According to the Smithsonian National Museum of National History, joining a group or tribe and being accepted by others was critical to survival. See, that's why we do it. We do it because that's how we survive. But here's the thing. We're not in survival mode right now. We want to move into thriving. And if we want to shift from surviving into thriving, we have to consider how people's opinions become our life. Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose,
the number one health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every single one of you that come back every week to listen, learn and grow. Now, whether you're walking your dog, whether you're cooking, whether you're working, editing, cleaning, whether you're working out, whether you're at the gym, wherever you are, I just want to say I appreciate you, I see you, and I'm so grateful that we get
to spend this time together. Because whenever I record these I sit down and I visualize each and every one of you in your spaces, doing what you do. I visualize how you're making this investment in your time to listen, to apply, to practice the principles that I'm sharing every single week and I visualize that because I'm also visualizing the impact they're going to have on you and the
sincerity with which you approach them every single week. And I know that people love the interviews, but I also know that so many of you turn up for these solos week and week out, and I just can't thank you enough for the investment you're making yourself and how you're supporting on purpose as well. It's such a joy. And I want to read out some of your incredible reviews because your reviews support and help the podcast so much. We're over sixteen thousand reviews now, and so here's a few.
Here's one from Mel crying right now because there's so much I relate to here. We all go through trauma, and I have really been bad at putting myself down and accepting that I was that woman. I'm seeing the woman I am today, against all the odds. I deserve love and abundance, and so does everyone else. The beauty held within me is so much more than anything else. I see it when I look at people walking by, the genuine love and empathy I have for others. I
have many layers, and every layer is important. Mel, that was so beautiful and heartwarming. Thank you so much for sharing it with us. Okay, I want to share a few more as well. This one is from Amrie. She says, Wow, thank you. I can honestly say that listening to the episode about the three personality types in a relationship really helped me open my eyes in my relationship. I'm ready to grow and become the supportive partner instead of the fragile.
I love your podcasts so amazing. If you haven't heard that one, that was one of my recent favorites as well. And then the final one that I'm reading here is from Maddie. I mean, there are so many, but this one's from Maddie. Jay. Thank you for sharing your wisdom. The podcasts repeatedly come out just when I need them, and there are nuggets of wisdom from each episode that I've genuinely started implementing into my life. I believe you are spiritually involved and I have a true gift in
the way you share and connect with others. Thank you, Maddie. Maddie, thank you so much for that message. And what makes me most happy is that you said that you've started to implement these ideas into your own life. That's why
I do this, so that makes me very very happy. Now, Today's theme, and every theme that I pick for these Friday Solo episodes are things that I've been thinking about, or maybe a friend called me up and this was the pep talk I gave them, Or maybe someone in my life was going through something difficult and this is what they were up against. I'm always leaning on real life experience to help inform what I share with you, because I feel that it's in the energy. I feel
that it's what people are struggling with. And so today, when we talk about the ways to stop listening to other people's opinions, this theme is so important to discuss because I feel so many of us are constantly listening to other people's opinions. So many of us are constantly plagued by the words what will people think or what will people say? Or how will everyone react? Or what's everyone going to say about me? What's everyone going to think about me? How many of you have ever had
one of these thoughts? At least one of these thoughts. Now, I'm not with you all. My prediction is that one hundred percent of the people that are listening to this podcast right now raise their hand that they have thought about what will people think, what will people say? How will people react before they do something after they do something right? We're always asking that question, and so a big part of our life is centered around listening to
other people's opinions. Or maybe you're one of those people who says, Oh, I've got a good idea, I need to ask all my friends about it, or I really want to start this. Let me talk to my family and see what they say. Maybe you're someone who goes out and seeks the opinion, not that you're just worried about how they'll react, but you actually go out there and put it out there. Now, I'm not telling you to do that or don't do that in this episode. What I'm sharing with you is that how we listen
to people's opinions is really important. And I know we talk a lot about stop listening to other people's opinions, but it's less about stopping listening to other people's opinions and more about not feeling the pressure to live up to them. So it's not really about listening. It's about the pressure we take on to live up to people's opinions and expectations and obligations that affect us. Listening is
not the issue. The challenge is that what we've done as humans is we've created a very blurred line between listening and living up to When we hear something, especially if it's fear based, pressure based, stress based, we try to live up to it. If someone gives you the best advice in the world, but it feels like it was given with no pressure or no fear, you almost ignore it and you don't try and live up to it.
