SHAWN STEVENSON: All of our health outcomes, all of our results first begin in our minds. It starts with our belief system. Our beliefs, our underlying beliefs are foundational to the ideas that we carry about ourselves, about our health, about our value and about the world around us. That's going to then lead over into our habits and the things that we do on a consistent basis. Because as you well know, our health outcomes are not about what we do occasionally, it's about what we do consistently. And that in and of itself is going to determine our health outcomes overall. So, beliefs, ideas, habits, outcomes.

Now, one of the most overlooked aspects controlling our health outcomes is our state of self-esteem. Our state of self-esteem has a huge impact on our state of health and our overall outcomes in our lives overall. A study published in the Journal Frontiers in Psychiatry in 2019, detailed how low self-esteem is associated with anxiety, depression and academic stress in students. The impact of low self-esteem significantly affected students’ quality of life and was linked to higher rates of suicidal ideation. As you might be aware of right now, we're experiencing an epidemic of mental health disorders, and also skyrocketing rates of suicidal ideation, specifically in teens, but as a population overall, but specifically in teens, it's become startling.

As of this recording, the American Psychiatric Association has been circulating data coming from the CDC looking at some of the "collateral damage" that's taken place as a result of many of the lockdowns and social isolation and the impact that it's having on children and adolescents. And the CDC's report looking at the resulting mental health crisis among adolescents noted that nearly half of all teens analyzed reported that they feel, "persistently sad or hopeless." And one in five teens now saying that they have contemplated suicide.

Something is severely wrong, and this is something that we're not going to sit on our hands and do nothing about. We're going to address this issue head-on, because the outsourcing of our potential, the outsourcing of our mental wellness, the outsourcing of our children and their wellness to entities that largely don't really understand... Or they're not empowering citizens or educating citizens on what tools and strategies and insights can we utilize to cultivate better mental health, better physical health, and better outcomes overall. That's not the job of those entities as we've seen, that's the job of us as citizens and as parents.

And so today I really want to lock in on this topic of self-esteem and also just generally our confidence overall, whether we're a teen or an adult, because these things play out majorly in our lives overall, as we're going to articulate even more. So let's look at this a little bit deeper and just talking about self-confidence and how it's changed recently.

Now the study that I noted earlier from Frontiers in Psychiatry, looking at the impact of self-esteem, low self-esteem, significantly affecting students’ quality of life and increasing rates of anxiety, depression and academic stress... What they noted was that self-confidence in this study was lowered as a result of emotional and or physical abuse. That was one of the noted contributors to low self-esteem and also other factors include things like lack of social support, isolation and poor physical health pours over into our self-confidence and our feeling of self-esteem.

Now, why does this matter? Healthy self-esteem has been found to reduce the risk of eating disorders, increase overall happiness and life satisfaction, increased willingness to experiment and also create a better state of general health outcomes, and so much more. Now, I want to be clear because confidence and cultivating more self-esteem and confidence, it's not about delusion, and it's not about conceit or narcissism or a feeling of superiority. So, let's just get that out of the way.

What we're talking about here in the context of self-esteem, it's literally defined as how much people value themselves. Self-esteem is literally defined by how much value people place on themselves. High self-esteem refers to highly favorable global evaluation. A meta perspective of oneself. Low self-esteem by definition refers to an unfavorable definition of self. So, what we're talking about is an understanding of our self-value. What can be more important than that? What can be more efficacious than that? But when we think about confidence, we tend to steer our car over into the lane... The wrong lane of conceit, of narcissism, of self-obsession. And not understanding that that program belief in our society, that when you focus on yourself and bettering yourself and improving your self-confidence, and invoking self-care and all these other things... Right now, we're coming out of the dark... Literally, the dark ages of those things being frowned upon.

You know, that... All the "good stuff" in life is for those people over there. You should strive to just make it. Struggle, strife, all those things and you'll be rewarded somewhere maybe in the afterlife. And that chapter of human civilization and our mentality as a species, we're turning a chapter on that. Because just look at the results and the health outcomes that it's having for us as a population. We have the highest rates of mental health issues, depression, anxiety, ADHD, schizophrenia. The list goes on and on... Ever seen in documented human history. And the highest rates of chronic diseases as well. It's not even close. Highest rates of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, obesity, liver disease, lung disease. The list goes on and on. You name it... You name it. We got the highest levels ever seen, and we're supposed to be this so-called supposed advanced society. What sense does it make to advance technologically, if we devolve physically and emotionally as a species? And then we're just like, "Well, I just want to jack myself into the computer. It'll be all good."

Jack me into the matrix. Fix all these issues. We're missing the point. So, this is about empowerment, and this is about reality. This is about reality, and at its core, the way that we're operating, the way that we're operating as a person in this reality is based on our perceptions that we have of ourselves. It's based on our evaluation of our own value as a human being. That's going to determine what we think, what we do, who we interact with, what we tolerate, the list goes on and on. And it's all going to be based on our perception of who we are.

The number one driving force of the human psyche is to stay congruent with the ideas that we carry about ourselves and the world around us. That's what creates a sense of certainty and comfort, whether we are conscious of this or not, this is what's guiding our lives. This is why change can be so difficult, and why change usually, if we want to do... Proactively change something... A positive, right? It's uncomfortable. And this is why many people "fall off" when they're trying to invoke and invite a new habit... A "healthy habit" into their lives. It's because the psyche is comfortable, and it believes that this person is a certain way.

So, when we start to do things differently, it creates this turbulence. Alright, so again, the number one driving force of the human psyche is to stay congruent with ourselves, our ideas about ourselves and our ideas about the world around us. It creates a psychological certainty. And so, again, confidence is more like a result than like some arbitrary quality. Like that person just has some innate confidence. No, confidence is a result. And today we're going to go through and look at some of the very specific tactical things that we can do to cultivate a healthier sense of self-esteem and self-confidence. Alright. All with the means of this efficacious delivery and outcomes so that we can be of better service to our family, to our community, and just... We have the right to feel good. We have the right to grow as a person, and that's what this is really about, because we have to be able to make some psychological shifts to start to shift the results in the world around us. All change is really an inside job, and so that's what we're going to be diving into today. Now, again, confidence is more like a result than an arbitrary quality. The more you do things, the more confident you become in doing them.

Confidence is a result. Confidence does not mean that you won't have fear, by the way. Confidence does not mean that you won't struggle with things, but it does mean that you'll have a foundation of confidence, that when you take action, you'll know... You have the confidence to know that you'll figure it out. And so that's where we're at with the heart of this subject today, and I'm really excited about it because today we're going to go through 10 powerful ways to improve your confidence and your self-worth.

Now, let's kick things off with number one on our list of these 10 powerful ways to improve your confidence and self-worth. And number one is to keep the promises that you make to yourself. This is number one on our list for a good reason. Now, self-confidence is so powerful because it's you who has the power and the greatest influence on it. It's called self-confidence for a reason. Self-confidence. Now, noted in the research a little bit earlier, one of the biggest detriments to self-confidence was psychological, emotional, physical abuse from others. Right? Now, even in the midst of these terrible environmental inputs, which I've experienced as a human being... This isn't just some theoretical idea, this isn't just a hypothesis, this is coming from a place of experience.

Yes, those things may affect us. Yes, these things may have touched our lives, but ultimately it is still within our power to determine what we do as a result. We have the ability to shift the way that we see these things, and though we may have gone through traumatic experiences, we have the ability to determine how these things impact our lives. We have the responsibility... And even if you look at that word, it's the ability to respond. It's the ability to respond. Oftentimes, we're in reaction. We're just replaying and living out these influences, these things that we've experienced over and over and over again. Instead of understanding that we have the ability to respond in the way that we want to.

We can write a new story starting now. This doesn't negate that we've been through hard things. It doesn't negate that bad thing have happened in our lives, but we have the ability to determine where we go from here. And most people have not been privy to the fact that they have the pen in their hand to write their story. Because of the environmental abuse, we tend to believe that the environment is determining our happiness. The environment is determining our self-worth and our value, but that's the trick. It's not true.

You have the most power, and in truth, you have all the power to determine your sense of self-worth and to determine your self-confidence. It's called self-confidence for a reason. Now, one of the ways, and a primary way to build up this self-confidence is to keep the promises that you make to yourself. It's sort of like a bank account as we're building up that self-confidence. And if you want to look at this like maybe a high school or on a video game, for example, to build up and to add coins... Sonic, picking up those little rings, to add those coins, those rings to your bank account. In order to do that, one of the most simplistic and powerful ways is simply keeping the promises that you make to yourself. So, what do I mean by this? And this was a great impact or influence in a conversation that I had with Ed Mylett. Now, he's a best-selling author, incredible speaker and making such a huge impact on the world. And Ed was articulating this concept that... Again, it's about keeping the promises that you make to yourself. So, what do I mean?

