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Transcript

117 - Embrace Who You Are (But Keep Refining It) · Getting After It

• 0:00
  Brett: When I was 18 years old, just about to leave my parents' house for the first time in my life, my dad sat me down and he gave me this piece of advice that has stayed with me all these years.
• 0:10
  Brett: It was very simple, but it was remember who you are and always be true to yourself.
• 0:15
  Brett: It's what we're talking about today, because it is something that, unfortunately, I don't think we have the opportunity to do a lot nowadays, or we get misconstrued with the idea of what it means to actually be yourself.
• 0:26
  Brett: So, without further ado, let's get into it.
• 0:29
  Brett: My wife and I were watching Christopher Robin the other day, and if you don't know what that is, it's basically a spinoff of the Winnie the Pooh book or series.
• 0:43
  Brett: I don't know what it is, but it's basically a story of Winnie the Pooh book or series.
• 0:45
  Brett: I don't know what it is, but it's basically a story of Winnie the Pooh story.
• 0:47
  Brett: But Christopher Robin he's the main boy who plays with Winnie the Pooh, piglet, eeyore, all those little guys, right.
• 0:53
  Brett: He grows up, he goes off to war, he gets home, starts a family, but then the thing about Christopher Robin is he gets so focused on his job he begins to forget the things that are actually important in his life.
• 1:07
  Brett: So, for example, he goes to work more and neglects his family when he's at home.
• 1:11
  Brett: And he's setting this example of like you know, you have to work hard, you have to focus on doing right, because nothing comes from nothing that's a common theme in that movie is nothing comes from nothing.
• 1:24
  Brett: And his daughter is seeing him do this.
• 1:27
  Brett: And his daughter is about to go to boarding school and so she's studying a lot getting ready to go to boarding school and she's always in her room.
• 1:35
  Brett: She never has time to play and christopher robin is is proud of her, but his wife sees that she's not being a little kid and it's sad because the wife and the daughter actually go off to a cottage for a weekend and the whole point is they're supposed to be playing and spending time together, and Christopher Robin was also supposed to go, but there was a big issue with work, so he had to stay behind and focus on work.
• 2:02
  Brett: During that time he gets re-in contact with Winnie the Pooh and it's kind of funny because one of the first things that Winnie the Pooh says to Christopher Robin is he just says Christopher Robin, that sounds more like Dobby, but you get what I'm saying.
• 2:19
  Brett: He's like hey, christopher Robin, my old friend.
• 2:21
  Brett: What Winnie the Pooh says.
• 2:23
  Brett: And Christopher Robin says how did you recognize me?
• 2:26
  Brett: Like I'm completely different.
• 2:27
  Brett: And Winnie the Pooh looks at him and goes no, you're still Christopher Robin.
• 2:32
  Brett: My wife's going to hate that I did that impression, but it's such a powerful principle actually because deep down he was still Christopher Robin.
• 2:43
  Brett: And spoiler alert the movie continues where he actually figures out how to save the company without firing a bunch of people, but then he also just reignites his childhood passion of playing and focusing on the things that matter most.
• 2:57
  Brett: Like it's a pretty good movie actually.
• 3:00
  Brett: I would recommend it Just because the message of you message of focusing on what matters most, is really important.
• 3:06
  Brett: But there's also a big chunk of that movie that's focused on hey, christopher Robin, you're still that same boy that you used to be.
• 3:14
  Brett: They used to play with us in 100 Acre Woods and you're still in there.
• 3:18
  Brett: Let's bring him out.
• 3:20
  Brett: It's what we're talking about today.
• 3:21
  Brett: It's all about being who you are.
• 3:23
  Brett: And let's talk about something really quickly Like be yourself.
• 3:29
  Brett: Gets tossed around a lot, that phrase be yourself and while there's a lot of truth to that and it sounds nice on a coffee mug or slapped across a an Instagram post like an inspirational one, it can get misconstrued Like what does that actually mean?
• 3:44
  Brett: And, more importantly, how do we live it out without falling into the trap of complacency?
• 3:50
  Brett: Because here's the truth being yourself isn't just about accepting who you are.
• 3:56
  Brett: That's one part of it, but it's not all of it.
• 3:59
  Brett: It's about owning it and refining it and growing into the most authentic, courageous version of yourself, because oftentimes, a lot of the reasons why we don't show who we are to everyone is because we might be afraid of what they say, we might be afraid of their judgment, but we'll talk more about this.
• 4:19
  Brett: The thing is is, if you are more of yourself, you will attract people who are very similar to you as well.