It's strange, isn't it. Someone could give you the worst piece of advice or feedback ever, but because it was given from a place of fear, anxiety, insecurity, you try and live up to it. But if it was given from a good place, you'd be like, oh, yeah, no, it doesn't seem that serious. We react more seriously to criticism, to negativity, which actually has its benefits, but at the same time we could end up missing out on some really good, deep, powerful advice. So let me give you
an example. One piece of advice you could get is, well, you know, I know you want to start that company, but you know you have no idea of how to start it, Like you have no experience it's never going to work. When you hear that, most people go back into their cocoon. They stop dreaming. They think, oh, it's never going to happen, like it's been shut down, or
we're waiting until that person changes their mind. Very few people will go on to try and prove that person wrong, and very few people will go on and just do their thing anyway. Right now, someone who actually may say to you, well, you know, it's really important that you find a coach, right, It's really important you find a mentor. And because that was just given as a good piece of advice and feedback, we take it less seriously, affects
us less seriously. We potentially won't even find that mentor. You see how it works. And so I really want to bring up that distinction between listening to other people's opinions is not the issue. I often ask people for their opinions, but it's the pressure that we take on to live up to them because of who we asked. And so often when people ask for my opinions in a non coaching setting, my reply will be, well, this is just my opinion. You don't have to try and
live up to it. I'm not going to judge you if you don't do it, because that's not my relationship with that person. So I want to start this episode by talking about when I first stop feeling the pressure to live up to people's opinions. And the reason I think that's important is that I find that when you start practicing this skill earlier and truly as a skill,
it becomes easier and easier as it goes on. And maybe when you think about that, if you ask yourself, what was the age at which people's opinions started to affect you less or when you started to notice that it was something you had to actually disconnect from. And I think that's the key here. It's not that you're not listening. It's that we have to become conscious that it's not having the hold on us that it did before.
And if I'm honest, it's actually for me at the age of fourteen when I first started to practice this skill. And I say practice, and I call it a skill because it's something you have to build up. It's not just oh well, I'm just going to switch off and not listen to anyone, right. It doesn't work like that. So I remember being fourteen years old and I was sitting with my math teacher, and I remember sitting there
and struggling at a question. Right, I was struggling with a question, a problem, So I remember that he said to me. He said, the reason why you're struggling with this question is you're thinking about what your parents are going to say. The reason you're struggling with this problem is that your mind is not present here. It's focused on what you're are going to say. How many of you can relate to that in some way or the other. It may not have been about math or schoolwork, but
it's about something else. And I realized at that age that I had to let go of that because that thought blocked optimal thinking. So what I find fascinating about this is that at fourteen, I decide I'm now going to select subjects that matter to me. I'm now going to focus on my passion. So I remember telling my parents that I wanted to focus on art and design. I loved art and design growing up, and my parents wanted me to focus on science. They wanted me to
focus on math. Those are the subjects that are important to them, and slowly the subjects that became important to me. While art and design philosophy English. I also enjoyed economics, and it's fascinating to me because today my life is made up of those things, art and design, constantly being creative with videos, Instagram content. And then I absolutely love philosophy. Of course, I love economics. I love figuring out a way to make this work scale and have an impact.
And I obviously love English and I love language and I love the words. And so it was at fourteen that I decided that I had to disconnect. Now, the second thing was my teacher's expectations. I started to gravitate more towards teachers that what people that could understand and help me think, not what to think about how to think.
So I really got close to one of my art teachers, and what I loved about him is that every time I would draw a line, every time i'd put a color, every time i'd put a picture or an image next to anything, the number one question you would ask me is why did you do that? And I didn't realize what he was teaching me at the time, but his simple suggestion and prompting to constantly ask me why why why?
It made me ask the question why, And I had to constantly dig and search for deeper meaning, deeper connections, deeper sincerity. And it completely transformed the way my mind works simply by asking the question why. And here's the thing. We've always been told that the smartest people know all the answers. Well, the truth is true smarts, true intelligence is asking the right questions. Knowing all the answers maybe a game of memory, but knowing to ask the right
questions is a sign of sincerity. So next time you don't feel smart, or next time you listen to everyone's else's opinion, next time you feel you don't have the answer or what will they say, ask more questions, be more curious. And then the last line of defense, if you want to call it that parents, teachers, was friends. And again here's the thing. It's not that I don't talk to my family, or talk to my teachers or
talk to my friends. You can notice how with my parents, who are disconnecting around my particular aspect here of understanding with my teachers as well, there were teachers that I did connect with, and then finally my friends. So what I want to share with you is where are you at on this journey? Right now? Right Where are you at on this journey right now, and what part of this journey are you still working on. Where do you see your weaknesses and where are you seeing your strengths
and where are you flourishing? Because I want to walk you through some of the reasons why we do this, and I also want to share with you how we can stop making this. You know something that we're struggling with and wasting time on. So the reason why this all exists is that, according to the Smithsonian National Museum of National History, joining a group or tribe and being accepted by others was critical to survival. See, that's why we do it. We do it because that's how we survived.