For example, if we're wanting to build self-confidence in the fitness domain, it's keeping the promises that I make that I'm going to get up and exercise for 30 minutes a day. And every time I get up and exercise for that 30 minute, I put a deposit... I put a ring from the Sonic domain into the bank account. Alright. I start building up those rings. If I miss a day, take a ring out. Alright. So, it's kind of like a bank account that ebbs and flows with me keeping promises that I made to myself. Does this mean that I always keep the promise, that I always do the thing? No. It's not about perfection, it's about progress.

So, it's having more wins than losses in a very simplistic way. But even the loss, depending on our framing, it always presents the opportunity for a lesson, for growth. We're only dubbing it a loss because of our cultural programming. And maybe sometimes the loss is warranted. Maybe it's something else that needs to be addressed, but it's presenting an opportunity for us to change. So, keeping the promises that you make to yourself.

So, if you set the mandate... If we're just talking about fitness, that I'm making the decision and the goal, that I'm going to exercise, I'm going to do strength training. I'm going to lift weights three days a week, right? Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And when you execute on that, you're adding to your bank account. Whether you're conscious of it or not, you're just building up bank in that self-confidence, self-value, self-esteem account, because you're keeping the promise you make to yourself. These are the most important promises. These are the most important agreements that we have is those that are happening within. So, it's taking it intentionally and taking it and understanding the value in that, and that relationship that we're cultivating.

Now, there was another recent episode we had on Tony Robbins, legendary strategist and absolute leader in personal development. And Tony, one time, he was talking about the story when he was in a conversation with Michael Jordan. And Michael Jordan told him that, "Listen, Tony, I don't compete with other people." And so, this is the key here. Making promises you keep to yourself. He said, "I don't compete with other people. For me, that would be limiting because it's externally influenced." He said, "That for me, what pushes me forward and keeps me elevating and what builds my self-confidence is that I hold myself to a higher standard than anyone else ever could."

It's the standards that we're holding ourselves to. It's the promises that we're making to ourselves, setting the bar for ourselves, and then taking actions proactively to accomplish those things. And one of the most intelligent ways of taking this on is making small promises, because that's the thing. The promises themselves, the size, the magnitude doesn't matter. It's the fact that we make the promise, and we keep it. That's where the magic is. It doesn't have to be some grandiose thing. Going back to the fitness to, "Man, I'm going to work out for seven days... I'm going to work out eight days a week. I'm just going to crush it. Two-week transformation. Okay. My abs are going to have abs." Right. We don't got to jump to that extreme.

Just start off, hey. If you're going from zero days. Let's start with two. That's a stretch, right there in and of itself, right? So, we don't have to have this grandiose thing, the fact is that when we set a promise... Even if it's that two, or that one day a week of strength training, when we do it, we're adding to the bank account because we're keeping the promise that we've made to ourselves.

So that's number one here on these powerful ways to improve our self-confidence and self-worth. This is a strategy; this is a psychological strategy that we can utilize to build confidence within ourselves and also to teach our children to help them to build confidence in themselves. Because whether they understand it or not, when they set a goal for something and they set a standard or a decision on a habit that they're going to take on and they keep that promise... What that's doing is it's building their self-esteem. It's building their self-confidence to know that "Hey, when I set a goal for something, I'm able to achieve it." And it's one of the greatest gifts that we can give.

Alright, now let's move on to number two here on our list of 10 powerful ways to improve your self-confidence and self-worth. Number two is to be around people who support your self-confidence. Now, this comes with a caveat. It's not the other people, the external world that has the ultimate say about you, but it makes it a whole hell of a lot easier when you don't have to compete with the world around you to help to maintain and uplift your self-confidence. What if you have people in your life who water your self-confidence garden, who add value to it, who add psychological supportive fertilizer to help that garden of self-confidence grow. So, what we want to do is psychologically, consciously, intentionally get ourselves around people who bring out the best in us. Get around people who support and empower us, and also give us empowering examples to follow.

Make it an intention. You are so powerful to do this. Because we might be like, "Well, I don't know anybody like that." Or "There's not that many people in my area." What are you doing right now? What are you listening to right now? Who are you hanging out with? We have the opportunity today to utilize technology in a way that is supportive, that's life affirming, that's efficacious, in the same way that we can use it to our detriment. Because it's not just the physical hanging out, it's, who are you spending time with? What are you listening to? What are you watching? Get yourself around people who empower you and who give you powerful empowering examples to follow.

Now, I absolutely am an advocate for real world interaction as well, and so we want to make that a mandate as well because your physical environment matters. So don't just... We can make that shift to use online resources, but also make it the intention to move forward and have good people in your social circle physically as well. People that speak life into you. People that also hold you to a higher standard. I'm not saying to get around some yes men and some yes women just like, "Oh, everything you do is fantastic." I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about people that hold you to a higher standard, that hold you accountable, that challenge you. No one said great relationships are supposed to be all easy, they're supposed to evoke growth.

And that's part of the process as well. But also at the same time, they might challenge you, but they honor and respect you. They honor and appreciate you; they understand your value. That's another part here, or the capacity of your value, they see the potential in you. They see your heart. And so, these are the people you pro-actively want to get yourself around, because it just helps. It's like Super Grow for that mental garden of self-confidence. It's ultimately, you're the one planting the seeds, you're the one who has the duty to grow that self-confidence but having good people in your life who empower you, who speak life into you, who hold you accountable, who honor and appreciate you, is going to help that garden grow faster, and to be more powerful and sustainable. Because the third one of these 10 powerful ways to improve your self-confidence and self-worth, number three is to distance yourself from people who attack your self-confidence.

Again, as noted in this peer reviewed study that we started the show with, one of the big detractors of our self-confidence and self-esteem is emotional abuse, is physical abuse, is isolation. These are all ingredients that can create a low self-assessment or a low self-value because what we tend to do as children experiencing these things and also adults as well, we tend to see that in some strange way often, that it's our fault. That it is something that we're doing or not doing that has made life be so abusive to us, and nothing could be further from the truth.

And this is where we get into these very complex scenarios, but I can tell you from my experience in having the opportunity to work with thousands of people in a clinical context, and also just being able to impact the lives of millions of people at this point, and hearing so many wonderful stories and messages, we have to understand that everybody is here. We've got billions of people on the planet right now, not to mention the billions of people that have come before us, in this story of human evolution and human potential. Everybody is unique, there's never been the same person printed out twice. And people may be like, "Whoa, what about identical twins?" Still, they're still two completely different human entities, with a different microbiome, with a different metabolic fingerprint, with a different association construction of how their nerves are firing in their brains, because of their environmental inputs. No two people see life the same. And I'm bringing this up to say that, from my experience, no two people are here with the same soul assignment or the same purpose. Now, I'm saying that with a little bit of a caveat, because ultimately, we get to choose.

That's the powerful thing about it too, is that we get to choose. Once we become aware what our purpose is, why we're here, we get to wake up to that. There's that tenet, know thyself, and understanding our capacity, our gifts, and our talents. And so, this is a process of unfolding. And having that process of unfolding, there's something mystical and beautiful about it that we can't quite describe or put our finger on. So, it's in unity with something bigger than us, absolutely, and it's about us and that self-discovery and us choosing why we're here and what our soul assignment is. So being thrust into these conditions that seem to be uncontrollable as a child, for example, where I was in this environment with drug abuse, with physical abuse, with violence in my environment, with struggle. With struggle just being able to have food on the table at times, all these different scenarios, just like, why would these bad things be thrust upon this child? And the physical abuse can just be so traumatic. But at some point, I have to realize that this is not about me. That abuse that was directed towards me was not about me, it's about the person who was inflicting the abuse, it's their beliefs about what needs to be done for them to find some sense of peace and balance and happiness.

And I know this might sound a little bit crazy right now, but please hold a space for me to articulate this. Most people are good, this doesn't mean that they always do good things. There are some people who they're straight up... They're nucking futs, for sure. That does exist, alright? But at the same time, most people are just trying to find a way to find happiness, to find self-worth and self-value, to find some sense of certainty, and they might out-picture that to the world around them in forms that are not advantageous to the people that they care about. So, for me, I have to understand whether it's a source of evil or whether it's a source of love, whatever it is, that abuse is not about me. If I'm just a baby, I'm second grade. I remember my mother, she's the type that would just pick up whatever's around and hit you with it, alright? But some small act happened, and she was close to a wiffle ball bat, those little yellow bats, and she started hitting me with it, and she hit me in the face, accidentally, apparently, apparently, but she hit me in my eye.