• 4:25
  Brett: But, like I said, we'll go into that more deeply.
• 4:30
  Brett: But self-acceptance and self-improvement go hand in hand.
• 4:36
  Brett: Getting after it.
• 4:37
  Brett: This podcast's theme is all about helping people understand their capabilities, what they're able to accomplish, and in order to do that, you have to accept who you are, and you have to accept all your flaws, all your talents, all your skills, and don't try and pretend to be someone else, because if you listen to this podcast, you'll know that I talk about people who inspire me, like Michael Jordan, great example.
• 5:04
  Brett: The thing about Michael Jordan is, yes, he had a lot of natural ability and talent, he was tall, he was athletic and he was just gritty with his skills.
• 5:14
  Brett: But I'm not Michael Jordan and so I'm not going to try and become him.
• 5:18
  Brett: There are things that I'll look at his life and be like, oh man, he was driven, he was competitive, he fought like no one else.
• 5:25
  Brett: Those are all things I can apply to my own life.
• 5:27
  Brett: But if I try, and a hundred percent, and turn my life into Michael Jordan's, I'm no longer Brett, I'm a impersonator of Michael Jordan.
• 5:37
  Brett: It's like when you go to Vegas and you see all these Elvis impersonators, they're not actually Elvis.
• 5:42
  Brett: Another spoiler alert.
• 5:44
  Brett: Believe it or not, they're not and they're just trying to actually Elvis.
• 5:47
  Brett: Another spoiler alert Believe it or not, they're not and they're just trying to be Elvis.
• 5:51
  Brett: Sad reality, it's the truth.
• 5:52
  Brett: So I want to first break down the myth of just be yourself, because, yes, it's good advice, but it's not the full picture.
• 6:03
  Brett: Chris Williamson, one of my favorite podcasters.
• 6:06
  Brett: He put it this way.
• 6:07
  Brett: He said we're all works in progress, not finished products.
• 6:11
  Brett: The goal isn't to arrive.
• 6:12
  Brett: It's to evolve and there's a danger in mistaking authenticity for permanence, like you are not the version of yourself today that you will be in 10 years.
• 6:29
  Brett: And like if you're insecure, if you're unhealthy, if you're bitter towards someone, if you're holding a grudge, like that's all real but it's not fixed yet you can work on these skills, that version of you that exists today.
• 6:41
  Brett: It's a starting point, but it's not the ceiling, it's not where you're going.
• 6:45
  Brett: You're always supposed to be working on yourself and if you're listening to this podcast, I hope that's the case.
• 6:53
  Brett: When you say be yourself, or when someone tells you, hey, be yourself, we have to clarify.
• 6:58
  Brett: We have to be honest about who we are and become committed to becoming the best version of ourselves that we can be.
• 7:06
  Brett: So the myth of self be just be yourself it's a myth.
• 7:13
  Brett: Radically becoming self-aware of who you are, your talents, like it takes work, but to be yourself, you literally have to know yourself, and this next podcast I'm going to record after after today's is going to be all about how to spend time with yourself, thinking and and envisioning a future for yourself, and we'll get into that more, but that's part of it.
• 7:44
  Brett: You have to understand who you are, and so that's why I think I talk about journaling as much as I do.
• 7:49
  Brett: I talk about having a support system around you, because all of these things will help you identify one what's important to you, and you should, you should always understand what your priorities are, because if you know what they are and if you're honest about what your priorities actually are, then that'll teach you a lot about who you, who you are, and the things that are interested, interesting to you and things you should work on.
• 8:12
  Brett: So like here's the thing I learned about um or from meditations, which is marcus aurelius's journal right, he says you have power over your mind, not outside events.
• 8:26
  Brett: Realize this and you will find strength.
• 8:28
  Brett: How does that apply to being yourself?
• 8:31
  Brett: Here's the thing you can't control what people think about you and guess what they will think about you.
• 8:40
  Brett: I heard this thing the other day that made me really rethink, like being authentically myself in a more positive way.
• 8:47
  Brett: It's from an account that I follow on TikTok called Higher Up Wellness, and if you're into fitness, if you're into self-development, I personally it's a great follow.
• 8:57
  Brett: But in that post he was saying how we get so focused on what other people think of us and how it dictates a lot of our actions day to day, like we want to impress our boss, we want to make our wife super happy, we want to make our friends like us, and if you're trying to fit a mold that you're not made for, it's going to be a lot harder to make that happen, because it does not feel authentic for yourself and once you start lying to yourself about who you are, it gets so confusing.
