like me i want to how do you

navigate that that's a great question

man that's huge and and the answer let's

take that sales person

the more time that person spends

in empathy

their customers pain

and what the customer is really looking

for

the better they're going to be received

so that service mindset always helps

because if you're thinking about and

this is what it comes and i said this to

my team when we were writing the book

and everything i was working on i said

if i sit here right now

and all i'm thinking about while i'm

writing the book is being a best-selling

book

then guess what i'm now not writing the

book i'm now living in the future and

i'm not living in the present and so the

only way to make this a best-selling

book is to do the process properly and i

don't think and this is what i do and

this is the only thing that's helping me

and again i go through all the time

after my first video went viral three

four years ago

i stopped creating because of the

pressure that i wouldn't be able to live

up to it wow so i actually got scared

because i was like oh well what if the

next video doesn't do as well everyone's

going to think i'm tanking like you get

into that self-doubt and that self and i

got into that space where i was just

thank you for being honest about it yeah

no really like genuinely i didn't want

to make a video again because i was like

this video just got 40 million views

like how am i ever going to beat that

right and you get scared i'm not putting

anything out i'm just going to stop and

then i started to realize i was like

well now i'm not living in service

anymore

i'm living out of ego and i'm living for

feeling a certain way and guess what i'm

not feeling better by not putting

anything out yeah and actually if i just

serve more i'll learn more so the way

i've made sense of it and there's a

verse in the gita that explains it too

is that you have full control

over the preparation

the process

and the practice

but you have no control

over the potential result but all of

those three things are the result in and

of themselves

and so if you get addicted to the

process of writing the practice of

connecting with the right people who can

help share your work and hey like you

said i am focused on the process of

making sure that the most people in the

world have the opportunity to buy this

book

but then if they choose not to buy it i

can't control that but i can control

making sure that it's in front of

everyone and that i believe in the

context and that to me is not attachment

that to me is not

uh ego that to me is

trying to live your best life i mean

like you know if you didn't just try if

you're like i wrote this book but who

cares yes i mean that's not service

either because the way i explain it and

i'm not i'm not claiming that this is it

and i'm not trying to say i'm it i'm

trying to say that i think we all feel

this way

if

you or me see an amazing movie we want

to tell everyone about it

if you read an amazing book you want to

tell everyone about it if you found the

cure to cancer you tell everyone about

it

for me i got to live an incredible life

thanks to these amazing teachers i met

i just want to tell everyone about it

like that's all i'm doing yes but i want

to tell everyone because of how powerful

it was brother that's the best

description i've ever heard of there's

this line i've always tried to teach of

you want to have outcomes but yet you

need to separate from them yeah and

that's a difficult thing when people are

trying to achieve different things that

was perfectly stated

absolutely being addicted to the process

of it but actually separating from what

you can't control i absolutely yeah

absolutely love it here are three signs

you're struggling with a lack of purpose

number one you feel pressure to know

what you want to do with your life

number two you've lost interest in your

own life and feel disconnected number

three you don't know what your skills

are or you feel you lack them hope is

not lost you can get through this having

purpose and meaning in our lives helps

guide us through the ups and downs and

creates structure in our day-to-day life

that's why i've partnered with calm the

leading app for mental health and

wellness the app has a library with

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you can find the daily j

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