3 Psychological Tricks to stop beating yourself up as a business owner

Summary

In this video script, the speaker discusses their journey to stop self-criticism despite business setbacks. They emphasize that mistakes are inevitable and necessary for success, sharing personal experiences like the Starbucks CEO's return after failure. The speaker advises reframing failures as learning opportunities, questioning what helpful lessons can be learned, and expecting to make mistakes. They advocate for positive reactions to errors, suggesting that this approach fosters personal growth and effective leadership.

Takeaways

• 🚫 Stop self-judgment: The speaker emphasizes the importance of not being overly critical of oneself despite making mistakes and failures in business.
• 🔄 Reframe mistakes: Mistakes and failures are reframed as prerequisites for success, necessary for learning and growth.
• 🌟 Success stories include failures: Even the most successful individuals, like Howard Schultz and Steve Jobs, have experienced significant failures.
• 🤔 Reflective thinking: After a significant mistake, the speaker introspects and decides to be more productive instead of indulging in self-deprecation.
• 💡 Redirect negative energy: The energy from negative feelings after a mistake can be redirected towards productive actions.
• ⁉️ Ask helpful questions: Instead of jumping to negative conclusions, ask what helpful lessons can be learned from the experience.
• 🚀 Expect and plan for mistakes: Building plans that do not anticipate mistakes sets oneself up for disappointment; it's better to expect and react positively to them.
• 🧠 Train your mind for positivity: Train your thought process to focus on positive takeaways rather than negative assumptions.
• 🌱 Embrace the human aspect: Accept that as a human, you will make mistakes, even with the best planning and intentions.
• 🔄 Relabel experiences: Instead of using the words 'mistake' or 'failure', relabel them as 'experiences' to foster a more positive mindset.

Q & A

What is the main issue the speaker addresses in the transcript?

The speaker addresses the issue of self-criticism and how to stop beating oneself up over mistakes and failures while building a business.

What is the speaker's initial belief about the relationship between ambition and self-criticism?

The speaker initially believes that being hard on oneself and extremely judgmental is necessary for the drive to succeed.

How does the speaker reframe the concept of mistakes and failures?

The speaker reframes mistakes and failures as prerequisites for success, stating that they are inevitable and necessary for learning and growth.

What book and author does the speaker mention to support their reframing of mistakes and failures?

The speaker mentions the book 'Pour Your Heart Into It' by Howard Schultz to support their reframing.

What examples does the speaker give of successful people who experienced significant failures?

The speaker gives examples of Howard Schultz from Starbucks and Steve Jobs from Apple, both of whom experienced significant failures before achieving success.

What was the significant mistake the speaker made in 2019 regarding salary delegation?

The speaker delegated salary decisions without having a proper system in place, leading to unauthorized raises and a mess to clean up.

How did the speaker's perspective change after the salary delegation mistake?

After the mistake, the speaker realized that beating oneself up is unproductive and instead focused on learning from the experience and being more productive.

What are the three conclusions the speaker came to in order to stop beating themselves up?

The three conclusions are: 1) Recognize the energy behind self-criticism and use it productively; 2) Ask what helpful lesson can be learned from the experience; 3) Expect to make mistakes and focus on reacting positively to them.

Why does the speaker suggest reframing the word 'mistake'?

The speaker suggests reframing the word 'mistake' to 'experience' to change the negative connotation and to focus on the learning opportunity it presents.

What advice does the speaker give for dealing with mistakes in a business setting?

The speaker advises to expect mistakes, learn from them by asking what helpful lessons can be drawn, and to react positively rather than indulging in self-criticism.

How does the speaker suggest using the energy from negative experiences?

The speaker suggests using the negative energy from mistakes or failures to fuel productivity and positive action, rather than indulging in self-criticism.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 Overcoming Self-Criticism for Business Growth

The speaker discusses how they stopped being overly critical of themselves despite numerous mistakes and failures while building their business. This introspection was triggered by a question from an Instagram poll. The speaker used to believe that being hard on oneself was necessary for success, but they later realized that this was not the case. They learned that reframing mistakes and failures as prerequisites for success was essential. The speaker shares a personal realization after reading Howard Schultz's book, 'Pour Your Heart Into It,' where Schultz's own failures and comebacks at Starbucks showed the speaker that even the most successful people experience significant setbacks. The speaker emphasizes that it's not about avoiding mistakes but learning from them and adjusting expectations about them.