Black eye, red blood clot in my eye, and now I'm going to school, I was in the second grade. I'll never forget this because it was the first time that I remember her telling me to lie and me following her orders. And so, my teacher saw me, and she was like, "Oh my God, Shawn, what happened?" And I was like, "I fell," and I become complicit in this story, but that's also one of the reasons those stories, those moments, because I didn't feel good about that, and I decided... It didn't happen immediately, but I decided that I'm going to live my life honestly, I'm going to find a way that I don't have to lie about the circumstances in my life and the results in my life, I'm going to live a life of honesty.

Now, of course, it did not happen right away, it took some time, especially the sangle-dangle years, you know what I'm saying? But eventually, this is how I live my life today, is I don't see the value in lying, I don't see the value in dishonesty and betrayal and mythmaking and storytelling, that at the end of the day, you're harming your connection to other people, and for what? Because as you've seen, especially recently, the truth comes out, some way, somehow or another. And so, we have the opportunity in those moments to decide who we are going to be, with those environmental influences. Are we going to be the person who is replicating the environment and the exposure of violence, of dishonesty? Or are we going to say, "You know what? I see this and I choose to be something else." We have the gift of contrast to see, this is how I don't want to be.

This is the result I don't want my life to have, I choose other than. We get to choose, but we have to be aware of it. This is what we have to teach our children. We don't have these tools. This is why mental health is such a... This multi-pronged epidemic that we've never seen before, we were not given these basic tools to understand ourself and how to operate in this ever-increasing complex terrain of distraction, of pulling our attention away and outsourcing it to other people. We have to have these tools to be able to self-assess, to be able to understand scenarios, and to be able to say, "I have the ability to choose my response, I have my ability within me to choose what I want to believe about a thing, and I can adjust my life accordingly. I have that power." And so, this is about empowerment. So, number three here on this list is to distance ourself from people who attack your self-confidence. Now, again, chances are you have some people in your life who've been known a time or 20, to attack your self-confidence, to make you feel bad, to say random sh*t to you, we've got to be able to say, at some point, enough is enough.

And distance ourself. It doesn't mean that we don't love them, it doesn't mean that we don't express compassion and empathy, but we have the right to not subject ourselves to abuse in the name of love, in the name of, "I'm just being a good person, it's my family, it's my best friend," or whatever the case might be. If they're constantly bringing to you vitriol, hate... You probably know some people that hate on you on the slide, just like saying little random comments. You might have a great accomplishment that you achieve, and they've got always something negative to say about it. And so, again, it's not that this person is a bad person, but you don't have to subject yourself to that if that's not what you want. Now, again, I'm saying this caveat, every human being, none of us are perfect. We're going to have moments where we might express things like that, so I'm not talking about people making mistakes, and also especially owning up to them and apologizing for their behavior, but I'm talking about that habitual character trait where they're constantly digging into you, prison-shanking your self-confidence with a sawed-down toothbrush or something like, "Hey, you had a good day," and then they stick you with it, just like, "Come on!" out of the blue.

We don't have to subject ourselves to that. I don't know why I had this whole... Oh, I know why the prison scenario, because I was just out with my wife, she took me on this little weekend vacation, which we've never done before, world has been pretty nuts, and the TV at the hotel didn't have any of those special stations, and so I was watching TNT or something, which I never do. Man, I cannot believe the number of commercials, first and foremost. It's crazy! I'm talking about 80% of these commercials were processed, terrible foods, and drugs. It was crazy just to witness this stuff, because today we have more ability to on-demand watch the things we want to watch. Man, but when you watch conventional networks...

Processed, terrible foods and drugs, and also associated things for our poor health, like insurance. Just on repeat, on circulation, nuts. But anyways, but the movie that I was watching, we were just hanging out, was Con Air, Con Air. Shoutout to Nicholas Cage. Man, if this isn't one of the best worst movies ever. And so anyways, but it's this whole prison scenario, that's why I thought about the filed down toothbrush, a la prison shank, a la people expressing negativity in our lives. So that's number three here on our list of 10 powerful ways to improve your self-confidence and self-worth, is to distance yourself from people who attack your self-confidence. It's still your responsibility to maintain your self-confidence, and this isn't about pushing away advantageous, caring, critique or challenge your way, this is about people who are blatantly attacking you, who are belittling you, who are bringing vitriol and emotional abuse your way, it's time... We got to turn the page. We're going to wish them the best, we're going to pray for them, but we're going to work on, first and foremost, building ourselves up, building up our self-confidence and our self-esteem so that we can have a better, brighter impact on the world, and hopefully, that will circulate its way to them as well. Be a guiding light for them instead of spending time in the mud trying to fight them.

Now, I'm going to move on to number four here on our list of these 10 powerful ways to improve your self-confidence and self-worth. Number four is to be an advocate for yourself, to stand up for yourself. There's this great line from award-winning hip-hop artist, Common, he said that nobody believes until I believe me. Nobody believes until I believe me. Self-confidence and the out-picturing of that, again, it's an inside job, being advocate for yourself and your self-belief, but also, that entails us believing great things about ourselves, understanding our value, acknowledging our gifts, acknowledging our experiences, acknowledging the things that we've overcome, all of this inner work. You can even do exercises like literally just taking out a piece of paper and writing down all of the things that you've overcome in your life or write down all of the things that come to mind that you've achieved in your life. And it can shock you. Big things and small things. Maybe it's you graduated high school, which was a rarity in my family, by the way, for me to graduate high school, let alone I was the first person to go to a university and graduate in my family, in my family's history that I'm aware of.

I don't really know about my full-length family tree from back 100 years ago, but I was the first person in my family to accomplish that thing. But I can overlook that in my day-to-day life, but when you start to write down... This is one of the things that we do first and foremost when setting goals. My wife and I, every year when we set goals, the first thing that we do is we sit down and we acknowledge all of the things that we accomplished the year before, and this could be goals that we accomplished, but also there's a lot of bonuses, there are a lot of bonus things that took place. And what that does is, when you see the obstacles that you're able to overcome, the things that you're able to achieve, it starts to open up that window of your mind to know like, "Wow, I can accomplish some pretty remarkable things, I can overcome some pretty tough adversities.

So let me open up my mind a little bit more to allowing the possibility of bigger things, greater things, whatever the case might be, to happen." So we start the day by going through and acknowledging the things that we've accomplished, the things that we've overcome, and we use that energy then to set our goals from that, because it's like a remembrance of like when we're stretching ourselves to do something we haven't done before, just to remember, we've done it, there was already a bar that was set that we were able to achieve despite all the things that we've been through. So, it's one of the tactics, but again, to be an advocate for yourself, so that's that internal work, but also being able to set boundaries for yourself and to speak up for yourself. Right now, one of the things that people are starting to invoke more, people that are in my circle, is the realization that No is a complete sentence.

Alright, you don't have to say yes to everything, you don't have to say yes to things that you don't want to do, that your heart knows that you don't want to do, in the name of whatever, having some type of relationship, achieving some type of short-term thing, at the sacrifice of your integrity, for example, or the sacrifice of your family and the time with your family, whatever it might be. No is a full sentence. So, being able to strengthen your No muscle, so that... Because it really is a muscle. I know that there's a lot of people pleasers. We all have... Most of us have a spectrum of people pleasing in us, some people are definitely more extreme than others, but I've definitely participated, I've definitely dabbled in that character tree, for sure, but it doesn't have to be a bad thing, it's just the framing of it, people pleasing sounds like this extreme. What about service to others? That's another part of it as well. But finding that balance where pleasing someone else doesn't control my identity or doesn't control my self value, if I'm achieving or not achieving that thing. So that's what people pleasing can start to do, is determine your self-esteem and self-value. That's the dark side of it.

But overall, we have to be able to set boundaries and teach this to our children, we don't have to be around people that make us feel bad or that make us feel uncomfortable, and not... Again, I'll keep saying this but with these caveats, because this doesn't mean that you are always comfortable and that you're just around people that make you feel good. Some people, good people might challenge you, being in their presence, they might hold a higher standard, or achieved a certain level of whatever it is that you aspire towards, and it creates a little bit of turbulence within you that's different from being around somebody who you feel threatened by, that you feel like might try to do you harm or abuse you, or anything like that. We want to teach this to our children to be able to say no, to be able to set boundaries, so they're not subjected as they move on in life, to allowing people to take advantage of them, for them to be able to say, "You know what? I don't like this person being able to touch me," for example, "I don't feel good about that."

