Speaker 1what's up guys welcome back to build and today i want to talk about the power of guilt so this is top of mind for me it was i actually was actually i was actually actually actually i was on a date with alex last night and we were talking about just things that were top of mind for us and he was sharing um you know a conversation that he was having with someone and they basically asked him if he wanted to do something and you know when it came down to it i was like well you can't do that and he was like no i can't do it but he didn't want to say no and i kind of shared this realization i'd had uh it was probably about a year and a half ago uh back with him which i thought would be helpful for everybody here and if you're wondering i am recording this on my iphone because my fancy camera seemed to have gotten knocked over last night so all the things and behind me if you can see like this is my nail chair where i get my nails done during work and there's my glam station so different view but this is a topic that i think is really relevant for not just in business but i would say like entirety of life it just happened to benefit me a ton in business to be able to recognize this about myself and then change my behavior i guess and really it started with this conversation that i had with one of my friends where i was talking about you know doing something and when i was talking about doing something um i was saying well i wouldn't want to not invest in this company or partner with this person or tell this person that i could do this thing because i would feel really bad and they're like oh so you're just doing it because you feel guilty and then sorry baby move and then it's like they just like roll and kick whenever you don't you just don't you don't see it coming he's like there's your rib let's go and so basically in doing that i was like oh wow i'm only doing it because i feel guilty i'm not doing it because i want to do it because it's in line with my values because it's going to help me because it's gonna help my business because it's one of how i want to spend my time like i'm only saying yes because i don't want to say no and as soon as i realized that i was like fuck this sucks um and i started really thinking about i started talking to my therapist about i started like researching the power of guilt and i realized how many things i have done in my life because i didn't want to feel guilty guilty for being a bad leader guilty for being a bad boss guilty for being a bad spouse bad friend about whatever bad person just like anything and i was and so there's two things that i did to become i guess more aware of it which i asked myself where am i saying yes only because i just don't want to say no like not because i actually feel like it's like a hell yes but because i'm just like oh i just really don't feel like saying no to this person for whatever reason it might be the second thing is that i i looked out for where i hear myself saying i should i have to and i think especially like i should tends to be a big one for me i should go to the bathroom and i should go to the bathroom and i should go to the dinner with this person i should text them back quickly i should tell this person blah blah blah i should get this person a birthday gift i should blah blah all these things right and i was really thinking about it and i was like why do i do this because it really what it does is like honestly and i noticed this about a year and a half ago i was like man this is why my calendar is so full because i do things i think i should do and i say yes to people that i don't want to say yes to because i don't want to say no to them um specifically when it comes to the business like people ask for things i should do and i say yes to people that i don't want to say yes to because i don't want to all the time and i always wanted to say yes because i felt like that's what i would do to be there and you know show them and demonstrate excellence and i realized that i was conflating responsibility with empathy you can have empathy for somebody yet not take responsibility for their feelings and i realized that i was conflating the two especially when it came to people that i was like really close with so i'll kind of here's what i mean by that um if you say yes because you're worried about the reaction someone's going to give if you say no then it's all of a sudden like what i'm really worried about is how they're going to deal with their emotions and so in many of these situations what you're kind of saying is like i actually don't know if you can deal with your emotions so i'm going to say yes so that you don't need to deal with that because i'm not sure you can handle it you see how like preposterous that sounds like such a fucking dick move it's like we're saying that we don't think this person can handle their own emotions and so we take responsibility for their emotions and we're not going to deal with their emotions and we're not going to deal with their emotions ahead of time to mitigate the issue and so as soon as i realized that i was like okay i am i relinquish this and i will say like i'm pretty critical of myself so like when i do something well i really have to have done it well i feel like i have really taken a complete 360 with this since that realization i have absolutely let people be disappointed frustrated mad irritated feel let down by me but i have gained so much freedom in my life and with my time because of that and so what i did have at that point is i had no feelings of guilt now i have feelings of guilt but i don't have all this responsibility that i had before which was the responsibility of caring for other people's emotions when it's actually their job to do that so i was thinking about this last night because i was talking to alex about it and really just like how i had realized my inability to tolerate guilt was just controlling my life my relationships where my time and i've noticed with so many people that i know that are like very successful but very busy it's usually because they feel bad saying no they can't tolerate the