• 9:31
  Brett: I've fallen into that trap before and it's not worth it.
• 9:35
  Brett: It is not worth it Now.
• 9:38
  Brett: Self-awareness gives you that power because it's the foundation of authenticity.
• 9:44
  Brett: When you're self-aware about who you are, you know what you like, your interests are, your talents.
• 9:49
  Brett: That's great, because once you know what drives you, you know your insecurities, your fears, your hopes, your core values, you can start aligning your actions with that person who you want to be and not just the person who you default to.
• 10:03
  Brett: Let me paint you a picture.
• 10:06
  Brett: So I used to be this, this kid who was very confident in the things that he liked, like I was young.
• 10:12
  Brett: I've talked about this before but I was a nerd.
• 10:14
  Brett: I love comic books, I love Legos, like video games, all those kinds of things I was really into.
• 10:20
  Brett: I liked playing sports, but I didn't like watching them and I watched myself go through high school giving up those things and I no longer would like sit down and play video games as much as I used to, which could be a good thing, like I was out socializing and that's not necessarily bad but I enjoyed it and I wasn't doing it.
• 10:40
  Brett: Um, I stopped like really learning about like super nerdy things like space.
• 10:45
  Brett: I loved learning about space.
• 10:45
  Brett: I still do doing it.
• 10:45
  Brett: I stopped like really learning about like super nerdy things like space.
• 10:46
  Brett: I loved learning about space.
• 10:48
  Brett: I still do now and I'm glad I've restarted that and I almost it was like I suppressed that version of myself to fit in with a group that I really liked and the people who I hung out with were some of my closest friends.
• 11:03
  Brett: I still like a lot of those guys who I used to hang out with and my wife Allie she was one of my closest friends.
• 11:06
  Brett: I still like a lot of those guys who I used to hang out with and my wife Allie she was one of my friends too.
• 11:09
  Brett: So not to say it was a bad thing to hang out with that group, but I definitely wasn't my full true self, like when we were all hanging out, I wasn't like, guys, did you see that they found a planet in another galaxy that has artificial light?
• 11:25
  Brett: Did you guys see that?
• 11:26
  Brett: I never talked about things like that because I didn't want to come off as like a weird nerd.
• 11:30
  Brett: Um, which is so false because I think someone probably would have been interested to hear what I had to say and that's what I learned is like it was a fear that had no like, no real evidence behind it that I should be scared of that thing.
• 11:47
  Brett: If that makes sense, and I can almost guarantee you, you can think of some things in your life where you might be trying to fit a mold that you don't necessarily fit, and it's not a bad thing.
• 11:59
  Brett: Again, like I said, this is a starting point for you to really be self-aware about who you are.
• 12:03
  Brett: Said this is a starting point for you to to really be self-aware about who you are.
• 12:07
  Brett: Um, when I started dating Allie, little things like my, my nerdy crap came out every now and then.
• 12:14
  Brett: Like I'd tell her about some Marvel characters and get super deep into this.
• 12:16
  Brett: Um, like the comic book stuff bore her probably about it.
• 12:20
  Brett: Like, or I'd tell her about Star Wars and like how I watched all the Clone Wars, which is like a it's like at a cartoon show about um, it's in between episode two and episode three of star wars, but it's like the seven uh seven season series just with cartoons and and anakin skywalker, obi-wan, just nerdy crap, like all these things would kind of slip out and I would try and dial it back because I didn't want her to think like, oh man, I'm dating a nerd, this guy's, he's kind of weird, um, but the more I talked about it, the more she's like I actually really like that stuff.
• 12:55
  Brett: Like tell me more.
• 12:56
  Brett: And she brought that out in me.
• 12:59
  Brett: And once I realized like she's not going anywhere because you know I've said super nerdy things that would have turned other people away she stayed right by my side.
• 13:09
  Brett: I was like she must really like me.
• 13:10
  Brett: So put my wife out there.
• 13:13
  Brett: You have a crush on me, allie, I have a crush on her too, so that works.
• 13:19
  Brett: But she brought that out of me.
• 13:22
  Brett: And then once I kind of re-embraced that side of me where I would learn about science more.
• 13:27
  Brett: I would spend time reading about new health studies that came out about omega-3s, like random things that I nerd out about that.
• 13:37
  Brett: I really enjoy learning, and then I would tell her and she would sit there and listen, and the thing that I noticed about that experience was I felt like myself for the first time in a long time, and it wasn't because I was refinding myself, but in a way I was Because I was no longer trying to fit some kind of mold.
