Your Real Ideal Self

[Music]

so i remember looking down

and my hands were shaking and not just

shaking

they were trembling and it was weird i

could feel this

like wave of heat that started at my

feet and just

worked its way up my body like through

my legs up my torso

up through my shoulders and my head and

i could feel

just beads of sweat start to bubble up

on my forehead and my head and

i felt my heart beating really fast

and it’s weird i should have felt great

i should have felt honored

i should have felt proud here i was my

boss had asked me to speak

in front of 70 of my colleagues for good

reason because he wanted me to share

some of the things that we were doing i

was leading an office we were having

great success

and he said john why don’t you speak and

share some of the things you’re doing

for a half an hour with this group

now these were 70 people that i knew not

nameless faces these were people that i

had relationships with i respected they

respected me

so this should have felt pretty

comfortable but here i was at the back

of the room

staring at the backs of their heads

watching the speaker before me who was

just about a couple of minutes from

finishing up and i was feeling

nothing like i wanted to feel i felt out

of control

i mean even my breathing was strained i

was

really struggling to breathe naturally

it was

almost like walking up a hill at 10 000

feet above

elevation above sea level it was feeling

like i just

couldn’t get my breath i couldn’t speak

i couldn’t do anything and my heart was

beating so hard i could look down i

could see it beating through my

shirt and just then the speaker ended

his presentation

introduced me and i began my walk to the

front of that room

and i could see and feel the wave of

eyes that started now turning to look at

me

as i was making my way to the front i

got somehow to the front center stage

and looked out at the group

and i could feel sweat dripping down my

face and down my back

i could feel my face red i could just my

shirt felt tighter on me i couldn’t

breathe

and the faces looking at me started with

interest

and then went to confusion and then to

concern like thinking what’s happening

here

i don’t know i couldn’t speak

the only thing i could think to do was

turn around there was a white board

behind me and i grabbed the pen and

started writing on the whiteboard

to this day i have no idea what i was

writing

but for 20 painful silent seconds of

writing hieroglyphics on the board

i had to turn around i turned around and

faced my audience who still was looking

at me very concerned

and puzzled and again i couldn’t speak i

could not

get words out and all i kept thinking is

i have to get out of here i didn’t know

what to do

and i ran out of the room off the stage

and out the door down the hall thinking

i can’t believe what i just did

i literally ran off the stage and i went

into the bathroom that was down the hall

and i

i stood in the in the bathroom and i’m

just trying to collect my thoughts in

total disbelief at what i had just done

and the door opened up and people that

had just witnessed this

came in i guess the organizer didn’t

know what to do and just said okay take

a bathroom break

i didn’t know what to do at that point

so i just went into the stall

and pretended like i was throwing up

that was what my excuse was going to be

that i was sick

but i could hear the comments i could

hear the laughter

of the guys that are outside that stall

that was a devastating day that was a

low point in my career

see my ideal self was someone who was

cool

calm and collected under pressure it

didn’t matter i could speak in front of

thousands of people on the biggest

stages in the world

and i’d feel great totally confident at

ease

and drawing that audience in

but my real self my real self was scared

and really felt weakened by this

i felt like i had no control over this

thing that would happen

when it would happen and how long and

how intense and who would be watching

and i felt like an imposter i felt like

here i am a leader

trying to lead other people to become

their ideal self and ultimately do

things

that they wouldn’t have done otherwise

and here i was i couldn’t lead myself

through this

it was devastating i actually kept it

hidden for 20 years

20 years of having panic attacks and i

did not tell a single person not my

family not my friends

no one because i felt that if i talked

about it i would legitimize it i would

give it fuel

i would give it momentum and it would

become this thing that real

that was reality when in reality i just

wanted it to go away

i felt like if i didn’t think about it

or talk about it it would

but now my very private

personal painful struggle was now made

very public

have you ever had an emotional pain that

was so bad you would gladly take a

physical pain in front of it

instead of it absolutely i mean i have i

played baseball i can remember a time

i was a type of batter that i would

either hit a home run or strikeout

rarely anything other than that i’d

always swing for the fences

i remember facing a really tough pitcher

and a critical moment of the game and