But here's the thing. We're not in survival mode right now. We want to move into thriving. And if we want to shift from surviving into thriving, we have to consider how people's opinions become our life. Now. The first piece of advice I want to share with you, even though I feel I've been sharing advice this whole time, and insight is that when you ask for someone's advice, what you are going to receive from most people, unless they're trained,
is a projection of their own limitations and possibilities. That's what you get when you ask for someone's opinion. It actually has nothing to do with you. When you ask for someone's opinion or insight nine at the time from an untrained person, you're going to receive a projection of
that person's limitations and possibilities. So when you ask for some advice, you have to recognize that it is impure or it is distracted or affected by this bias that we all have that we struggle to when we share advice. If someone says, well, do you think I should move to New York? When I lived in New York, I would have said, yeah, of course, it's the best city in the world. And then when I now live in La and I moved away and say, oh, no, I
prefer La. Notice how neither of those points are true. Neither of those pieces of insight or advice are about you. They're constantly about my approach. Now, because of my training as a coach, I've learned to disconnect myself from an answer. So what our share is is upon my reflection. I've noticed that there's something that I call a purpose place. There's a place where your purpose comes to life, a place where your purpose is more likely to be fulfilled.
And for me, that place was New York for two years and now it's La. And what I found is that New York was a fantastic city for news, for finance, for artists as well, But LA is really the home of content, and so LA is the home of media for me when it comes to entertainment media, especially when
it comes to sharing a message across the world. And so that outlook is more useful because it's not just using my projection, it's sharing a reflection that is not just based on my own opinion, but that requires you to move yourself. When someone says, do you like him? Do you think I should be dating him? If that person reminds you of your ax, you will say no, reminds me of my ex. Now you may be right or wrong, and you may get that right or wrong, but the truth is the answer you're giving is a
representation of your own experience. So when you ask someone for their opinion, you have to recognize that's where it's coming from. So I want you to consider four characteristics that we look for in the people we allow into our lives. So when I look to someone for advice, I look for in these four areas. The first is competence. I look to ask myself when I'm asking for a piece of advice? Am I looking for someone with competence?
Is that what I'm looking for? Like? Do I need an expertise of an example, if I was investing money, I wouldn't ask someone who doesn't have competence. But often we ask everyone about everything? Right? How many of us ask everyone about everything? A lot of us. We'll ask our parents about investing, will ask our friends about investing. We'll ask our friends friends friends about investing. Will randomly bump into someone, We'll ask them about this question I
ask myself. Is the question I'm asking a competence based question? Because then I'm going to need to go to someone who has that competence or skill. For example, if I'm going to ask a social media question, I should ask you to someone who knows something about social media. I'm not going to ask you to someone who doesn't know about it. But often in our panic, in our frustration and our confusion, we approach anyone and everyone about it. The next type of person or question I have in
my life is care. Sometimes you'll ask you for someone's advice because you just need some care and love. When I need some care and love, but go to my mom. My Mom's going to give me more care and love than anyone else, and she may not give me the advice that I need to help me, Like, for example, if I ask her for work advice, even though she's an entrepreneur, to her advice to me will be like, we'll take care of yourself. Just take care of your health.
I just want you to be healthy. Of Course, she's my mom. She cares, and so I don't ask her things where I know I'm going to push the boundaries or push the limits. But I'll always ask her when I need some care, and I need some care, I'll definitely go to her. The third type of advice I seek is consistent advice. This is more not even advice, it's more like consistent people in your life who know
what's going on. I probably have a handful of people in my life, maybe three, that know what's happening in my life, know what I'm up to, know what my activities are, and this is just consistent catchups. It's not that I'm asking them for advice, it's not that they're guiding me. It's just that we're in constant connection and that some sort of reassurance, it's some sort of stability that you need in your life. And then fourth and final is character. Some people have a strong moral compass
and uncompromising values. We look to these people to help us see clearly when we aren't sure what we want or believe is right. So character is something I go to, and my question is a moral ethical question. I have people in my life, like my monk teaches, that I'll turn to for questions in that area. So notice how I'm curating the group of people around me around particular needs and questions that I have, rather than the mistake, which is what I want to share with you next,
the biggest mistake we make. So I hope that's helpful. I hope that makes sense to you. Who do you go to for care, who do you go for to for competence, who do you go to for character? And who do you go for consistency? Because the truth is that no one person will be all those things right. There is no one in the world who will be all of those things. Someone may have competence, but they won't have care. Someone will have care, but they won't
have character. Someone will have character, but they won't have consistent see, and we can't expect people to We just have to engage with them. We just have to engage with them for when and how we can. Right. So I want you to really consider that the mistake we make, which is the fourth principle I want to speak to you about, is that there's a journey. In the beginning, we go to everyone for everything. Then you go to everyone for something right, one thing that you take it
around to everyone. Then you go to some people for everything, but then you go to some people for some things. So I want you to start becoming really really hyper focused on who you go to advice, how you go to it for them, and not just being one of these people that blurts their challenge out to each and every person and then gets advice from a million people
makes it difficult on yourself. Now, the next principle I wanted to discuss with you, which I think is a really really powerful one, is that people's thoughts don't affect your reality unless you let them. So someone's thought of you being weak, insecure, anxious, useless, untalented, not smart, that thought they have has no basis on your reality. But when you internalize that thought, you then let it affect you.