05:01

🔄 Transforming Negative Energy into Productivity

The speaker recounts a specific incident in 2019 where a payroll mistake led to several employees receiving unexpected raises. Initially, the speaker was very hard on themselves, but they eventually recognized that self-criticism was unproductive. They learned to transform negative energy into positive action by asking what they could learn from the experience and how they could use it to improve. The speaker shares three key takeaways: First, to view mistakes as experiences and use the energy from them productively. Second, to ask what helpful lessons can be learned from the mistake, avoiding negative assumptions. Third, to expect mistakes and adjust reactions to them positively. The speaker concludes that these strategies have helped them to mitigate self-criticism and to view mistakes as opportunities for growth.

10:02

🧠 Embracing Human Fallibility in Leadership

The speaker emphasizes the importance of expecting to make mistakes and viewing them as part of the human experience, even for CEOs and business owners. They argue that not expecting mistakes sets oneself up for disappointment and unproductive thoughts. The speaker encourages reframing mistakes as 'experiences' and adjusting one's reaction to them. They also stress the importance of asking the right questions to extract helpful lessons from mistakes, rather than making broad, negative assumptions. The speaker concludes by encouraging viewers to subscribe for more content, highlighting the need for a positive approach to learning from mistakes.

Keywords

💡Mistakes

Mistakes refer to errors or incorrect actions made in the process of achieving a goal or carrying out a task. In the video, the speaker discusses how they stopped beating themselves up over mistakes made while building their business. The video emphasizes that mistakes are a prerequisite for success, and learning from them is more important than dwelling on self-criticism. For example, the speaker mentions a time when they delegated salary decisions without a proper system in place, leading to a significant error.

💡Failures

Failures are unsuccessful attempts or outcomes that do not meet the desired objectives. The video script uses the term to illustrate that even the most successful individuals, like Howard Schultz and Steve Jobs, have experienced significant failures. The speaker argues that failures are not just inevitable but also necessary for learning and achieving success.

💡Success

Success is the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. The video's theme revolves around the idea that success often comes after a series of mistakes and failures. The speaker challenges the belief that being hard on oneself is necessary for success, suggesting instead that reframing one's attitude towards mistakes and failures is a more productive approach.

💡Ambition

Ambition is a strong desire to do or achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work. The speaker notes that ambitious individuals often hold themselves to high standards, which can lead to being overly critical of their own performance. The video suggests that ambition can be a double-edged sword, fostering both drive and self-criticism.

💡Reframing

Reframing involves changing the way one thinks about or perceives a situation. In the context of the video, reframing is a mental strategy the speaker uses to shift from self-criticism to self-compassion after making mistakes. The speaker realized that mistakes and failures are not personal shortcomings but opportunities for growth and learning.

💡Energy Source

The energy source, as discussed in the video, refers to the motivation that drives individuals towards success. The speaker plans to elaborate on this concept in a future video, suggesting that understanding and harnessing the right energy source can provide the momentum needed to achieve success.

💡Delegation

Delegation is the act of entrusting tasks or responsibilities to another person or group. The video script includes a personal anecdote where the speaker delegated salary decisions without establishing a robust system, leading to a costly error. This example illustrates the importance of proper delegation and the consequences of inadequate systems.

💡Productivity

Productivity refers to the efficiency of producing desired results. The speaker contrasts the unproductive behavior of beating oneself up over mistakes with the more productive approach of learning from them. The video encourages viewers to channel the energy from negative experiences into productive actions that drive forward momentum.

💡Self-Deprecation

Self-deprecation is the act of criticizing oneself in a way that belittles one's importance or achievements. The video discusses how the speaker used to engage in self-deprecation after making mistakes, but later realized that it was unproductive and began seeking more constructive ways to respond to errors.