Allow your children, teach your children to set boundaries. We have to give this gift to our children, not be surprised when shit happens later on. So, having the ability to set boundaries and to speak up for themselves. And right now, you probably are well aware that our ability to set boundaries and speak up for ourselves has been magnified in many ways, and also in many ways, it's been torn apart for some people, it's been highlighted so much that they don't express that capacity to speak up for themselves in the face of adversity, specifically the last couple of years in dealing with the social divisiveness that's taken place as a result of this virus. SARS COV-2 showing up in our lives, and it's... Again, what it really is, is a symptom of much deeper issues, social and psychological issues. What this has enabled is it's just bringing it to the surface, the inability to perspective takes and to think rationally, the poor state of overall mental and physical health coming into this scenario that we already had as a nation, being absolutely terrible. Again, the worst health, the most chronically diseased society in the history of humanity, despite our so-called advances. We're coming into it with that.

That was already a thing, but this brings it out and highlights it even more. So, to highlight this, and this struggle for people to speak up for themselves, data published by the American Psychological Society states that high self-esteem makes people more willing to speak up in groups, and to criticize the group's approach. High self-esteem makes people more willing to speak up in groups and to criticize the group's approach. That self-esteem, that self-value that's so poorly lacking in our society today is part of the reason so many people have been complicit in all of the nonsense that's taken place over the past couple of years. So, if you're wondering why this is happening, even some of the people who are framed to be leaders and health advocates, falling silent during this time and not speaking up for our health, for our citizens' well-being, like real clinically proven principles, being able to understand the fields of psycho-neuro-immunology and how much our psychology and our mental state affect our immune system. So, psychological disturbances, stress, anxiety, fear, these things are clinically proven to increase inflammation in the body, they're pro-inflammatory, suppress immune system function, create derangement with our hormone system. Like, it throws everything off, and that's a fact.

And so being inundated with 24/7 fear coming from media networks, from politicians, no empowerment, no, this is what you can do. And all you need is your body, this is what you can do to be healthier in the this scenario, to create a new level of resilience in the face of an infectious disease, these are all the things that we know clinically proven, whether it's Appalachian State University's data on even just walking, moving the body, exercise, being able to instantaneously increase immune parameters, most notably for natural killer cells, neutrophils, the list goes on and on. There was no mandate, there was no recommendation to the public to make sure that you're moving your body and walking because it's critical, without this, your immune system cannot function properly, and no drug can fix that, there is no drug that can supersede that, it doesn't exist. But suddenly it's it was just like, oh ah, it exists, I can use this drug, it's fine, it's not how stuff works, that's not how reality works, and we know this, but people, they weren't putting their hand up, they weren't standing up, they weren't chest out, they weren't superman with it, they just... I'll stay in my lane. Their self-esteem and self-confidence showed itself, they fell silent.

Now, how did this play out in the real world in association with this virus? A study conducted by researchers at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, not too far from where I'm recording this right now, tracked the exercise habits of nearly 50,000 SARS-CoV-2 patients and revealed some eye-opening evidence, after analyzing their exercise habits over the prior time coming into it more resilient and healthy, so analyzing their exercise habits over the two years prior to the pandemic, it was revealed that people who are were consistently inactive, who are were not exercising, were two and a half times more likely to die from this virus than people who consistently exercise. Again, this is the outcome that I could can see coming from a mile away, I was sharing data from Appalachian State University, I was sharing the data from a myriad of different published peer-reviewed, entirely efficacious sources on how important it is to get our citizens moving and active and healthy, and I was sharing that in the face of vitriol and adversity, but I didn't care because of my self-esteem, I was on some Bernie Mac with it, like I ain't scared of you motherf*ckers.

I ain't scared of you mother*ckers.

I'm not. And so, I just... It's not a matter of confidence or I'm like, I'm so courageous. That's one of the things that people would say, "Oh you are you so courageous." No, no, I'm just doing what I do because this is who I am. My self-confidence and my self-esteem is in a place that I don't care what is going on in the world around me, my value is not placed in those outside opinions, I'm doing this as a means of service, and I'm doing this as a means of expressing what is real? The greatest... Literally, for me, I don't care... If exercise messed stuff up, if exercise made things worse, I would be talking about that because I don't care, I care about effectiveness and efficacy, the vast majority of data that we have for decades of scientific study in these subjects, you know, with psychoneuroimmunology, with exercise science, with nutrition, with stress and even psychoneuroendocrinology, and the list goes on and on. We know these things are going to happen when humans are isolated, when they're not moving, when they're not taking care of themselves, when they're eating fake things that they're making their immune cell... You're making your immune cells out of absolute garbage.

That's the thing people don't understand. Your immune cells are literally made from the food that you eat, and so, real talk, you can make your immune cells out of sustainable, real food that humans have been interacting with throughout our evolution, whether it's berries or the like, or you can make your immune cells out of Cheeto dust. And I've I'm just going to probably wager to say that the Cheeto dust immune cells are not going to really hold up well against an infectious disease. Now, this is a very rudimentary way of looking at this, but it's also what we're feeding our microbiome with, it's what we're feeding our gut microbes that... This is a hallmark now that we're starting to understand, because even with SARS-CoV-2, it's at least in part, and we'll put up a study for people to see, it's been affirmed to be at least in part an enteric infection relating to the gut because of the ACE2 receptors. And so, what are we doing to take care of our gut health as a society, is this even being talked about in the context of this infectious disease, and no, it absolutely has not been at the highest orders of magnitude, public health officials, major media, there are voices like myself and my colleagues that I've featured over these years, these last two years.

Absolutely. So, the data exists. And what's so powerful, you know it's said that "The revolution will not be televised, we've been finding a way, we've been finding a way to get this information out and to empower people, and also our voices are collectively very, very strong. And so, this is what's kind of helped to push things forward, but while it's all going down and while we're in the muck and struggling with these things, we can often miss out on the fact that, again, data published by the American Psychological Society states that high self-esteem makes people more willing to speak up in groups and to criticize the group's approach. We need to instill more self-confidence into our citizens into our children right now more than ever. And another side effect of not doing this is highlighted, in one of the most famous studies on social control and self-confidence in voicing one's opinion and acting out behaviors in accordance to authority figures from the Milgram study. The Milgram study is a that wonderful dictation or highlight of what can happen under the influence of social pressure, like we've experienced from so-called authority figures, what happens psychologically versus doing the right thing. So, a great articulation of this was done by my friend JP Sears, so let's hear him talk about the Milgram study.

How far would you go to follow orders, how much would you compromise of your own free will, would you sacrifice what you knew was right, ignore your principles, you're instinct, your heart and gut? What if someone in a position of authority demanded that you do something that you knew in your heart was wrong, something based on a lie, masquerading as fact, simply because they said it was a fact? Throughout history, people just following orders have done a lot of terrible unconscious-able things. Nazi officers sent millions of Jews to their deaths during World War II, secret police totalitarian regimes around the world have kidnapped and tortured children, entire populations have been imprisoned and exterminated all by people just following orders. It's easy to say, "Well, I wouldn't do that, I would resist." But would you? Would you disobey a morally unjust order, even if it meant personal sacrifice?

In a famous study of obedience known as the Milgram Experiment, ordinary people were willing to inflict even extreme harm on another human being administering what they thought were electric shocks of increasing severity, simply because they were told to do so by someone projecting a symbol of authority, a researcher wearing a lab coat. In the experiment, the subjects were told they were participating in an educational study and that they were to administer the shocks to a fellow participant each time an incorrect answer was given on the a memory test. In reality, no one was getting shocked, it was a ruse, the other participant was also a researcher instructed to often answer incorrectly, but this was unknown to the subject as the number of incorrect answers rose, so did the severity of the shocks. An astonishing 65% of subjects obeyed authority, progressing farther and farther up the electrical dial all the way to the highest level, simply because the lab coat-wearing researcher insisted on it.

The experiment's designer, Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist concluded, when authority was pitted against the subjects' strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and with the subjects' ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not, the extreme willingness of people to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of this study.

What's all this mean for us? Well, ask yourself, who's wearing the lab coats today and who are the subjects in this study of blind obedience, politicians and those appointed by them go to great lengths to demand we submit to their authority, to bristle with indignation when caught in lies. And to demand, we follow orders or else... In this real-world study of obedience, mask mandates, masked children vax vaccine mandates and enforced segregation imposed by those in real or figurative lab coats are the new shock treatment, and they're studying us to see how far they can go and how long we'll obey. 18th century statesman Edmund Burke said, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Tyranny progresses slowly, inch by inch, edict by edict, mandate by mandate, each one chipping away at liberty and freedom until nothing of what we formally took for granted remains. Philosopher Ram Dass tells us that you can't get out of the a jail you don't know you're in.

