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Lessons - The Approval Trap (Scott) · Success Story with Scott Clary

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  In this lessons episode, we're going to talk about how to escape the approval trap.
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  I'm going to show you why popular advice fails, why you need to stop making this safe choice,
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  why we're trapped in this system designed to keep you average. We're going to talk about Winston
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  Churchill, we're going to talk about World War II, and hopefully by the end of this podcast,
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  you're going to understand how to stop living for other people's opinions and start thinking
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  independently about what you actually want.
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  This is going to be one of the most difficult truths for you to come to terms with,
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  but it is one of the most important truths for you to come to terms with if you'd like to build
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  anything meaningful, if you'd like to have a happy, fulfilling, successful life. Popular is usually
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  wrong. We have been conditioned to do what's popular. We have been conditioned to do what's
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  likable, to keep the peace, to avoid conflict, to make everyone comfortable. Society has taught us
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  that success comes from playing nice, following the rules, never making waves, and there's a moment
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  in everyone's life when they realize that they've been living for an audience that doesn't even care
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  about the show. The sad thing is, for many people, it's just really late in their life, but for me,
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  it happened when I was 25, and I found myself explaining to my parents why I was quitting a job that
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  looked perfect on paper, and the conversation lasted about three hours, and they used words like
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  practical and realistic, and I used words like authentic and meaningful, and we were speaking
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  very different languages, but what struck me wasn't their disappointment. I'd expect the disappointment.
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  It was my own desperation to make them understand, and even as I argued for my right to choose
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  my own path, I was still performing for their approval, and that conversation taught me something
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  very important. The desire for approval doesn't disappear just because you intellectually know that
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  it's limiting you. It's wired into us at a biological level, and for most of human history,
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  social rejection met death. Your nervous system still can't tell the difference between
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  disappointing your family and being exiled from the tribe, and this is why most advice about
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  being yourself misses the point. The problem isn't that people don't know what they want. The problem
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  is that they know exactly what they want, and they also know it will disappoint the people they care
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  about. But here's what nobody tells you about living for approval. It's not actually keeping anyone
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  happy, not them, and definitely not you, and this is why we have to fix it. Now let's talk about the
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  math that nobody ever does, because we obsess over the cost of disappointing other people,
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  but we never calculate the compound interest of disappointing ourselves. Let me tell you a story.
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  I know a woman who's been about to leave for marriage for six years. Not because her husband is
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  abusive or terrible, but because they've grown into completely different people who want completely
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  different lives. Now she stays because divorce would devastate her parents, confuse her kids,
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  and basically disappoint her friends who see them as the perfect couple. Meanwhile,
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  she's becoming someone that she doesn't recognize. More anxious, less creative,
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  increasingly resentful, because the energy that it takes to maintain a life that isn't yours is
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  enormous, and she's not just staying in the wrong marriage. She is actively killing off the person
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  that she could become. Every single day, when she chooses their comfort over being real,
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  a little piece of her dies. Not in some dramatic way, just this slow wearing down, like water on
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  stone. And this is what living for approval actually costs. Not just the stuff you don't do,
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  but the person you never become. And when she finally filed for divorce at 34, you know how long
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  her parents stayed mad. Three months. Three freaking months. She spent six years stressing about the
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  reaction and it lasted 90 days. But those six years of pretending to be someone else,
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  that damage took way longer to fix. You are not protecting anyone by living a lie. You're just
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  delaying everyone else's adjustment to reality. Now you may avoid some temporary discomfort for a
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  period of time, but eventually reality always catches up with you. Now here's what's really crazy
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  about popular advice, about playing it safe, about not making choices that go against the grain.
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  Most popular advice isn't designed to help you succeed. It's designed to help you fit in.
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  So be realistic. Don't get your hopes up. Do what's practical or rational. Having a backup plan,
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  think about what people will say. This isn't wisdom. It's social control disguised as concerned.
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  Popular advice is popular because it keeps people from making choices that threaten the status quo.
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  Think about every piece of conventional wisdom that you've ever heard about careers or relationships
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  or money or life goals. Almost all of it is designed to keep you from standing out and taking risks
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  and making anyone uncomfortable with your success. The people giving this advice aren't trying to
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  hold you back. They genuinely think that they're helping, but they're operating from their own fear
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  of judgment. Their own need for approval and their own attachment to doing what's expected.
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  So when you ask for advice, understand that you're usually asking people to help you avoid
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  this approval, and that's exactly what you're going to get. But where it gets really twisted
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  is that most people secretly want you to follow the popular advice because your success makes
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  them question their own choices. So when you take the safe job, they feel better about taking the
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  safe job. When you stay in the okay relationship, they feel justified staying in their okay
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  relationship. When you follow the conventional path, they don't have to examine why they're
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  following it too. So your willingness to seek approval validates everyone else's need for approval.
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  And this completely changes how you should look at the advice that you're getting and giving.
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  Now, why do we listen to this bad advice? Why do we accept it so easily? We lack courage. Now,
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  most people think courage means facing physical danger, but real courage is choosing
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  disapproval over mediocrity. Let's look at a historical example. Churchill understood this.