💡Expectations

Expectations are beliefs about what will happen or what is typically the case. The video script suggests that setting realistic expectations about making mistakes is crucial. The speaker advises expecting to make mistakes and focusing on how to react positively to them, rather than being disappointed when they occur.

💡Learning

Learning is the acquisition of knowledge or skills through experience, study, or being taught. The video emphasizes that mistakes and failures are essential for learning, as they provide valuable lessons. The speaker encourages viewers to view mistakes as learning opportunities rather than as signs of inadequacy.

Highlights

The speaker shares their journey of overcoming self-criticism despite business mistakes and failures.

The realization that mistakes and failures are prerequisites for success.

Howard Schultz's story from 'Pour Your Heart Into It' inspires the idea that even successful people experience failures.

Steve Jobs's ejection and return to Apple illustrates that even iconic figures have significant failures.

The importance of reframing mistakes and failures as learning opportunities.

The speaker's personal experience of a payroll mistake that led to a significant financial impact on the business.

The acknowledgment that self-criticism is unproductive and doesn't lead to improved performance.

The shift from indulging in self-criticism to being productive after a mistake.

The energy of negative emotions can be redirected towards positive actions.

Asking 'What helpful lesson can I learn from this experience?' as a way to extract value from mistakes.

The tendency of humans to make negative associations from mistakes and how to avoid it.

Expecting to make mistakes as a natural part of the learning process.

The idea that a business plan without anticipating mistakes sets one up for disappointment.

The importance of reacting positively to mistakes rather than expecting perfection.

The suggestion to replace the words 'mistake' or 'failure' with 'experience' to change one's perspective.

Encouragement to subscribe for more content on overcoming self-criticism and building a successful mindset.