• 14:00
  Brett: I was being Brett, and you know what, what good good things have come from being me, like from my own personal life.
• 14:10
  Brett: When I am more myself, I study things I'm interested in.
• 14:14
  Brett: I will spend time doing things that I like with people that I love, um, but it's just a chance for me to really work on my skills Like.
• 14:23
  Brett: Another thing, too, is that I love to write, and I didn't really understand that, but when I was a kid I told people that I wanted to be an author, and once I actually started working on my writing skills, which began about two years ago, I've fallen in love with the idea of just being able to get your thoughts out on paper and learning from what you believe, because, for self-discovery, writing has been one of the best practices for me, and then it's fun to be like okay, well, can I take this to another level?
• 14:52
  Brett: Can I try and be more creative in my writing?
• 14:54
  Brett: Maybe I can write a fiction story, and that's what I mean by.
• 14:57
  Brett: You know we're meant to evolve, but you first have to get an understanding of who you are, and so for you, it might be.
• 15:04
  Brett: You know you love to paint and you don't really want to spend a lot of time on it because painters historically don't make a lot of money.
• 15:12
  Brett: It's not a great career nowadays and you're scared to take that step.
• 15:15
  Brett: But if that would make you feel more authentic to who you are, what's wrong with that?
• 15:26
  Brett: That's the problem that I think us trying to fit some kind of mold that society has made.
• 15:30
  Brett: That's what we run into, because creativity and being someone who's who's unique, like that kind of gets a backseat nowadays.
• 15:39
  Brett: Um, it's sad to see, because I have met so many people who are very, very creative, uh, but they don't have a have an outlet for it because they're not working on their hobbies, they're not doing these things and it's not necessarily like that might be the best thing for them to do.
• 15:57
  Brett: But I do think that it is important to really understand what you like and then figure out the things that you could work on as skills.
• 16:05
  Brett: Another thing I'd love to do is communicate with others, and so I will study communication techniques to help me in sales, to help me in my marriage, to help me on podcasts, like, I'm trying to get better in these areas of my life so I can fully become the best version of myself, be fully authentic to what I enjoy what I like to get after Running's, another one to what I enjoy what I like to get after Running's another one.
• 16:28
  Brett: It's not for everyone, but for me it is a mental battle Every time that I get on a treadmill or I go out for a run.
• 16:36
  Brett: I have to sometimes force myself to do it, and I love it because it is a challenge every single time.
• 16:45
  Brett: Some people might not like it, but it gives me a chance to authentically be myself, challenge myself and do something that's difficult for a better outcome in the future.
• 16:52
  Brett: One thing that I would say is sometimes you need to filter out the noise, because one of the hardest parts of embracing who you are is blocking out the noise.
• 17:03
  Brett: It's the, the molds that I'm talking about, that society has made or that other people have put upon you, like if you're in a friend group that you want to be a part of and you can't be yourself because you're afraid they'll reject you.
• 17:14
  Brett: You might be in the wrong place and that's okay.
• 17:18
  Brett: Like I said, this is a starting point for you to understand where you can work on, where you can improve and what you can be doing to live more authentic to who you are doing.
• 17:27
  Brett: To live more authentic to who you are Like.
• 17:28
  Brett: Everyone has an opinion on how you should look, how you should act, talk, dress, what you should believe in, who you should vote for, how you should behave, what your dream should be.
• 17:43
  Brett: Everyone has opinions.
• 17:44
  Brett: But going back to that TikTok I referenced earlier about the higher up wellness guy, he said something in there that really brought this to life for me.
• 17:51
  Brett: He said we are so focused on what other people think of us, but in their eyes we're just a background character in their own story.
• 17:59
  Brett: We don't even like.
• 18:02
  Brett: They're not thinking about us at nighttime.
• 18:03
  Brett: They're not sitting in bed thinking Brett literally wore jeans and a t-shirt to work today.
• 18:10
  Brett: What a clown.
• 18:11
  Brett: And if they are thinking that, then they have their own problems.
• 18:15
  Brett: Like that should tell you something.
• 18:17
  Brett: Hey, at least you wore an outfit that they're thinking about when they're trying to go to bed.
• 18:23
  Brett: I don't know there's another reframe for you, but it is so hilarious because I do this all the time too Like when I meet people, I will talk to them for, let's just say it's a sales call, I'll have 30 minutes with them where I'm talking to them and I'll get all the stuff done that I need to.
• 18:44
  Brett: I'll send them all the followup stuff after the meeting.