There's a beautiful quote from Gandhi where he said that I would never let someone with their dirty shoes walk through my mind, right, And the idea here is that if someone has dirty shoes outside your home, they can't affect you. But if you open up the door to your home and let them in, that will now affect you. So it's the same thing with thoughts. If someone's having a thought in their own house about you, it doesn't affect you, and we say no, no, no, But they
know people. I know they're going to tell people. They're going to tell people. And here's what I've realized. If people just need someone's opinion to change their mind about you, I promise you you didn't have a strong enough relationship with them. Honestly, If it just took someone to say one thing about you and that person's going to change their mind, and you're worried they're going to change their mind about you, I promise you they are not as
close to you as you think they are. It's just the reality of it, and we have to get to grips with the reality of it because we get lost in thought, we go, Oh, but they think this, and then they're going to say this to that person, and then that person's going to think this. And so we're so scared of everyone's thoughts. But in the process of being scared of everyone's thoughts, what have we done. We've
created a negative thought pattern. We have taken their thoughts, added them all up together, and created our own negative thought pattern. And so when you end up creating your own negative thought pattern, that creates a lot of complications because now all of a sudden, you've now completely internalized. You have completely internalized what's going on, and it's now a part of your DNA, it's a part of your makeup,
and now you just think it's you. So I want you to remember that that someone else's thoughts are not your reality, and you don't want to let them into your house. You want to get them out of your house. You want them to leave your home. The next step that I want to share with you is I want you to start focusing on what you think and start to trust your intuition with small things. So our whole life, we've been programmed to say, how do you think I look in this? What do you think I should do?
What do you think we should eat? We're constantly trying to outsource our decision making. Now, granted, that's not the biggest deal when it comes to fashion, and it can be, or it's not the biggest deal when it comes to food, or it can be with your health. Overall, we can get away out sourcing some of these smaller decisions in our life, but when it comes to the bigger things in life, we can't. But to be able to make the bigger decisions ourselves, we have to start with those
smaller things. So today, when you look in the mirror in the morning when you're getting ready, I want you to refrain from taking mirror selfie and sending it to your friends and asking them how do they think you look? I want you to refrain from asking your boyfriend or your girlfriend, or your husband or your wife or your partner from having to answer that question. When you go out to our party this weekend, I want you to
refrain from asking that question. I want you to ask that question to yourself looking in the mirror, how do I look in this? How do I feel in this? What does this say about me? Why am I wearing it? And I want you to ask yourself, and I want you to answer it as yourself, because chances are the first few answers that come to your mind will be, well, I think my friend would like this, and I think my mom would like this, and I think my boyfriend. And that's what I want you to refrain from. Every
time you get that thought. I want you to go back to what do I think? What do I think? What do I think? I wear plenty of clothes and fashion that Raley doesn't quite agree with, and we both have created space for self expression. It's so important, it's so needed. So I want you to stop working on small things. What are you going to eat tonight? I want you to decide what you're gonna eat tonight. I want you to decide where you're going to wear this weekend.
I know it sounds so basic, but I promise you we have outsourced these decisions and since we're young, to our parents, our friends, our families, our partners. This is one of the best exercises you can do. What do you think about it? What do you want to eat? Start trusting yourself with these smaller decisions. Just a few more things I want to mention to you is that no one else lives with the consequences of your choices.
They don't have to live with the consequences of your choices, so when they give advice, remember their advice is free of considering the consequences. Sometimes I think about how much our words hold value, and when we're untrained, we say really deep things without consideration. And so I want you to be really thoughtful about that, because you have to live with the consequences, why you should be involved deeply in the decision making. So I want to thank you
for listening today's episode. I hope it helps you. I hope it helps you navigate the challenging tides of listening to other people's opinions. And I'm so great you're listening to on purpose. I see you, I hear you. I'm here for you. Susan led