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  In the 1930s, he kept warning Britain about Hitler when everyone else was promoting
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  popular opinions about peace and appeasement. His own party basically kicked him out. People
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  called him a war monger. The media said he was washed up, but Churchill trusted his judgment
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  more than he feared being unpopular. And when World War II started, suddenly everyone realized
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  he'd been right the whole time. The courage that made him unpopular during peace made him
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  essential during war. So the decisions that matter, the ones that matter the most, they don't
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  require you to be fearless. They just require you to be more afraid of following popular opinion
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  than standing alone. Here's something that'll blow your mind. Track how much of your week
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  is spent managing other people's opinions of your choices. How much time do you spend explaining
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  yourself? How often do you check whether people approve of what you're doing? How many decisions
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  do you run by other people before making them? And I've done this before and I spent some weeks
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  over 20 hours managing my parents' opinions about my life choices or getting my friend's input
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  on decisions that I've already made or adjusting my behavior based on what I thought people
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  expected. 20 hours a week. That is half a job spent on approval management because you don't have
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  the courage to do what you know you need to do and act in your own best interest. And the first step
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  to break out of this is to remove yourself from the popular opinion echo chamber because the people
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  that are closest to you, your friends, your family, they are probably reinforcing your need for
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  approval instead of challenging you to think differently. If they are challenging you to think
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  differently, you have a very good group of friends. But look at your five closest friends when you
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  tell them about an unconventional idea. Do they get excited about your potential or do they
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  immediately start listing the reasons why it might not work? When you express frustration with
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  following everyone else's expectations, do they encourage you to break free or do they help you
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  rationalize staying where you are? If your friends, if your family, if your peers aren't making you
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  questioned popular wisdom, they're helping you follow it. And this is not about being a jerk
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  or ditching people that you care about. It's about understanding that most social circles are
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  echo chambers for conventional thinking. If everyone around you is seeking the same kind of
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  approval from the same kind of people, that becomes your normal. And when you share a goal that goes
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  against popular opinion, your friends are going to try to protect you by talking you out of it.
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  They're going to use phrases like, I just want you to be realistic or I don't want to see you get hurt.
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  But what they're really saying is, your willingness to risk this approval makes me uncomfortable
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  with my own choices. Because most people would rather have friends who validate their need for
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  approval than friends who challenge them to think differently. And this friend audit, it will naturally
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  force you to face the hardest part of rejecting popular opinion loneliness. Because what happens
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  when you start choosing what you actually think and what's actually good for you over what's
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  popular, you're going to be lonely for a while. Not this romantic kind of loneliness where you're
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  misunderstood by the world, but the practical kind where you have fewer people who understand your
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  choices. Loneliness isn't the price of rejecting popular opinion, but it's the gap between your old
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  social circle and your new one. And most people hit this phase and then they run back to popular
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  thinking. Because it's easier to have opinions that everybody agrees with than to think independently
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  while you find people who appreciate original thought. But the thing is that the loneliness is
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  temporary. Following popular opinion is permanent. And when you consistently choose what you actually
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  think over what's socially acceptable, you start attracting people who value independent thinking.
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  Not because you're controlling for the sake of it, but because they respect people who form
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  their own opinions. Remember that woman who got divorced? Her kids initially struggled with her
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  choice to go against everyone's advice about working on the marriage. But six months later,
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  daughter actually said something to her that was beautiful. She said, I'm proud of you for choosing
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  what you thought was right instead of what everyone else thought was right. I didn't know that was
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  loud. Now I just want to leave you with one final thought. Your life isn't a democracy. Other
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  people don't get to vote on your choices just because they have popular opinions about them.
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  You're the only one who has to live with what you decide. You're the only one who has to wake up
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  in your life every morning and you're the only one who has to look in the mirror and respect the
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  person who followed or rejected the advice they were given. Everyone else gets to have opinions.
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  You're the only one who has to live with the consequences. But here's a question that'll keep
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  you up at night if you don't answer it honestly. What if the life you're protecting by following
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  popular advice isn't worth protecting? What if the relationships that depend on you seeking
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  approval, they're not actually serving you? What if the social acceptance you get from following
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  conventional wisdom comes at the cost of thinking for yourself? What if the safety that you get
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  from doing what's expected is just as comfortable prison? Most people spend their whole lives
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  following popular opinions about what they should want, how they should live, and what they should
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  prioritize. They're so busy making sure their choices are socially acceptable that they never
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  ask whether their choices actually make sense to them. Remember, popular advice is popular because
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  it keeps people from threatening the status quo. Following it guarantees that you're going to get
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  the same results as everyone else. The approval you get for following popular opinion today,
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  it's going to be meaningless tomorrow. But the life that you build by thinking independently,
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  that is yours forever. The choice is very simple. Think for yourself, not because you want to be
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  contrarian, because you understand that the best thing you can give the world is your actual thoughts,
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  not a regurgitation of everyone else's opinions. So if you want what most people have,
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  follow what most people think. If you want what most people will never have, be willing to think
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  what most people will never think, because you're going to disappoint people either way. The question
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  is whether you're going to disappoint them by thinking for yourself or by thinking what they expect
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  you to think.