• 18:47
  Brett: Maybe that whole time is 45 minutes and then I stopped thinking about them.
• 18:50
  Brett: I go do another task and I'll set a all the follow-up stuff after the meeting.
• 18:50
  Brett: Maybe that whole time is 45 minutes, and then I stop thinking about them.
• 18:51
  Brett: I go do another task and I'll set a task later on to be like, hey, follow up with this person, but I'm not thinking about them and odds are, they're probably not thinking about me either.
• 19:01
  Brett: They might be thinking about the product, I might be thinking about their business and how we can potentially help them, but I'm not thinking about that person 100%.
• 19:12
  Brett: Do you understand what I'm saying?
• 19:13
  Brett: But Ryan Holiday said this.
• 19:14
  Brett: He said the world will ask you who you are and if you don't know, the world will tell you Boom.
• 19:24
  Brett: I'm going to re-say that because I think it's very important that you understand this concept.
• 19:28
  Brett: The world will ask you who you are and if you don't know, the world will tell you, so what that means.
• 19:35
  Brett: The world's going to say, okay, you need to fit this standard mold.
• 19:39
  Brett: You need to go work at 95.
• 19:40
  Brett: You need to vote this way, you need to believe in these things, and if you don't, you're a bad person.
• 19:47
  Brett: But if you don't believe those things yourself and then you try and fit that mold, you're lying to yourself and that's a bad place to be in.
• 19:56
  Brett: Try not to lie to yourself, I would say.
• 19:59
  Brett: If you can never do it, because it's just going to create a bad relationship with yourself, and if you don't define yourself, you'll become a collage of everyone else's expectations.
• 20:19
  Brett: My antidote to that is to find solitude.
• 20:21
  Brett: Like I said, spend time with yourself that's why I'm doing a podcast on this in the next episode but reflect on your life, practice silence, just being there with your thoughts.
• 20:33
  Brett: Put the phone down and that's a hard thing to do sometimes, because when you sit there for a while, it's kind of scary.
• 20:41
  Brett: Some of the thoughts that you might have, the worries come up, the pain that you felt comes out, and you have to be willing and courageous to sit with those feelings, to sit with those thoughts and to actually think about them, because if you don't, they're just going to continue staying in the back of your mind and it's going to keep weighing you down and then the time will come when it gets overwhelming, and that's how you have an anxiety attack, that's how you fall into a mental health crisis.
• 21:11
  Brett: So it's important to do this for anything, for your mind.
• 21:15
  Brett: Give it a break and just be with your thoughts.
• 21:19
  Brett: Try and think through things.
• 21:20
  Brett: How did the day go?
• 21:22
  Brett: What can you do better?
• 21:24
  Brett: What is something that you liked that you want to do again the next day?
• 21:28
  Brett: What is something that you liked that you want to do again the next day?
• 21:31
  Brett: All these things are important.
• 21:33
  Brett: Here's where the real magic happens.
• 21:36
  Brett: You can love yourself and still want to change.
• 21:39
  Brett: I absolutely love myself.
• 21:41
  Brett: I'm confident in myself.
• 21:43
  Brett: It's taken years to get to this point and I'm kind of surprised I can say it on a podcast like this, because it's been a love-hate relationship with myself my entire life.
• 21:52
  Brett: But now I'm confident that I can look you in the eyes in this camera right now.
• 21:56
  Brett: If you're watching this.
• 21:57
  Brett: I'm looking at the camera.
• 21:58
  Brett: I love myself.
• 22:00
  Brett: You know that's a cool thing to say and it's like I said, I haven't always been there and it might take you some practice to get to that point, but you can love yourself and still want to change.
• 22:15
  Brett: Like my entire mission in life is to one, be a lifelong learner and then to teach it to other people.
• 22:21
  Brett: Teach what I learned other people so they don't have to go through some of the hard challenges that I did, or that they can take these lessons, apply it to their life and become a better version of them.
• 22:30
  Brett: Because, at the end of the day, if you're just getting better for yourself, I think that leads to an empty life.
• 22:37
  Brett: It has to be a two-way street you get better and you help others do the same.
• 22:41
  Brett: That's why I have this podcast.
• 22:43
  Brett: It's like an audio video documented journey of me doing this for myself and, hopefully, for others.
• 22:51
  Brett: Like I, I've put out a hundred.
• 23:00
  Brett: This'll be 117 episodes.
• 23:02
  Brett: If one of them helped just one person and I've done 117 episodes spent hours and hours and hours probably weeks of hours podcasting, prepping and doing all these things to get this content out.