It's time to see that the jail of compliance and obedience we're being led to believe is normal and just is neither. Our willingness to disobey authorities when it makes moral sense to do so, to stay true to our sense of right and wrong is the most powerful weapon we have. Martin Luther King Jr said, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. Gandhi tells us, civil disobedience is a sacred duty when the state becomes lawless or corrupt, it's our moral responsibility and sacred duty to disobey and to do so now. Well, while we may be appalled that 65% of the subjects in the Milgram experiment blindly obeyed authority, we can be encouraged that 35% did not. They exercised defiance in the name of doing what was right, but here's the best part about the experiment that you'll want to know, when a subject refused to obey and others witnessed it, the willingness of those others to continue administering the shocks plummeted from 65% to just 10%. What does this prove? Courage is contagious. When you stay true to your heart and disobey what you know is wrong, it strongly empowers others to do the same, when we exercise our courage and bravery, we can take others along with us, or we can stand by and do nothing and just obey. When the dust settles, which side of history do you want to be on? The side of obedience or the side of courage, the choice is yours.

As JP articulated, courage is contagious. Now, this might sound a little bit strange, but because when we think about contagion, we tend to think about things hopping from body to body, but if you really understand what the core of a meme is, it's a mind virus, it's something that's an idea that's hopping from mind to mind, and there's an expression, there is a template, there are mirror neurons that we have that are mirroring and witnessing behaviors and running simulations of ourselves doing the thing when we witness other people do it, and so that courage is contagious, where we're going from 65% of people following, just following the rules, just following instruction and proactively harming other human beings intentionally doing something that is not advantageous, something that is... They know is wrong. Now, that number plummeted from 65% of people just following orders and invoking pain, proactively invoking pain onto another human being, that number plummeted from 65% to just 10% when they witness someone else is standing up, when they witness someone else being confident.

That's why these matters, that's why this conversation matters, that's why I was so adamant about putting this episode together right now, because we do not want to forget this, we do not want to replay this scenario, we don't want to have a part deux of what's just happened with SARS-CoV-2 and in this pandemic, we don't want to see it no more. We better learn the lessons right now and we better boost our confidence and our self-esteem and our ability to self-assess and our ability to instill these things into our family members, into our children, even more specifically, so that's number four here on this list of these 10 powerful ways to improve your confidence and self-worth. Number four is to be an advocate for yourself, be an advocate for yourself. Cultivate healthy boundaries. Speak up for yourself. Strengthen your no muscle. And also, of course, teach this, instill this, empower this act, because being able to understand, again, courage is contagious, self-confidence is not some arbitrary thing, it is an act, it is a practice.

And moving on to number five here, number five on this list of powerful ways to improve your self-confidence, your self-worth, number five is to take care of your health. The confidence emanates from within. Again, confidence emanates from within, our confidence is really an expression of our capacity, whether it's our mental capacity or our emotional capacity or our physical capacity, all of these things marry together. There have been people who have had remarkable capacity without the physical gifts that someone else might have, and vice versa, but what if we can practice and cultivate all of those areas, our mental health, our emotional health, our spiritual health, our physical health, making ourselves physically, mentally and emotionally stronger, the confidence that exudes from that can be remarkable.

Again, so number five on this list is to take care of your health, confidence emanates from within. Now, with this said, we have an environment that we're all trying to navigate, that is constantly and literally trying to feed us things that degrade our health, that degrade our confidence, we're eating food that worsens our physical health, that worsens our mental health, 60% of the American diet is ultra-processed foods, things that have never existed before in human history, is what 60% of our diet is made out of today. There's no words for that. It's not 10%, it's 60%. Something is awry. How do we even get to that place? It didn't happen overnight. It was steadily sitting by, allowing this stuff to happen and most people not saying no, because it's so easy to say yes to that Happy Meal. It says, Happy in the name, I want to be happy. Give me the Happy Meal. Right?

We've been in this state where we've been inundated with poor food, it's just become the social norm for these things to be available and acceptable, and I think it's just what we do, and what that's doing is degrading our health from the inside out, degrading our self-esteem and our self-value from the inside out, because it's very difficult to have empowering thoughts and compassion even when we're in a state, a physical state of unrest and disease. So, I want you to really understand that. And this is based off of data coming from the Ohio State University, just looking at how abnormal blood sugar can degrade our ability to perspective-take, to have compassion and to solve our problems with our significant others, and blood sugar derangement is the norm today. Alright, we've got about 250 million of our citizens, we're almost at that point that are overweight or obese, about 130 million of our citizens are diabetic or are pre-diabetic right now, so abnormal blood sugar is a normal the norm... And what is it?

We're talking about a abnormal deranged response from our stress system, our stress response, so we're talking about that driving force of cortisol and adrenaline and things that take place when our blood sugar is wonky because our body is just trying to sort it out and to shift gears here, it isn't just our nutrition that's regulating, controlling our stress response and our blood sugar, it's also our sleep behaviors, our sleep hygiene, it's also our stress exposures. Research published in a myriad of journals now have affirmed that even just one night of sleep deprivation can cause you to be more insulin-resistant the next day, and the longer that behavior goes on, the more severe the insulin resistance takes place, and so we're not looking at how does our sleep behavior impact our blood sugar, for example, and our out-picturing and how we feel about ourselves, how our energy feels, our ability to show up in the world, our ability to be confident, it's also determined determinant upon our sleep and our ability to helpfully manage stress, obviously our nutrition as well, but all of these environmental inputs matters, so...

And these are the things that we talk about predominantly here on The Model Health Show, that we have this wonderful catalog now that addresses all of these things and in various masterclasses and bringing on the very best people in the world in their respective fields to help to educate and empower folks on these things, but also just to give you a couple, because ultimately it's about the big chunk pieces, so our nutrition overall, predominantly focusing on real food that you can actually recognize where it comes from versus the ultra-processed foods that become, again, 60% of the average American's diet today, and our sleep hygiene practices and our movement practices, but there are a couple of things that I utilize in the face of stress and that I recommend for people, especially if we're talking about health of our nervous system and our endocrine system, and one of those things, this is highlighted in the study, this was published in biomedical research, and they found that test subjects with a variety of health complaints including anxiety and poor sleep quality, were given Lion's mane medicinal mushroom or placebos for four weeks. So, this is a placebo controlled trial, the participants who utilized the Lion's Mane medicinal mushroom significantly reduced levels of irritation and anxiety than those in the placebo group.

We need to be able to modulate and manage our irritation and anxiety when communicating and articulating, that's a part of self-confidence and self-esteem is not being inundated or controlled or brought down in the face of irritation when irritating things happen. This doesn't mean that you don't have irritation, but it doesn't control you, the anxiety doesn't control you, and this doesn't come from one thing, by the way, this isn't some magical thing that just eliminates anxiety, but we have some placebo-controlled data affirming how, "Wow, this really is beneficial to the nervous system." The University of Malaya researchers there found that Lion's mane has been found to help to stimulate neurogenesis, the creation of new brain cells, it's remarkable, there's not many things that are well established to do that, and so they're studying it for use in the face of traumatic brain injuries, so there's a wonderful buffer there with stress and healing supporting the nervous system, Lion's mane, but the key here is you hear something like this and people do this, they'll just run out and get Lion's mane, get it from the best place, because you need a dual extraction, you need a hot water extract and alcohol extract, both, so you're getting all of the compounds that have been utilized historically. Lion's mane has been used for thousands of years.

Through both methods, you want to try Turpin compounds and the antioxidant compounds as well, you want them to marry together for the hormonal effects and the antioxidant effects as well, and so the one place that does it the right way is Four Sigmatic. Go to foursigmatic.com/model, that's F-O-U-R-S-I-G-M-A-T-I-C.com/model. You get an exclusive discount there for all of their mushroom elixirs, that includes the Lion's Mane, but also, they've got these Lion's Mane infused coffee blends, organic coffee, that also includes Chaga, for example, so many other wonderful formulations, all done the right way. I've been utilizing Four Sigmatic for years. It's a part of my daily routine. So when I'm talking about this, I only talk about the things that I do, that I utilize myself, because I cannot speak from a place of integrity, if that wasn't the case, so I love them, I love Four Sigmatic, is a part of my life, so I highly recommend you check 'em out, foursigmatic.com/model, and another thing that I utilize in the face of stress and just immune support. Again, food first, high quality sleep, first, movement practices first, but just the things to add that a couple extra percent of support is we have to make sure that we're getting great dietary sources of vitamin C, but this is also a place to supplement for a lot of people.