thinking wow

i just hope he throws a fastball hits me

in the head and i get a free base

so i get out of this situation i don’t

want to be the having the responsibility

of potentially striking out

and letting down the team okay that’s an

example

but as a speaker i remember thinking wow

i wish i had a control

that i could keep in my pocket and i

could hit a button if i felt those

familiar and really unwanted feelings

coming

and i could hit this button and a light

fixture would fall from the ceiling

and bap hit me in the head and knock me

unconscious

and then i could get out of it that’s

literally how bad it was and i

remember thinking i wish i could have

something like that

but why did i ignore it for so long well

you know i had subscribed to a

philosophy that

i learned many years ago in business and

that was that successful happy people

focus on and think about the things that

they can control

the things that they can’t control and

they can’t influence

they don’t think about they don’t worry

about they don’t spend any mental energy

on it

they spend 80 to 90 percent of the

things they can control

10 to 20 on things they can influence

and

zero on what they can’t influence or

control so for me

i thought okay let me just ignore it

but there’s a flaw in that model there’s

a flaw in that theory what if one of

those things that’s in that third bucket

is truly something that is preventing

you from becoming your

ideal self what if it is something that

is preventing you

from having the career you want to have

from ultimately being the leader that

you want to be

and ultimately having the self-esteem

and the confidence that you want to have

well what i realized is you can actually

move things

from one bucket to another you can take

something that you have

no influence on and in many cases

develop influence and actually change it

you can then once you have influence

change it to something

that you have control over i learned

that

see we have the power to influence much

more than we realize

and most of us never tap into that power

we never tap into the power to influence

ourselves

and then other people as humans we we

tend

to go down that path of least resistance

we like what’s easy

we like what’s comfortable we like

what’s pain-free

and sometimes changing what we’re doing

in any way

is uncomfortable what i realized is

all i had to do was find the three

percent

that makes the other 97 percent happen

you see i didn’t have to accomplish that

big goal or control this big thing that

i couldn’t control

i just had to have and find the right

three percent

i had to find the three percent that

makes the other 97 happen i’ll give you

a great example

for me i’ve always wanted to go to the

gym in the morning i’ve kind of known

that that’s a great way to start the day

but i was working out at eight or nine

at night

i’d be staying up late it was just a

really bad cycle

but for me i’d set the alarm clock at

five in the morning it’d be dark out it

would be

cold i wouldn’t want to get out of bed

i’d hit the snooze button and i’d say

i’ll work out at night

for years it was like that and then i

realized you know what

i don’t need to really go to the gym in

the morning

the only thing i need to do is i need to

get out of bed

and i need to put my gym clothes on

that’s it because once i have my gym

clothes on i’m not going to go

back into bed and once i have my gym

clothes on i’m probably going to brush

my teeth and grab my wallet and my keys

and

go into the car and then once i’m in the

car i’m going to drive to the gym

and once i’m at the gym i’m going to go

in and i’m going to work out i’m not

going to just sit there

so in reality it’s not waking up in the

morning to go to the gym

the 3 percent that made the 97 happen

was just getting out of bed and putting

my gym clothes on

my goal changed and i’ve gone to the gym

every morning

every morning so from there

i started to realize everything can

happen that way in reality i have hard

conversations that i need to have

okay i ultimately whether it’s loved

ones or a boss or a colleague

or whatnot these tough conversations

sometimes

we think about them as being this big

thing in reality all i need to do is

have that first

few moments of the conversation i just

need to be able to say hey

you know i’ve got an important issue and

something i want to talk about do you

have a couple minutes

once i do that i’m committed i’m having

the conversation

okay if i’m in sales i might say well i

hate prospecting calls but

i don’t really need to think about the

whole call i just need to pick up the

phone and make it make a dial that’s

it in fact i don’t even need to do that

i can have somebody else do that

it works for everything and it even

worked for my panic attacks

you see i realized that i had been

dealing with these for so long and i had

actually

found the three percent with one of my

panic attacks long ago

when i was in high school one of them

was i’d be sitting in classroom and i

would just

feel everybody’s eyes on me whether they

were not i felt like the whole class was

staring at me

and i would start to heat up and i