• 23:12
  Brett: If it helps just one person.
• 23:14
  Brett: All those hours of me working on this thing is worth it to me, because it is hard, life is hard and if I can make it easier for one person, just one little simple concept that they applied to their life, that made it easier.
• 23:25
  Brett: This is a success for me and I'm proud of the work that I've done.
• 23:28
  Brett: Made it easier.
• 23:31
  Brett: This is a success for me and I'm proud of the work that I've done.
• 23:36
  Brett: Like you, can always be proud of where you've you've gotten, and it's still important to recognize where you can go.
• 23:45
  Brett: I talked about running a lot on this podcast and when I ran my sub three marathon, you know, I instantly had the goal or the thought like, oh man, I wonder if I could do it faster.
• 23:55
  Brett: Like I ran sub three, I qualified for Boston, but I wonder if I can go faster.
• 24:00
  Brett: The same thought went through my head when I ran my first ultra was I wonder if I can go farther.
• 24:06
  Brett: I just did a 50K.
• 24:07
  Brett: Maybe a 50-miler is next.
• 24:10
  Brett: Another spoiler alert it's coming up in April 2026.
• 24:14
  Brett: Me and my brother are running in Sedona.
• 24:17
  Brett: So if you want to do the 50-miler in Sedona with us, let's do it, but being yourself, going back to this whole concept.
• 24:26
  Brett: It doesn't mean staying stagnant.
• 24:28
  Brett: It means operating from a foundation of honesty, like you always have to be honest with yourself where you're at.
• 24:34
  Brett: It means knowing your core values, staying true to them and then understanding what your purpose is, which will take a lot of time to understand.
• 24:42
  Brett: It'll take a lot of time to figure out for yourself, but I promise you the more time that you spend in solitude, in silence, journaling, reflecting whatever you want to do, it'll help you understand what your purpose in life is.
• 24:53
  Brett: And you have to let go of what people expect of you, unless it's for work or you have other responsibilities.
• 25:05
  Brett: You don't have to fit some certain mold.
• 25:08
  Brett: You are a unique person.
• 25:10
  Brett: That's what makes life amazing is that everyone has different traits.
• 25:12
  Brett: Everyone has different talents.
• 25:14
  Brett: I really admire my wife because she's a very creative person.
• 25:18
  Brett: She will paint, she'll quilt, she will bake sourdough, which, if you don't think that's creative, watch someone who actually bakes sourdough.
• 25:27
  Brett: It is a creative process and she has a podcast of her own.
• 25:32
  Brett: She gets creative with her study habits for being a pilot, so when she has training coming up, she's ready for it.
• 25:39
  Brett: But she is one of the most creative people I've ever met and I think it's amazing to see her thrive in all the areas that she does, because she has certain skills that make her unique.
• 25:52
  Brett: I don't have her creativity Not a chance.
• 25:56
  Brett: That's why I do podcasts about self-development, because I can't sit down and really tell stories the way I want to, as she does in her true crime podcast, which you should go check it out if you like.
• 26:06
  Brett: True crime, it's called Siblings in Crime.
• 26:07
  Brett: It's with her and her brother.
• 26:08
  Brett: It's a good one.
• 26:10
  Brett: But that's what makes life beautiful is everyone is unique and everyone can do amazing things in life that some people can't.
• 26:19
  Brett: And I love art, but I can't create it.
• 26:23
  Brett: I'm not a painter, I'm not a sculptor.
• 26:25
  Brett: I took four years of clay in high school, but the best thing I ever made was a rectangle robot.
• 26:31
  Brett: It's like the size of a shoebox, but called him Ripley the robot.
• 26:35
  Brett: He was our volleyball team's mascot for a while actually, but wasn't good work.
• 26:40
  Brett: It was just more of a meme for the team, if that makes sense.
• 26:44
  Brett: But I would say improvement when rooted in self-acceptance, becomes sustainable because you'll understand the things that you want to work on and to help you with this process.
• 27:01
  Brett: Excuse me, sorry, I'm getting over a cold.
• 27:05
  Brett: So apologies, but to help you with this process, I came up with five steps that have helped me a lot that I think can also do the same for you.
• 27:15
  Brett: So the first is journal with brutal honesty.
• 27:19
  Brett: This is not something that you should be censoring.
• 27:22
  Brett: Like ask yourself, what am I pretending not to know about myself?
• 27:27
  Brett: Because deep down, you know exactly who you are and let that version of yourself shine.