And this is because according to a study published in the Journal of Nutrition and Food sciences, both emotional and physical stress affect a person's vitamin C status. It can increase the requirement for vitamin C to maintain normal blood levels. When stress depletes vitamin C levels in the body it reduces the body's resistance to infection and disease, and it increases the likelihood of further stress, so being deficient in vitamin C stresses you out, but you might not even know that this is happening because it's a simple nutrient deficiency that we can address, but we're looking at this, most people getting a crappy multi... Synthetic multi-vitamin or these crappy synthetic vitamin C supplements, but the researchers noted that when vitamin C intake is increased, the negative effects of excessive stress are reduced and the body's ability to cope with stress improves dramatically. So again, what do I mean by the synthetic stuff? I'm talking about that versus botanical, high quality food concentrates of vitamin C. A study publish in the Journal of Cardiology had 20 smokers consume the number one source of botanical vitamin, which is called camu camu berry over the course of a one-week study and found that it led to significantly lowered oxidative stress and reduce their inflammatory biomarkers like C reactive protein.

What's more, versus ordinary, "Ordinary synthetic vitamin C tablets", there were no changes in the test subjects who utilized the synthetic vitamin C tablets, analyzing this specific thing if we're talking about lowering oxidative stress, stress and inflammatory biomarkers, so again, it's more powerful when it's coming from botanical sources, camu camu berry, the very best source of vitamin C, just a tiny amount, a teaspoon is over 700% of your RDA, and your body uses up Vitamin C quickly because of all the stress that we're facing, so I get camu camu berry combined with my second and third favorite vitamin C source super foods acerola cherry and amla berry from the essential C complex at Paleovalley. All organic, done the right way. No binders, no fillers, no nefarious ingredients in there. Go to paleovalley.com/model, P-A-L-E-O-V-A-L-L-E-Y.com/model. Paleovalley.com/model, you get an exclusive 15% off discount, over at paleovalley.com/model, there're essential C formula, there're snacks for yourself, for the kids. Wonderful. Love those guys so much. Paleovalley.com/model.

So again, number five here on this list is to take care of your health, this is one of the primary reasons that you can proactively invest in to build up your self-confidence and your self-worth is taking good care of you, it's paying into that bank account, because not only are you keeping your promises to yourself when you are doing the things that make you healthier and a healthy representation of yourself, moving you towards the best version of who you can be, but just the underlying hormonal effects, the effects on your neurotransmitters, your nervous system overall, all this does is to help to support the capacity of you being more confident in the world. Number six here on our list, are these 10 powerful ways to improve your self-confidence and self-worth, number six is to invest in your personal development daily.

So, this is speaking to the importance of feeding your mind. Alright, we're not just taking in food from the external environment, what we're exposed to is also feeding our brain, and we cannot help, but this happens, so proactively putting ourselves in front of information that feeds us good nutrition mentally. So, this is why I say to do this daily, it's a part of my daily routine, it's part of my morning ritual is to do something to educate myself, to bring on a sense of empowerment and to train myself on taking on multiple perspectives, whatever the case might be. This is something I do every single day, it's a part of my morning routine. So, what this really is about is... And why this one matter so much is that by investing in your personal development each day, you're growing yourself psychologically, you're growing yourself as a human being and your mental and emotional capacity as a human being.

And if we want to put this on the scale of human potential, your capacity to understand scenarios, to problem solve, to show up in the face of adversity, if you have a scale of one to 10, 10 being the ultimate expression of human potential to overcome adversity, to problem solve, to be empowered, and a one is you're starting off template when you get here as a bebe, let's just say you've been through some stuff, you overcome some challenges, you've grown yourself, and now you're at a level four on that human spectrum of potential, which is limitless by the way, but I just use the skill May 10, you're a level four.

If a level three problem happens in your life, it's going to mess you up, you're going to feel it, you're going to feel it deeply. Alright, it can really mess up some things maybe for a week, maybe a lifetime, but if you grow yourself and you're proactively working towards building yourself up, building up your character, and you're... We'll just say a level eight on that spectrum of human potential, which again, it's limitless, and a level four problem happens a level three problem happens we'll still take the same example, a level three problem happens, you probably won't even feel it. It'll be like, "Oh man, that's inconvenient." Maybe you can handle that on your lunch break, or maybe you know you can make a call and somebody else that you know, an association or whatever, handles it. It's just like your capacity, and that thing is distant, there's a distance between you and who you are, your character, and that occurrence, that event, that's what we want to do, grow ourselves, so that the stuff in life doesn't take us down. And we have the capacity to do this. Alright, so this in the context of confidence, when you build yourself up it makes you resilient against confidence killers.

Alright, I hope you hear what I'm saying. It makes you resilient against confidence killers, the things that show up in the lives of many people that diminish their confidence, maybe it's somebody critiquing their project or the result or something they created that would normally take someone else down, for you is nothing like, "What." Brush that off, it's nothing. Dust your shoulders off, alright, it's nothing to you because you've grown yourself in your capacity, or maybe it's an outcome that maybe you created something, maybe you publish something, and it didn't take off to the capacity that you might have envisioned that it would. And instead of that crushing your confidence, you've grown yourself as a person to... Instead, you find a lesson in it, you find a gift in it, not to say that it doesn't hurt, or it doesn't frustrate you or irritate you, but you're able to see this occurrence and to be able to use that as a steppingstone to go to the next level, and I'm telling you this from experience. I'm telling you this from experience. If you're watching here on YouTube, we're here at The Model Health studio.

Alright, I didn't start off in this dam studio. I was at my house, I was a face of another podcast brand back in the day which shall remain nameless, sorry, I was the health expert who was a face of the brand, it was my computer and my microphone, and I was doing everything, alright, but if you're looking at the video and you can see me here at the studio, right here on the shelf, behind me, I have two of my books, and it's even crazy for me to say that. If you know where I'm from, it's no way, there was no part of the prophecy that would say that I would be a published author with the USA Today national best-selling book, Eat Smarter, during a pandemic and all the pandemic-related printing delays and shipping delays and all the problems still and still, and also an international best-selling book, Sleep Smarter, that's now translated into about 21 different language, 21 foreign publication for 21 separate book deals in different countries, this is in libraries in China.

It's translated and published in Spain. It's translated and published in France. Alright, I took French in high school. Aright, je m'appelle Shawn. Comment tu t'appelles? Comment allez-vous? Alright, I know a little bit, but I damn sure don't know enough to have my book translated and published in a foreign country, something special happened for that to take place, but what you're seeing is the end result or you're seeing a result of years of figuring things out and things not necessarily working to the degree that I would have thought, because I had a couple of practice runs. Alright. So, I self-published a book prior to all of these. Which shall remain nameless, I don't want people out there looking it up, alright.

So, these books have gone platinum, that book went wood. Alright, but I had a book launch party, I had my friends and family there, I was so proud, so excited, but I didn't understand what it takes because I'd never done the thing and I didn't know anybody that ever did the thing. I was taking a leap, I was expressing a deep soul mission, and something I just felt very strongly that I needed to do, you couldn't stop me from writing that book, and so I was obsessed with the process, but I didn't understand the process, I didn't understand what it takes to reach and to impact the lives of other people. I knew something was special going into it; I didn't understand the structure of how things work, with publishing, with the writing process, of course, again, I had some talent, I had some gifts that can be seen in those things, but it was going through process and not allowing my confidence to be killed when it didn't do what I thought I would do, and seeing the value and the lesson in it. Because for me, it's just like, "Oh, I'm on to the next thing."

That's done. Here we go. Got it. Learn the lesson from that. And from that, I could have just gave up then I could have been like, "Ah, FUI." I've never said that before, by the way, alright, it's my first time publicly saying FUI, "Ah, FUI, this writing thing isn't for me." And just packed it in, but guess what, a lot of lives wouldn't have been impacted, a lot of change wouldn't have taken place because Sleep Smarter change culture. And again, I'm saying this from a place of confidence, but also I understand my place in this, it's not that I'm the only person, it's not that there aren't other remarkable people speaking on the subject, it's not about a better than or a competition, it's about expressing my own unique voice and my gift and filling a need in our society that was not being addressed, there have been other sleep wellness-related books that were written, none of them ever became an international best seller. This was the first one to do it, and I'm a nutritionist. That's what I do. But I became this, pushed into this category of sleep expert, that was... I wasn't planning on that happening.

