The Secrets of Self Esteem

Start at the bedrock of your life.

I heard it in my words as I was talking to Rachel.  The point I was trying to make was that I have long ago gotten over the body image problems I had been challenged with, especially early in life.  I heard myself say, essentially, and I paraphrase, “Body image isn’t important to me because I’m ugly as sin anyhow.”

Why is it that these self-esteem phantoms hide in the deep, dark, dungeons of our mind only to poke their heads out when we don’t invite them?  Even when we banish these phantoms they still intrude into our psyche and stink the place up.

We all want to be loved but many of us have these tricky problems with self-esteem where we don’t feel worthy of it.  This problem with self-image and self-esteem is rampant in our society.  If you don’t believe just watch TV for more than 20 minutes and you’ll be bombarded by the marketers trying to sell us all kinds of useless crap to make us feel better about ourselves – to enhance our own self-esteem.

You’ll never be loved unless you wipe those rosy-smelling chemicals under your armpits, drink those noxious sports concoctions of green liquid, drive that sexy car or smear layers of colored oils in your face ladies!  Holy Cow! It’s a miracle we can get out of bed in the morning given all the stuff we don’t have! We must have enormous holes in our lives!

More or less our society cultivate self-loathing in us.  Why? Because humans filled with self-doubt are easier to manage.  They are easier to sell to.  They are less likely to make trouble and they are more likely to settle for less and swallow all kinds of crazy and insulting crap without protest!

We are taught to grasp.  To want more.  But that hole inside of us cannot be filled with Mercedes Benz nor with random acts of pleasure.   We must let go to know what is real and what matters.

In truth having less equals power.  When you have nothing you have the ultimate flexibility.  You really have nothing to lose.  Let it go.  Give it all away, if not physically, mentally and emotionally.

Take a deep breath and realize that you are not what you own or what you have.  You are you independent of that.  What’s the worst thing that could happen?  You could lose your house and your car and your job, but you would still have as much you as ever.  Maybe more.  Maybe even more now that those things aren’t taking up space in your garage, your life and your mind.

What I have found is that when you cultivate emotional detachment in business and life things will come to you much more easily.  If you grasp you will cause things to push away.  When you are emotionally detached I things come to you.

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I recently read a book about ‘pickup artists’.  These are guys who spent all their energy trying to figure out the most effective and efficient ways to pick up women.  Most of these guys started the pickup artist life as total nerds.  These were not the quarterback or the prom king. These guys weren’t even close.

Most of these guys couldn’t even talk to women, let alone seduce them.  They weren’t attractive, rich or particularly interesting.  And they had horrible self-esteem.

Many of their problems came from a total lack of self-confidence.  Many of the nerdy, unattractive things they did were manifestations of this lack of self-esteem.

To cut a long and slightly disturbing story short, these guys found ways to make themselves if nit attractive, at least interesting and different.  They learned routines and algorithms to approach women and talk to them and get their phone numbers.  In the process, for many of them their self-confidence grew.

Why am I telling this story?  Why do you care?  Do I want you to all become misanthropic nightmares prowling the seedy bars of Los Angeles?  No.  You care for two reasons.  First, how you think about yourself will reflect outwards into the world and how peoples think about you, and, second, for any self-esteem situation you can find algorithms to change your ‘game’ for the better.

We are all so caught up in our own heads that we think everyone cares what we say, do, wear etc.  The truth is no one knows what is going on inside your head.  They don’t see what you see.  If you can master your self-love that will manifest outwards as self-esteem and self-confidence.  Work on yourself.  Find those algorithms.  Do your practice.  Learn to like yourself and everyone else will too.

I’ll give you an example of self-confidence in action with a story.

I went to visit a company and I had never been to this building before.  I asked the guy at the front desk what floor I should go to and he said ‘2^nd floor’.

I got in the elevator and went to the second floor.  When I got out there were some people sitting in the foyer and a couple doors that had big “Private: do not enter” signs.  I was confident I was in the right place and not really worrying about anything.

A strange city.  People I have never met before.  But I do this all the time, so I push through the door and start looking around for the conference room to set up in.  I’m walking by cubicles, smiling at people and saying good morning.  Passing people in the halls, etc.  I see a likely conference room, but something is starting to not feel quite right.

I look at the plaques on the wall and realize that I’m in a drug testing facility.  The place I was supposed to visit was the 4^th floor.

No one stopped me.  No one even paused.  Why? Because I looked like I belonged.  Just another business guy walking the halls.  Because that is the algorithm in my world.  I have that self-confidence about me in that situation.

In other situations, let’s say a bridal shower, I’d be totally giving off the “I don’t belong here!” vibes.

When I go into a business meeting I’m looking for what we call “the Power” in the room.  This is the person who dominates the conversation and no one interrupts.  When they say something everyone else falls silent and turns towards them.  Watch the body language in any meeting for 3 minutes and I can tell you what the social dynamics are.

The pickup artists call this an AMOG – “The alpha male of the group”.  They have strategies to either isolate or manipulate the alpha dog.

But I digress.  My point is that all of these things are learnable.  The alpha dog got to be the alpha dog by running alpha dog routines.  In any situation you can change your own self talk to create the role you choose.

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The higher practices of meditation allow people to step outside of their ego and detach from that ego.  This is a higher level of emotional detachment.  If you can detach from your ego you can stop grasping at life and look dispassionately at your ‘self’.

The dark circles around your eyes are not bad or good. That little paunch around your waste is neither good nor bad.  Your muffin top bulge is neither good nor bad.  They just are.  Stop worrying about it.  No one else does.

The Buddha was said to have taken this all the way to the realization that there is no ‘self’.  The total destruction of ego is the realization the ‘self’ doesn’t exist.

I haven’t gotten there yet.

I can simplify my message for you though.

Love yourself and help others, the rest will take care of itself.