• 27:33
  Brett: So journal and be honest.
• 27:36
  Brett: Do not censor anything.
• 27:38
  Brett: This is just between you and the pages that you write on or iJournal and the Notes app on Apple.
• 27:44
  Brett: It's my favorite thing ever.
• 27:45
  Brett: Just do it Like sit down, take 10 minutes, start there and then just sit with yourself every day and if you have thoughts, write them down and be honest about it.
• 27:58
  Brett: Do not hold anything back.
• 27:59
  Brett: The second thing I would say is audit your environment.
• 28:02
  Brett: Like, are the people around you supporting your growth or are they keeping you small?
• 28:07
  Brett: Sometimes it's hard to let friends go.
• 28:10
  Brett: I've had to do it and it is not a pleasant experience, but a lot of the times, the people who we surround ourselves with it's like crabs in a bucket.
• 28:19
  Brett: They will, you know, you'll try and crawl out of the bucket and then one crab will pull you back down.
• 28:24
  Brett: I'll say get down here, mr Krabs.
• 28:27
  Brett: So think about who you're spending time with, because you become the product of your environment.
• 28:34
  Brett: That includes who you spend time with.
• 28:36
  Brett: The third thing is say no to things that don't align with your goals, with your interests, with your aspirations.
• 28:43
  Brett: Unless you're supporting someone, I would say say no and be protective of your time.
• 28:49
  Brett: Someone.
• 28:52
  Brett: I would say say no and be be protective of your time.
• 28:54
  Brett: Every time you say yes to something you don't believe in, you chip away at who you actually are.
• 28:56
  Brett: That might be hard to hear, but if your friend's like, hey, let's go see a Sam Smith concert, and you're like inside, you're like man, I hate Sam Smith.
• 29:07
  Brett: That guy is a creepy man, I don't want to go see him.
• 29:10
  Brett: But you say, okay, yeah, I'll go with you.
• 29:12
  Brett: You just chipped away a little piece of yourself.
• 29:15
  Brett: You're going to go see the devil man, sam Smith.
• 29:18
  Brett: You have taken a turn for the worst.
• 29:22
  Brett: Maybe he's embracing who he truly is, and if he is, I'm sorry I said any of that.
• 29:25
  Brett: But number four is pursue excellence, not perfection.
• 29:30
  Brett: I love the quote that we are what we repeatedly do.
• 29:35
  Brett: Excellence, then, is not a choice, but a habit to be excellent.
• 29:46
  Brett: Your goal isn't to be flawless, it's to be real and to be consistent.
• 29:52
  Brett: If you're aiming for perfection, I don't know if that's sustainable and you might feel the same way.
• 29:57
  Brett: But if you take it day by day and you refine yourself over a long period of time, you be patient during this process, then that excellence that you're pursuing will become who you are.
• 30:09
  Brett: You will become excellent and excellence to you might look different to someone else Like.
• 30:16
  Brett: Comparison is great for a couple reasons.
• 30:20
  Brett: One, it can give you motivation on things that you want to work on yourself.
• 30:24
  Brett: Two, it can help you see what other people have and again motivate you to get to that point.
• 30:30
  Brett: But it should never be used as a measuring stick.
• 30:35
  Brett: You should never use comparison as man.
• 30:38
  Brett: That person is so far ahead of me.
• 30:40
  Brett: They might be, because they might've been doing what you want to do.
• 30:43
  Brett: They have probably been doing it for years and you can't compare yourself on your own journey to someone else because their circumstances are different than yours and it's not fair to.
• 30:47
  Brett: They have probably been doing it for years and you can't compare yourself on your own journey to someone else because their circumstances are different than yours and it's not fair to yourself to compare in that sense.
• 30:56
  Brett: But if you see someone who's like that guy's driven, compare yourself to them and say, okay, what are they doing?
• 31:02
  Brett: That I can apply to my own life.
• 31:03
  Brett: Pursue excellence and not perfection.
• 31:06
  Brett: The last thing and I talk about this a lot, but it's celebrating the progress along the way.
• 31:11
  Brett: You won't wake up fully evolved in one day, like, but every small choice, every act of integrity, it builds your foundation for a long-term future.
• 31:23
  Brett: And so be patient with yourself during this time, because when you work on yourself, you're going to stumble, you're going to fail, you're going to have days where you don't see the silver lining in anything and you don't want to keep going.
• 31:38
  Brett: But guess what?
• 31:39
  Brett: If you want that life that you're dreaming of, it is on the other side of hard work, consistency and working on yourself, every single chance that you get.