But what I did was I listened to the environment, I listened to the feedback, that's another thing that when we have something that might not work out the way we think, taking that feedback because what the world around me was saying like, listen, there's a lot of people talking about food and nutrition out here, there's a lot of in-fighting going on, which is still happening by the way, but it pushed me out of that in fighting into a different sphere because I focused on something else first, which I wouldn't have thought, I wouldn't have thought that would have been the bridge or the thing, the elevator, which was sleep wellness, but it was a message that needed to be delivered in a way that I was uniquely qualified to do, you know, there's this wonderful statement that I heard from Michael Beckwith, who's been a guest on The Model Health Show a couple of times, he's one of my... One of my best friends really and mentors, and he said that God doesn't call the qualified, God qualifies the called. My life had qualified me to do the work that I was doing and to create a book like that at a time when it was needed, I didn't know that.

I didn't know that at the time, I was just participating in the unfoldment of my soul, of my story, and what was needed was this subject, sleep can be a pretty boring subject. Now, if somebody like me, and I know many people listening right now, you like to geek out and just to learn stuff and how to be better it's not a matter of that, but for the general population, like sleep is just... It's an obstacle, it's something that we want to find a way to do less of, it's just so unimportant. We'd rather do something else than to get the sleep that our bodies require, that our DNA requires in order for a healthy expression, that our genes require in order for healthy expression. And so, we had to have this conversation about this topic that seems very un-sexy, and for me in my life experience, to deliver some sex-ness to it, and to make it more attractive and to make it more engaging, and to make it more applicable to our lives in the real world. And I'm very grateful for that, but again, had I not worked on myself to build my confidence, I could have packed it in a long time ago, and so the bottom line for this once again, invest in your personal development daily, every single day.

It's like nutrition, bring something into the fold to give yourself that mental food that feed your spirit. Alright, so this could be a video, a short video from somebody that motivates you, or a podcast or an audio book, or reading a certain book or passage, or whatever the case might be, just every single day make this a mandate.

Alright, we're going to move on to number seven here on a list of 10 powerful ways to improve your confidence and self-worth, number seven, this was powerful. Number seven is to be authentic and congruent. Being authentic and being congruent are powerful ways to increase your self-confidence and self-worth. One of the most confidence detracting things that can take place is when you're caught not being who you propose yourself to be, when you get found out, when you're not being congruent with who you broadcast to the world that you are, man, that can really mess up your confidence, but guess what, guess what happens when you get caught being you, you don't even... The thing is when that's happening, you don't realize it's happening, you're just being authentic to yourself, you're being congruent with the ideas that you hold of yourself and your character, you're not acting out a character, you're being yourself, and the reason that I added this one, and why... What even spark this episode today, actually and the need to have this conversation is my wife shared with me not too long ago that...

And this is what she said, she said that, "I don't know if you realize this, but when we're out with other people and around other people, you tend to influence the room around you, it tends to conform to what you're up to, like people that would normally be doing fill in the blank, maybe drinking a certain thing, they might not drink or drink as much, and maybe they're ordering what you're ordering, whatever the case might be."

And these are the things that I just don't really think about. And I'm not trying to impress my way of being upon other people, but the thing is, I don't give sh*t what they're doing or what they're ordering or whatever, I'm doing me, I'm being myself, I'm going to do what feels good to me, I'm not going to compromise myself. Now this is not to say that we don't experiment, that we don't dabble in some, do different things but the bottom line is, for the most part I'm simply staying congruent with who I see myself to be, so you're not going to catch me out somewhere like drive by Domino's parking lot like there, look at... "Is that Shawn Stevenson? He just, what... Not Domino's." I'm just not going to do it. Now listen, there's a scenario where Domino's could work, alright, zombie apocalypse, for example. Alright, maybe there's a Domino's that's open, you got zombies chasing, you haven't eaten in two days. Alright, okay. But just on a general day-to-day, I have no... We don't have a relationship. Alright.

I don't know if you remember the Noid. Alright, Domino's straight up actually had a video game by the way. There was a Domino's video game, the Noid, the Domino's character, full on video game for the Nintendo, alright, true story. I don't know if you know this or not, but... And I don't know if you know this as well, but apparently Little Caesars is now having options where they don't do the Pizza Pizza, they're not doing the two Pizzas, that was their claim to fame. That's all they had going for them, because as I've said in the past, if you're in the mood for some terrible Pizza, if you're just like, you know what I want some really sh*tty Pizza, that's when you call Little Caesars. And now them transitioning like online we're evolving, we don't need the Pizza Pizza anymore, but anyways, I'm being authentic to myself, I'm staying congruent with who I see myself as, and there's no need for me to try to hide, or try to watch myself, or it creates a level of comfort in the world in being myself, and also, again, that tenet is know thyself, being authentic is becoming a marketing ploy today. And that's what tends to happen. And this not to say that we don't need it though, that's the thing.

Often when something is brought forward and becomes a tactic, it's because it needs to be addressed, but then people find a way to use that as a manipulation. So being authentic should not be a tactic, it must be a mandate that we evoke from within our own spirit. So, what do I mean by this? When being authentic and congruent, honor your strengths, honor your strengths and honor your inexperience, because in this context, as we're talking about today with self-esteem, the opposite of strength isn't weakness, the opposite of strength is simply ineptitude or a lack of experience or skill. Alright, so we don't want to look at things in terms of strengths and weaknesses in this context, because truly, if I wanted to shift gears in my life and just focus on, I don't know, NASCAR or something, and my life's goal would be like to be in a pit crew somewhere, I'm sure I could figure it out and find a way to make it there, somehow, some way. But does that feel good? Does that resonate with me? And I'm thinking about Danica Patrick. Alright, who's been, she was here in the studio not too long-ago and...

But that's... It could be deemed as a weakness because I don't know how to change tires really fast or whatever, but it's really ineptitude, it's a choice like, "I don't want that. That's not for me. That's not for me." And that doesn't mean that I'm less valuable, and that doesn't mean that I can't have an understanding in a conversation about those things. That's what's taking place today, is that there's this belief in this expertism, that if somebody doesn't have this particular track of whatever, and somebody's reach this pinnacle, and they are the end-all be-all on the subject matter, maybe it's immunology. That "common folk", people who didn't take that track, maybe they're an economist or maybe they're a schoolteacher, they're not allowed to voice their perspective or to have conversations about immunology because of expertism, end-all be-all. Not true. Not okay, alright?

There can be a lack of experience or skill there, but that doesn't mean that there can't be valuable insights there, because even though I know much, much more about the human body than I know about NASCAR, I can probably transition some of my skill sets and my ability to learn and understand things and concepts over into that domain in a very interesting way that might lead to some breakthroughs in that field, or some new insights or new ideas or new ways of approaching things. There's a transfer that takes place when you grow yourself and you grow your ability to learn, and you grow your self-confidence. So, I hope that would make sense, this is super important, but this one is a bit dynamic, but number seven is to be authentic and congruent. I'm going to move on to number eight here on these 10 powerful ways to improve your confidence and your self-worth.

Number eight is to control comparison. Control your comparison. Comparison has been said that comparison is the thief of joy, comparison can be the thief of self-confidence. Now we live in the greatest age of vastly abnormal comparison. Historically, as we grew as a species, as a human civilization, we would have tribes, we would have tribes that we would possibly... A natural human tendency is to mark ourselves in that spectrum of who's good at what, who's the leader in this thing, who... Finding our space in things, in comparison, it's a natural thing that the human brain does. Today, we don't just have tribes; now, you might have a comparison tendency, historically speaking, for maybe a 100 people. Today you might follow accounts of 1000 people, 10,000 people who you might get exposure to.

The human brain is not wired up to compare oneself to all of these other people, and also their highlights, they're very abnormal, most of the time highlights that is a less than 1% chance that this is something that they're sharing, it's something that they regularly are doing or exposed to. So, we're comparing ourselves, most people are coming into it, not realizing that you're seeing people's highlight reel or what they want you to see. They're coming into it like, "Man, their life is so good compared to mine," and it's diminishing their self-confidence, this is what's happening to our children. These results weren't just because of isolation and mandates, this was already happening and social media coming into the fold, where we have this very abnormal exposure to comparison that the human brain is simply not wired up to be able to manage.

We have to have the tools instilled into us psychologically to be able to withstand the diminishing tendency of comparison that tends to diminish our self-confidence and the confidence of our children. So again, comparison is noted to be the thief of joy, and that joy is also found in our self-esteem and our self-confidence, but there was a statement when I was thinking about this one, that I first heard from Dr. Wayne Dyer, and he's been one of great people who's had an impact on my thinking, personal development, but I first heard him say, "When you compare me, you negate me. When you compare me, you negate me." You're not meant to be compared to anybody else, there is nobody like you, there is nobody that has ever existed in human evolution or who will ever exist just like you.