remember i would start to turn red

and then i’d start to sweat and i felt

like more and more people were watching

and

i’d go into a little cocoon and pray

that nobody would see me and god forbid

the teacher wouldn’t call me out which

they did one time

and i remember starting to draw a

picture and i drew a picture of a guy

who was standing there i happened to be

a pretty good drawer and i was drawing a

picture of a guy who was

who was freezing he was shaking and he

had icicles

just hanging from every part of his body

and ultimately as i’m drawing this i

realized

wow i’m not hot anymore i’m actually

getting

cool it had a physical change

and then i was breathing okay and i no

longer had a panic attack

it went away and then the next time

i drew that picture i only made it

through halfway and the panic attack was

gone

the next time i just drew the face and

the time after that i just put the pen

to paper and they had gone for good

so now i just had to find that same type

of thing for when i was on stage

right and i couldn’t just stop and in

the middle of a stage presentation say

okay let me draw a picture and

you know hold on one second here and

just you know that wasn’t realistic

um i couldn’t do the light thing that

might be a little too violent

but there was something i could do all i

needed to do was give myself a break

that’s it i just needed a couple minutes

because what i figured

a couple seconds even what i figured is

i just needed to breathe

because when i stopped breathing or had

difficulty breathing

it’s really impossible to talk you need

breath going over your vocal cords in

order to be able to speak

try it you can’t do it so what i

realized is okay if i can relax

myself and just breathe normally

then i’m going to be able to speak and

if i can speak

i can continue along and i can go

through this presentation

and manage through this so what i did

is i came up with an idea i figured okay

all i need to do is have some questions

that i need to throw out to the audience

if i’m in that situation

so i did i had a couple questions

prepared at the beginning of every

presentation

sometimes i used them sometimes they

didn’t but if i felt that coming on

i did and it gave me a couple of seconds

to regain my

pace my composure my breathing

and it worked

eventually i didn’t even have them

anymore not only did i not have to use

them just the fact that i had them in my

back pocket to use

that was my panic hack it was like a

switch a light switch that i could turn

off that panic attack

at any given moment that gave me the

confidence and the self-esteem

to realize i don’t have these anymore

something incredible

happens when you gain control and

influence a different

outcome it’s empowering because it gives

you

confidence and that confidence helps you

extend

and expand your comfort zone that

comfort zone helps you take bigger risks

like standing in front of larger

audiences

and it helps you take bigger chances and

ultimately bigger victories

and those bigger victories lead to even

more

confidence and it’s an amazing

phenomenon once we can

influence ourselves we then can

influence other people

authentically that was my challenge i

was doing it from an inauthentic place

because i hadn’t done it for myself

effectively

once i did my leadership effectiveness

absolutely took off that’s when i became

the best version of myself as a leader

and when we realize how far-reaching and

long-lasting our influence can be

it is staggering we never realized the

power

of our influence there was a boy on a

saturday morning his dad had asked him

to paint the fence

and this boy kind of begrudgingly began

to do it and took him a couple hours and

when he got done his dad inspected it

and his dad came upon an area of the

fence that was behind the shed

and the boy had not painted it and he

asked the boy about it the boy said well

it’s not visible nobody can see nobody’s

going to know

and the father said no you will know

and his father who is a cabinet maker

went on to explain

that the quality of what you do and the

detail of what you do

is critical he explained as a cabinet

maker even the piece of wood that was

against the wall that he used in

building a cabinet was as

fine a piece of wood as the one on the

outside

well that conversation stuck with that

boy for the rest of his life he

internalized that

and almost obsessed about quality and

quality of design

and as he grew up and he built things he

built them in a manner where

they were as nice on the inside as they

were on the outside

and today over a billion people are

impacted by that conversation that took

place

that saturday morning because that boy

was steve jobs

you never know the impact of what your

influence is what steve and his dad

didn’t know that day was that

conversation was the three percent

that helped steve find the other 97

percent that put him on a path to

design things as beautiful as the iphone

and ultimately touch each and every one

of us when you find your three percent

and you change

your path and your world then it’s up to

you

to help somebody else find their three

percent

thank you very much