• 31:50
  Brett: Build that foundation and be patient.
• 31:54
  Brett: When good things happen, when you see small, little incremental amounts of progress going in in your life, that is still progress and that should be celebrated.
• 32:05
  Brett: Do something nice.
• 32:07
  Brett: Take your wife, take your husband out to dinner and just spend time doing something that you enjoy and celebrate the fact that you're a different person than who you were yesterday.
• 32:18
  Brett: Marcus Aurelius has this great point where he says you can't hold on to the past and you can't hold on to the future.
• 32:26
  Brett: Those two things no longer exist.
• 32:28
  Brett: The only thing you have now is the present moment.
• 32:30
  Brett: And so he even argues that every time you breathe in, you're breathing out the old version of yourself, like it's that consistent of.
• 32:42
  Brett: You're never the same version of yourself every single day.
• 32:45
  Brett: It's a weird concept to grasp, but if you look at life that way that every day is a chance for you to start over on your goals, to get one step closer to reaching them it's a little bit of a reframe that helps you with longevity.
• 32:59
  Brett: Here's the big takeaway from today.
• 33:02
  Brett: Being yourself is not about stubbornly clinging to the status quo.
• 33:07
  Brett: It's about showing up as who you are, fully, freely, fiercely, and you have to be humble enough to evolve during this time.
• 33:16
  Brett: Stop apologizing for your quirks, your passions, your values.
• 33:21
  Brett: Stop waiting for the world to approve of the real you.
• 33:25
  Brett: You will attract people who have the same values as you, your own quirks, your own passions.
• 33:33
  Brett: They will come find you Show up anyway.
• 33:40
  Brett: The world needs less conformity and we need more courage to be yourself, to be authentic to who you are, to your interests, to your passions.
• 33:47
  Brett: So go out and be yourself and, as you do it, keep asking how can I make this version of me just a little better from yesterday?
• 33:58
  Brett: That's how the world becomes.
• 34:02
  Brett: Amazing is if we're all doing things to work on ourselves and give it back to the world.
• 34:08
  Brett: And I know you can do it.
• 34:11
  Brett: I know you can do it because I've been in that boat for a while and it wasn't until the past couple of years where I've been comfortable being authentically myself.
• 34:21
  Brett: And there's a lot of evidence in.
• 34:23
  Brett: If you go back to the first episodes of the podcast, I was not as confident as I was as I am today, because I was nervous about what people thought about this podcast, about what I had to say.
• 34:34
  Brett: But now it's like you know what it's who I am, and I shouldn't be afraid of that.
• 34:39
  Brett: And neither should you with the things that you're interested in, with your passions, with your quirks.
• 34:44
  Brett: If you're a nerd, be a freaking nerd.
• 34:47
  Brett: If you're a goth person, great Like.
• 34:50
  Brett: If you're a theater kid, do your thing, because if you stop doing what you enjoy, you're going to be victim to pretty much the world eating you alive and you hear all the time like, oh, oh man, I wish I could escape the rat race.
• 35:10
  Brett: But what I would say to those people is that the rat race consumed you and slowly turned you into the person that you are.
• 35:16
  Brett: It doesn't have to be that way.
• 35:18
  Brett: You can be proud of the things that make you you, and you can make them better by consistently refining yourself.
• 35:26
  Brett: That's what getting after it's all about.
• 35:29
  Brett: That's what Teddy Roosevelt calls the strenuous life.
• 35:35
  Brett: You have it in you.
• 35:37
  Brett: Don't let people stomp it out of you.
• 35:38
  Brett: Bring it back, just like Allie helped me bring myself back.
• 35:44
  Brett: So I appreciate you guys for listening to this episode.
• 35:46
  Brett: This is a very important topic to me Because I know you're getting after it on your own, but it's going to look different for everybody, and once you understand that, then you can fully embrace that path and go down it with confidence.
• 36:01
  Brett: The world needs more you, and that advice my dad gave it applies to you as well.
• 36:08
  Brett: Be who you are and fully accept that.
• 36:12
  Brett: Never turn your back on who you are.
• 36:14
  Brett: If this helped you at all, please leave a comment on Spotify.
• 36:19
  Brett: Rate this podcast.
• 36:21
  Brett: Share it with someone who might need to hear this message and I just appreciate your guys' time.
• 36:26
  Brett: It means a lot that you spend it with your friend Brett and until next episode.
• 36:30
  Brett: Everyone, you know the drill, keep getting after it.
• 36:33
  Brett: Thanks, guys.