Transcripts

what is up today what i want to talk

about is how i stopped beating myself up

despite my mistakes and failures while

building my business

and this came from a question that

somebody asked in i think it was like an

instagram poll and they basically said

um you know how do you keep moving

forward without beating yourself up when

you've made so many mistakes

um and this wasn't directed towards me

though i've made countless mistakes um

but it was really directed about

themselves and this is a question that

i've gotten time and time again

and i kind of had to put more thought

towards it because i could regurgitate

with some other youtube person or

podcast i told you but it wouldn't be

the truth and so i really had to dissect

like my mental framework for how i

stopped doing this to myself and i'll

start with the premise which is i think

that anyone who is driven towards

success and who is ambitious um a lot of

the times they

the other side of that ambition or the

other side of that success is that that

person tends to be very hard on

themselves and so a lot of the times the

beliefs that come with that are beliefs

like well i don't know if i could be

successful if i didn't beat myself up if

i wasn't so hard on myself etc etc

um and i don't believe this to be true

it was a belief that i held for a very

long time which was if i'm not hard on

myself and i'm not extremely judgmental

and critical of myself then i'm not

going to have this drive to succeed

um but what it actually is is that it's

um one it's a reframing okay and then

two it's an understanding of the energy

source that fuels your success and so

what i want to talk about today is the

reframing and then i'll talk next time

more about the energy source and where

you get get that momentum for success

from

um

the first piece of it is that

i i came to the realization

that mistakes and failures are honestly

just the prerequisite for success and so

honestly i remember the first time i had

that thought and it was after reading

the book pour your heart into it by

howard schultz and he talked about his

success and he talked about um when he

stepped out of starbucks and how

starbucks flopped and how he had to come

back into starbucks and the irony of it

was that they they basically fired him

the first time um because he wasn't

doing good for the company because they

didn't think that he was the right

person to grow it to where it needed to

grow to right

and i remember thinking myself when i

read that i was like i still get to

think about it um i was like man even at

that level you can still

[ __ ] up that badly right like where your

whole board of directors is like get out

you're not the right person right and

then you know ironically like seven or

nine years later they brought him back

in but i remember thinking myself like

wow if the biggest companies in the

world and the most noteworthy ceos in

the world still experience mistakes and

failures then i am not immune like i am

still going to experience those mistakes

and failures it's just a matter of how i

deal with them and what my expectations

are about them another good example of

that is just um you know steve jobs and

how they kind of kicked him out and then

brought him back in as well right and

how apple didn't grow for years i think

that we have to take those things into

consideration because for some reason

it's easy for us to stomach it when we

see someone else and we hear about

someone else's mistakes and failures um

but we're not able to do it once

ourselves and it's very interesting to

me because those people are also known

for being insanely successful yet their

failures were huge you know they failed

for years and years on end and so

i look at it like the more success you

want typically the more mistakes and

failure is required because that's

typically how people learn now i would

like to think that we can learn without

the mistakes and failure but i think

that our most powerful learnings do come

from the mistakes and failures and for

myself i think that i have a lot of

different things that i could beat

myself up for right and in the past i

really think that i did that all the

time and it was

um a lot of people say like well do you

think that that would have changed how

the business went if you hadn't beat

yourself up so much if you hadn't been

so hard yourself and i'm like no

absolutely not because i think it's

really unproductive so i'll give you an

example which was in 2019

i decided that i was going to delegate

you know basically salary and pay

and so i said this is you know i think

we've got it down i'm going to delegate

it it doesn't need to get passed through

me anymore

and i didn't have the best system in

place like i thought i did but i did not

um and looking back on it now i think

that with a few small tweaks it could

have been um prevented but instead you

know i passed it off and i kind of just

didn't look at it right and that's you

know if you look at my video on

delegation that's one of the pieces i

should have been checking it and i

passed it off and then one day um one of

my teammates uh slaps me and she's like

layla

i just got a seven thousand dollar raise

and i was like

what because she was my direct report

and i'm like what are you talking about

seven thousand dollar raising you raised

like i'm i'm sorry i just gave you a

raise a few months ago like i'm kind of

confused what do you mean

and she's like oh well you know there

was a decision that you know because of

where i lived or something like that um

it was you know looking at um medium

incomes and such where people live we're

gonna you know just adjust everyone's

income based on where they live and

based on how that may have changed in

the last year and i was like

what i'm like we're a virtual company

what are you talking about i didn't

approve this so i went in i'm all stompy

and i'm like what's happened and

within an instant i was like this is

completely my fault and they had um you

know the people that were deciding this

had decided to basically give

you know i want to say about 12

different people in the company raises

without asking me without telling their

managers i mean it was just a complete

mess and those people were confused they

didn't understand at the same time

they're like i'm not going to say no

it's money um

and that was a not fun mess to clean up

and i beat myself up for a long time

over that i remember sitting on a couch

with alex and i was telling him he was

just like why are you i was telling him

i just feel like i'm gonna funk i feel

like it's something blah blah he was

like why do you keep beating yourself up

over this he's like i've made tons of

mistakes in the business and i was like

right but this was mine like i am so

responsible for this i passed it off too

soon i didn't quality check it like what

the hell and he was like well you know

worrying about him being yourself up

isn't gonna do anything and i was like

[ __ ] he's so right um and i you know