Comparing yourself to another person is... It's a non-factor, it doesn't make any sense because there's only one you and there's only one them or whoever else it might be. It's very strange how we do this; again, it's a capacity of the human brain to compare ourselves, but that would be more in the tribal context, our brain is hardwired for that, but not in the context of the social dynamics today. Our brains can't do it, we're not good at it, and so understand that when you compare yourself, you negate yourself, you're automatically downplaying and missing on your beauty, your humanity, your greatness, your potential, your value. When you compare yourself to others, you negate yourself.

Now, number eight here is control comparison, control comparison, because of the fact that the human brain does do this practice of comparison. What do I mean by control comparison is that you can actually use comparison in a healthy inspiring affirmative way. So, when you compare yourself, you negate yourself, so it's not... Comparison is just a word that we're using to explain an idea, so I don't want the word to be limiting, but we can use it, this idea of looking at where we are in a social structure and looking at the results of other people in a healthy, inspiring affirmative way. So, what I mean by that, instead of comparing yourself to someone just like, "Man, they're killing it," or even evoking envy or jealousy or any of those negative tendencies, where we tend to instead of building ourselves up, we want to bring other people and break other people down to make us feel more comfortable.

Instead, we can see that person who's building themselves up, and we could say, "You know what? That quality that they have, I aspire to have that quality as well." Just because they have the quality does not diminish the capacity for it to be in me. As a matter of fact, the more of us that have this quality can potentially make this world a better place, so being able to use comparison in a healthy, affirmative, inspiring way where we see qualities and character traits or experiences or whatever it is in other people, we say, "I like that, I appreciate that." What you appreciate, appreciates. So, I appreciate that experience, that quality, that whatever it is, that outfit, whatever it might be, but you see that in somebody else and you say, "Wow, I appreciate that. I honor that. I think that's beautiful. I aspire to have that particular quality experience," fill in the blank. So that's number eight here on the list, control comparison.

Number nine on our list of 10 powerful ways to improve your confidence and self-worth. Number nine is, to continue to proactively face challenges. This is something we need to proactively participate in, because what tends to happen... By the way, overcoming obstacles and challenges and even struggles are some of the shortest ways to increase our self-confidence, when we are able to achieve something or overcome something that maybe in one state it'd look like, "Man, we might not be able to figure it out," but when you do that, you're strengthening your self-esteem and your self-confidence, but at some point what tends to happen is we might have gone through stuff, we might have faced immense challenges and obstacles.

But for many people, to get to a place where like, "I'm done, I'm done, I'm good. Life has taught me enough, I'm done with the adversity, with the challenges, with the obstacles, I'm done." And here's the truth, when you signed up to arrive here, and you might think, "You know what, my parents signed up, they were the ones getting busy," but there's something remarkable about you that we still don't fully understand. And you're arriving here as a human being with this absolutely beautiful and infinite capacity for expansion, and when you arrive here, you're signing up, it's just like it's a formal agreement that you're going to go through stuff, and once you try to avoid this, or you're just like, "I'm done." And the smooth sailing, 'cause that's the idea, that's what you're sold, is that at some point you're going to have this piece, you're going to have this enlightenment...

No, that's not how it works. As long as you're here, the one thing you could be certain of as a human being, is that you're going to face some obstacles, you're going to have challenges, as you go on. And I'm not saying this to dissuade you or to make you feel bad, I'm saying this, because there is beauty to be found in this, there's empowerment to be found in this, because once you get married and truly embrace this idea, this understanding, this fact that as long as you're breathing, you're going to have stuff you're dealing with. Once you have the capacity to embrace that, man, it becomes more of a joy and you start to see it like, "Oh, even when the challenge presents itself, this situation is trying to develop something in me, there's a gift in it somewhere," and you start to see the capacity that you have for growth. Now, you might be like again, "I'm done growing, Shawn, I've been growing, I've grown, I'm a beanpole, I'm jacking the bean stock."

No, if you're here, you're going to face adversity. And if you can embrace that idea and understand that as I move forward, hey, guess what, you start to have this resilience already present, because even taking on this idea... And I just want to spend a moment here, I really want you to get this. This is part of growing yourself psychologically, mentally, emotionally, as you grow yourself and you start to see, "I've worked on myself, my character, I've gone through stuff," you start to see when the adversity comes up, "Listen, I'm capable, I have the capacity, I've overcome everything I've ever faced. I'm still here, this challenge will not end me. I'm here, I got this, I'll find a way. I might not like it, but somehow this is going to help me to grow, there's going to be some gift in it."

And you have the confidence to persevere, to keep moving forward, that's what we need now more than ever. Part of what we're seeing with our teens and just our society in general, is not being able to put one foot in front of the other and to keep moving forward. And we just want to end it all. We want to give up. I've seen so much of that in my life, too much. And I know how powerful we are, but these are the things that we need to understand and to instill in our communities and our children. There's a statement, I love the statement from Bruce Lee, he said, "Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one. Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one."

Growing yourself as a person, as a human being, and your capacities, so you can take on and endure whatever life throws your way. Now this... Even this quote tends to get misconstrued a little bit because it sounds like you grow yourself so you can suffer. Suffer more, more suffering! This does not mean that. What he's talking about, if you actually look into his work a little bit more, he's talking about growing your capacity to have a sense of ease and calm even in the face of adversity, you've grown yourself so that you don't lose yourself in the struggle and the stress because it's coming. It's going to happen. Wow, what a way of being, to have this sense of peace, to have this space within your spirit that when the struggle or the challenge presents itself, you know that you have the capacity to maneuver, to find ease and grace and solutions within it because you've grown yourself.

So that's what it really means, that strength he's talking about, the strength to endure difficult one is also about harmony. Is about flow and calm. He says that "Be water, my friend." Being able to flow with life circumstances and also to be able to hit, water can pack a punch when it's used in a certain way. So again, cultivate calm, cultivate presence, cultivate the ability to think from multiple perspectives. What a tool that is today, in growing yourself, in your capacity and your self-confidence to be able to think for multiple perspectives, to understand to the best of your ability, to put yourself in someone else's shoes. It starts to cut down so much on the divisiveness, it starts to be able to open up lines of communication. This is what we need. So, another statement in the same vein was from the legendary personal development teacher, Jim Rohn, he said, "Don't wish it was easier. Wish you were better." And I feel that.

Finally, number 10 here on our list of these 10 powerful ways to improve your self-confidence and your self-worth. Number 10 is to help and serve others. There's a strange phenomenon that occurs when you support building up the self-worth of others, it builds up your self-worth as well. This is one of the secrets to life, there's really this powerful gift in giving, and so for many people, the reason for living is giving, and finding a way to serve, and to be able to imbue that psychologically, to know that, "Hey, when I'm being of service and when I'm uplifting others, this is great from my spirit as well, this is great for my character as well." And so proactively finding ways to be of service, and this is needed again more than ever right now, asking in this context of divisiveness or lack of health and mental health, asking, "How can I serve?"

Going beyond just, "Man, this is all making me feel bad," and experiencing empathy for others and their suffering, but empathy is like... That is, "I feel what you feel," and that can depress you, that can bring you down, put you in the grips of it, and there's a place for that, but ultimately, if everybody's down and struggling, who's going to lift others up, who's going to shine a light and provide a way, and to open up doors and to create a path to healing? Beyond empathy, compassion says, "I understand how you feel. How can I serve? How can I serve?" So, finding ways to support, serve, uplift others, in any capacity, today. You can be a light in someone's life just by sharing some kind words, words of affirmation, acknowledging someone, expressing your gratitude. There's always amazing ways throughout our days, every day, to find a way to bring joy and light and service to other people.

So, I hope that you got a lot of value out of this. These tenets, these 10 tenets are very powerful. And so, employing any of these in your life is going to lead to higher levels of self-confidence and self-esteem in a world that is constructed in such a way that it would press that out of you, it would try to diminish your self-esteem and your self-worth, but again, it's self-worth, it's self-esteem, you have the power, the power is in your hands to determine what level that's at. So, hope you got a lot of value out of this. If you did, please share it out with your friends and family, this message is very important right now, and of course, if you want to take a screenshot of the episode, you can tag me, I'm @shawnmodel on Instagram and Twitter, @themodelhealthshow on Facebook, or you can send this directly from the podcast app that you're listening on. We've got some epic master classes and incredible guests coming your way very soon, so make sure to stay tuned, take care. Have an amazing day and I'll talk with you soon.

And for more after the show, make sure to head over to themodelhealthshow.com, that's where you can find all of the show notes, you can find transcriptions, videos for each episode, and if you got a comment, you can leave me a comment there as well, and please make sure to head over to iTunes and leave us a rating to let everybody know that the show is awesome. And I appreciate that so much. And take care, I promise to keep giving you more powerful, empowering, great content to help you transform your life. Thanks for tuning in.