feeling of guilt they can't tolerate the feeling of being disliked of having people be disappointed in them and having people be mad at them or just displeased in general and i realized that is what runs so many people i was just at lunch with a very successful person not that long ago and they immediately like looked at so bad i forgot i was supposed to have this meeting at this time and i said well was the meeting important and it's like well no i was why did you take it well i felt bad because this person did this thing for me a while back and i felt like i owed them okay well there is reciprocity which is like reciprocity is important to a degree if you want to maintain the relationship not saying that doesn't matter but i think that there's different ways that we can approach it and when i was thinking about all of the i was like negative consequences and i was like oh my god i'm so on people i think that a lot of times for example there's there's multiple ways that we conflate this which is like i think there's empathy with responsibility which again is derived from guilt i also think there's um loyalty versus guilt like are you staying in the relationship with the partner or loyal to the person on your team or keeping them on your team because you are loyal to them or because you feel guilty about wanting to get rid of them and that you don't think they could handle it if you don't do it right so i think there's a lot of ways that we can conflate this i can't tell you how many times i see this because people talk to me about their relationships all the time and like so much of the time like i was just having a conversation today it was like the girl was saying i was like well it's clear you guys like are not in a great relationship like he you know just kind of stepped out on you you guys haven't been getting along for a long time you guys want different things in life yes there's good to the relationship but and believe me i'm an advocate of marriage but they really have basically been acting like they're not married for a long time now and she said but i just don't want to be a bad wife and i was like so the desire to not be a bad wife controls you remaining in this marriage for the rest of your life she was like when you put it like that that really sounds terrible i was like i mean it kind of is because it's these perceptions of ourself that we're afraid of of like what would it mean if i wasn't loyal to this person anymore but it's actually like are you staying out of loyalty you're out of guilt right which again conflating the two so it's really interesting because i was talking her through it and it was like okay so you leaving your husband despite all the ways in which you have betrayed each other feels like a bigger betrayal than anything that either of you could have done you would feel more guilty about that than anything and she's like yeah because i don't want to be a bad person i was like wow it was just so interesting like we tie so many of these things to like bad person bad wife bad spouse bad parents and stuff like that and i was like i don't want to be a bad person here and it controls us and it controls every move that we make i think that the other way that i see this show up is with a lot of entrepreneurs business owners and leaders that i talk to they don't share a lot of their success as much because they feel guilty now what does that even mean it's like why would you not share something because you feel guilty um what i mean by that is it's almost like guilt punishes ambition so when you're ambitious when you want things and when you're not ambitious you're not going to be able to do it and you're not going to be able to do it you feel bad if it makes other people feel bad and so therefore you don't want to display your accomplishments talk about them share them because you couldn't you're more concerned with the feelings of other people and so you essentially minimize yourself because somebody else is struggling or because somebody else hasn't you know accomplished something this also shows up in like business owners all the time i can't even tell you how many times when it's like someone needs to raise their prices and they're like well i feel bad because this like one customer or these five customers on the thousand i have couldn't afford my new prices it's like so the feeling of guilt is going to control the outcome of your business the feeling of guilt is going to control how much you share your success with the world how much you share it with your family with your friends it's like as soon as i started unraveling this i was like wow it runs so deep to the degree that like i think what i realized is that people treat the feeling of guilt as evidence that they have done something wrong and i did that for a very long time in my life and that was that's That's what I realized, I was like, oh, I equate feeling to a fact. I believe that if this feeling exists in my body, that it is true about me, that there is something wrong. I have done wrong in the situation. What if that's not true? What if feeling guilty, you could feel guilty whether you did wrong or right? Of course, people are going to comment and say, narcissists and this and that. Yeah, I'm not fucking talking about that, okay? I don't even think that many narcissists would follow me. I'm probably certain that they hate my content. So that being said, I think a lot of people question themselves rather than the feeling. So if you're in that spot where you're like, I do actually, I question myself, my morality, if I'm a good person, a good boss, a good wife, a good whatever, rather than questioning the feeling of guilt, why do I feel it so often? And as soon as I started questioning the feeling and realized that it is a feeling, not a fact, I finally could discover in those situations where the truth actually lied, because I was able to see clearly. And I see it all the time now, especially in business with leaders, with people on the team, with decisions that are made. There are so many things done on a daily basis in order not to feel guilty, in order