that's something that i like to observe

in other people which is you know i

think that

until that point until i really

experienced that where i had like a

couple weeks where i was in a funk and i

wasn't showing up well for my team i

used to think it was productive to beat

myself up and be hard on myself i'm like

well that's why i'm a high performer

right that's why i'm so successful it's

like no that's [ __ ] but it's a good

story to tell yourself um

and so

the three conclusions i kind of came to

out of that

because that was probably the depth of

my uh self

deprecation was after that mistake

because i just felt like it was public

everyone saw um there was not an easy

way to correct it and it created

long-term you know issues down the road

because people were actually being

overpaid for things that they were doing

and so i had to deal with it for a

really long time and the repercussions

of it and so it kept reminding me and

reminding me of that mistake and so from

that i kind of wrote down the things

that i learned and i wanted to use it as

an opportunity to then say next time

something like this happens i'm not

going to beat myself up i'm instead

going to be productive okay and so that

was the first shift that i kind of came

up with which is um

i realized that when something happens

which you may label as a mistake or a

failure right it's an experience when an

experience happens

um we tend to have a lot of if we think

it didn't go our way negative energy

around it and beating yourself up is

really a way of um i think i want to say

like getting out that negative energy

it's a way of um utilizing the negative

energy and so what i what i kind of

thought to myself was well the energy is

there and whether i use it to beat

myself up or learn from it and do

something more productive with my time

is up to me right the energy is still

there so it's my responsibility to take

that negative energy and turn it into

positive energy

and so now when i make a mistake i'm

immediately i'm like you don't get to

beat yourself up today no we're not

going to indulge in that instead we're

going to say you know how can i use this

to be more productive how can i take

this energy and make it into something

that is going to push me forward and

make me excited to wake up tomorrow

right because beating yourself up isn't

going to like there's no

magical

ideas that are going to come from that

you're not going to do something amazing

for people on your team after you're

beating yourself up for weeks and weeks

on end right it's usually that um

it almost feels good for you to be mean

to yourself and so you just kind of

indulge in that and for some reason you

think it's productive right

so that was the first thing is learning

how to switch the energy the second one

is a question i ask myself which is

what helpful

lesson can i learn from this experience

and it's really key to say helpful

lesson because

a lot of the times what we do

is we make conclusions from mistakes

that are not useful this is because

humans like to make associations about

things right and so we like to say well

this was here and this was here and then

the mistake happened so it must be these

two things

when in reality um

a lot of the times it's more nuanced

than that it's like

something tiny in the details it's not

any of the things you're even looking at

and so a lot of the times what happens

instead is that we we tend to correlate

something that didn't even cause the

mistake so we might say something like

now i just wanted i don't trust anybody

you know now i just know that i just

can't delegate this again now i just

know that nobody can really do it like

me like really nobody ever can and we

come up with all these like grandiose

ideas that are terrible and really

suffocating um that prevent us from ever

moving forward or learning from that

mistake again when in reality

it might just be that you didn't do the

interview screening process as

thoroughly as you could have um you

delegated something too soon and it was

actually on you it's not on them it's

not that somebody else can't do the job

right or it could be that you didn't

train someone well to do the job

and so um that was the second thing that

i realized is i need to ask myself what

helpful lesson can i learn because

humans have the tendency to air towards

the negative and i want to train myself

to go towards the positive and say what

can i positively take away from this

experience right

and the third thing which is

i now expect myself to make mistakes

building

a business plan a personal plan

um a path to a goal that does not

anticipate and expect mistakes is

setting yourself up for disappointment

right and that's because we tend to for

some reason understand that other people

can make mistakes right it's acceptable

we see that we see these iconic figures

who make mistakes and yet for some

reason we think that we are beyond that

and that we should know better right and

we said well i should have known better

i should have done this differently like

i can't believe this happened all these

unproductive thoughts

when in reality if you understand that

most of the time even if you make a

fantastic plan and you really try and

you're really trying your best to be a

great ceo or leader um you're going to

mess up like 20 of the time right i

would say minimum 20 times sometimes i

feel like i'm messing up 50 of the time

but i'd say minimum 20

and so that's the third piece is you

have to expect yourself to make mistakes

just as i would never expect that i

could bring someone new into my team and

then make zero mistakes right i wouldn't

expect myself to make zero mistakes

okay so instead take that expectation

and put it on how you react to the

mistake and say i will instead of not

expecting myself to make mistakes i will

expect myself to

try and react more positively every time

i do

and so that is how i have learned to uh

mitigate i've not eliminated beating

myself up but i've definitely mitigated

it and lessened it um by doing those

three things by understanding that

there's energy under that act of beating

yourself up and i can take that energy

and continue to indulge in beating

myself up or i can take it and put it

into something productive the second one

is asking for the right questions right

which is understanding

is you know what can i get from this

lesson that is helpful for me to move

forward rather than looking at things

that don't actually

add up and kind of making these

grandiose assumptions

and then lastly is just expecting

mistakes remembering that you're human

and just because you now have the title

ceo and you own a business doesn't mean

you are not going to make six you're

still the same human you were before and

no matter how hard you try and how hard

you study you're going to make mistakes

and i would beg you to also not say the

word mistake or failure instead say

experience

and so if this video is useful

go ahead hit subscribe and hopefully i

will see you on the next one