not to feel like a bad person, in order to avoid a thought or a feeling that has no legitimacy to it. And I just felt the need to share this video because I'm like, fuck, it sucks. This is like controlling people's lives. Like it controlled mine for a long time in the way that like it made me so busy, busy to the degree of like, I had no control over my life. I had no control over my life. I had no time to think about anything. I was, you know, made myself sick so many times. Like I was just constantly on the go because I felt so bad all the time. And I thought that that was me being empathetic or a good person, but it wasn't. It was just me feeling guilty. And, you know, it's kind of like you take a step back from a tune, you realize all these situations in which you accommodate others because of your feeling of guilt. You realize that you are also creating a crutch for them, whereas like they'll never be able to grow, flourish, learn anything about you. And I think that's a really good thing. about themselves, know their true strength because you're constantly buffering them from their own feelings. And that's not fair to anybody either, because that's just treating people like children. And I would say even children shouldn't be treated that way because we should treat children like they can handle their own feelings because they can. So now instead of feeling guilty, I just constantly would be like, oh, am I a shitty person? But like, honestly, I'll take that thought over the feeling of, you know, the pressure or the responsibility of the person that I used to take on of others. Instead, I'm just like, oh, I feel like an asshole. And like, that is more often the thought I have now. I was like, oh, I feel like a dick. And that's okay, because I have so much more freedom in my life. And I feel like I'm living my life in a way that is in accordance with my values and not in accordance with other people's feelings. And that's way more important to me. So the first thing that I practiced after I realized this is something I was doing is just, it sounds so lame, please. I fucking, no, it sounds lame. Sit with the feeling. Sit, but seriously, sit with the feeling. Like, I know it sounds ridiculous, but I realized I was like, if I allow myself to feel guilty, to feel bad, to feel like a bad person, to have those thoughts, to not judge them, to not treat them as the truth, but just to allow them to exist and not try to get rid of them or try to get rid of the feeling, it went away on its own, whether I did something about it or not. So I think that is like the moral, the story of life in general, which is like, if you, if you wait long enough time, your feelings will go away, whether you do something about them or not. Um, which was exactly what I recognized. And so it passed faster than I thought it would. And it proved to myself time and time again, like, oh, I didn't even need to do anything about this situation. I just needed to let it be as it was. And I did realize in those times, like, wow, have way more respect for myself making decisions this way than I did making decisions because I also had like the by-product of like, wow, I feel like I like myself more like this. Like, even though, even though I'm like, are you a dick? Are you an asshole? Like, even though I had those thoughts, I still liked myself more, which at the end of the day, like many of my goals in life add up to like, I just want to recognize my potential as a person and be, I mean, that is definitely what I want. I want to be a good person. Um, which ironically, sometimes you have to be okay being a bad person in order to be a good person. The second is that once I was able to sit with it, I was like, okay, let me separate the facts of the situation from my feelings. I tend to be hyper-responsible and try to take responsibility for everything. Let me not do that. And instead, let me think about the feelings that I have and look at the facts and then ask myself, did I do something that was in violation of my ethics, morals, or values? Or do I just feel bad because I know this person is a bad person? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't isn't going to be pleased with me in some way? Very different answers to those questions. So for me, almost every damn time, it's like, no, this is totally in line with all of my stuff. Every once in a while I'll catch myself like, no, that was a sneaky one. A lot of the times you'll find you're like, no, I just didn't want somebody else to feel bad. And then the next thing I did, and this is, you know, kudos to my therapist, is I started just that week practicing where can I say no when I want to say no in like low stakes situations. Now it happened to be that the week that I practiced this, however long ago, there were some very high stakes situations that I was in where I did end up saying no. But man, was that reinforcing because I recognize how much money, time and headache I saved myself, my company, my team by saying no to those things. So look at your calendar this week, look at what you're doing and say like, where are there things where I know it's going to come up, but someone's going to ask me to do this thing. Someone's going to ask me to commit to this thing. Where can I say no? Those are the things that helped me the most. Um, I hope it helps you too. I just feel like it's such a shame to just go through your life, just controlled by guilt. And I'm embarrassed that I've gone 33 years, you know, not noticing that it controlled me at many points in my life. Um, but I'm also really happy that I don't go the next 66 years, um, being controlled by guilt. And I hope that I could give that to everybody because it's been one of the like most substantial changes I've made for myself in the last couple of years. I think I've made it quite a few big changes in the last few years, but like this has really made such a difference for me. So I hope it helps you too. Let me know in the comments where guilt's been controlling you. And if you apply this, let me know where it helps.
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