Solving the Insecurity Problem

the two most

important days of your life the day you

were born

the day you find out why mark twain

i’ve heard that quote a number of times

over my years but the last time i heard

it

i versed in the tears i believe it’s

true

it’s taken me a long time but i have

found purpose that is bigger than myself

that is not even about me

my mission in life is to end the

unnecessary suffering

caused by the fear of not being good

enough

to have connected with that purpose is a

beautiful experience

as a young person looking also to find

purpose

it can be a daunting task how do you

solve the purpose problem

well let’s start with how not to solve

that problem

your purpose is not to try and inspire

people

to greatness while that is the stated

intention of many social media

influences

drawing attention to themselves by their

great achievements

triumphs over adversity with a message

that you too can be great

no one has ever been inspired to

greatness by someone telling them that’s

what they need to do

the people who have inspired me the most

have never once

stated that was their intention

your purpose is not to prove somebody

else wrong

there are people doing all kinds of

amazing things in the world right now

purely driven out of a desire to prove

the naysayers the haters

and the doubters wrong someone told them

they shouldn’t they couldn’t and they

wouldn’t

and they are driven to prove them wrong

but even when they’ve achieved the

impossible

they are no more fulfilled or satisfied

than when they begin

it is out of insecurity that many people

look

like they have found purpose yet it is

simply an attempt

to validate their own existence and

prove that they matter

your purpose cannot be to prove that

your matter that you matter

your work as you become an adult

is to discover that you do matter with

nothing to prove

and nothing to defend then you’re able

to show up in the world with your cup

full

then you have something to give then

you can connect with purpose that is

bigger than you and not even about you

to solve the purpose problem you’ll need

to solve the insecurity problem first

now thankfully throughout time there

have been people who have done just that

they have found a way to show up at

their best where it matters most

not hindered by this fear of not being

good enough and success

leaves clues my work

has been to understand the path they

have treaded to make it explicit

so that you too can solve the insecurity

problem in your life

there are seven essential practices it

turns out for people who have solved the

insecurity problem

the first one is to step into the light

yoda says named must your fear be

before banish it you can

if you don’t know what you’re fighting

how could you possibly win

people are insecure about being insecure

they run away from that fear

while it is dangerous and vulnerable

until you

become clear about what you feel what

your fear really is you cannot begin the

process of changing it people are

imagine they’re afraid of failure or

rejection

that is not the deepest level of fear

both those two things are outside of

your control

the fear is the fear is far more

personal than that

having failed or been rejected what do

you fear that says about you

now it becomes personal that i am a

failure

or that i’m not worthy of love the

universal fear

under all others is that we are somehow

inadequate

each human being must face this fear

this fear left unaddressed

causes suffering the first process the

first practice is to name that fear

to be clear about what your opponent

really is

from there the second practice is to

hand back the victim card

this was a game-changing idea for me in

my own process of solving the insecurity

problem

made possible by the knowledge that as

human beings we are storytellers

we’re sense making creatures we go into

the world and we tell stories about our

experience

from the moment we have any conscious

awareness we are asking and answering

two questions

but everything we see hear and feel why

did this happen

and what does it mean about me

now psychologists teach us that in built

in our dna

is a negativity bias designed to keep us

safe

so you can imagine how this questioning

plays out especially when we have

children

in the face of pain in the face of loss

in the face of disappointment

asking why did this happen and what does

it mean about me

affected by negativity bias we tell

negative stories about ourselves

these stories become our beliefs

they become the narrative that we live

out of they become

self-fulfilling prophecies they become

our insecurity

see when people discover they’re

insecure then they go work out why

people think they’re insecure because of

what has happened to them but that’s not

how the world works

life is not about what happens to us

it’s about the meaning

we place on the things that happen to us

when i discovered that

it changed everything i discovered i was

not the victim

i was not the actor in the story

someone else had written i was the

storyteller

i was the one with the pen i was the one

deciding

i was no good it was all me i wasn’t the

victim in the story i was the bully

when i got that i realized if it was me

that had created this story

then i’m the only one who can change

that

the third practice for people who have

solved the insecurity problem is to dial

up the pain

now pain is a gift designed to protect

you from future and worse pain

designed to move you toward safety when

you put your hand on the fire

it’s supposed to hurt that is pain

lovingly tell you to get your hand off

the fire so you don’t destroy your hand

feeling no good about yourself is

supposed to hurt

that’s the point that is pain telling

you that is not the way it’s supposed to

be

that is pain pleading with you to change

to deal with that at its core

and move towards safety real safety pain

is a gift

people have solved the insecurity

problem have used pain this way

most people use pain against themselves

see every cell in our bodies is designed

to avoid pain and pursue pleasure

most people have linked pain to change

to the uncertainty of the

unknown linked pain to dealing with

dysfunction

therefore pain is resisting your

progress

if you are to solve the insecurity

problem you will have to

focus on the pain of being here of

feeling no good about yourself

and create a threshold moment

where whatever pain is involved in

change it cannot be as much pain as

staying here

now you have what it takes to proceed on

the journey

while all change starts with a focus on

what you don’t want that is never enough

to sustain

a meaningful lasting change journey

there must also be a focus on what you

do want

which is practice four everyone who has

solved this problem has had a compelling

vision for their life

which is not about moving just away from

pain but moving toward pleasure

solving the insecurity problem is like

the hero’s journey

you are the hero in the story and the

hero needs a quest

there’s got to be a mission drawing even

when it gets hard

without a sense of desire for what it is

that you really want your life to be

about

there is nothing strong enough to keep

you making progress in the face of pain

and fear

what do you want is the most difficult

question in the world but it is the

adult question

what do you want and what are you

prepared to do about it

it means you’ll maintain progress even

when it gets hard

now as the hero in the story at some

point every hero

realizes they need help

but it’s not just any help it’s the

right help

there’s a gandalf there’s a yoda

there’s a dumbledore

who come and equip the hero to do what

the hero needs to do

now when i when i discovered this

patterning around help there was an

interesting distinction

in order to solve the insecurity problem

you must get help from someone who

doesn’t care about you

people who care too much about your own

self-esteem can get in the way out of

that caring

they will try and solve it for you

i grew up on a sheep farm in rural new

south wales

when i was 12 years old my dad who was a

wool class up

took me into the shearing shed and asked

me if i thought wool would burn

i didn’t think it did he said watch this

took some wool been freshly shot and lit

a match underneath it

it caught on fire straight away he took

the match away however

and the fire went out just as quickly as

it had started

lanolin the oil in wall is flammable but

only when exposed to an external flame

paper on the other hand needs a needs a

spark it will continue can sustain its

own fire

my dad said something to me which i’ve

never forgotten jamin this is

this is what it’s like working with

people it looks like they’re burning

but it’s all you the moment you stop

doing what you’re doing the fire goes

out

the hero knows he needs a spark the hero

knows

he needs fire but the hero knows

this is dangerous but the wrong help in

the wrong way

would trick him in to think he’s making

progress

and keep him or her disempowered and

stuck

finding the right help was essential the

sixth practice

sooner or later the hero was alone

realizing that no one is coming to save

him the sixth practice is to go fight

the dragon

while it’s confronting to realize that

no one is coming to save you

there is no other way the insecurity

problem was not created outside you by

someone else’s words

is your own opinion of yourself if

someone else’s words could have fixed

this for you already

it would have if someone else’s

encouragement

could have actually made you feel good

about yourself long term

it would have had alright it would have

already if affirmations and kind words

from others could have worked

a quick glance at instagram and the

first three memes

would have solved the insecurity problem

for you

that’s not how it works

at some point the hero knows

they must face the dragon they must

discover for themselves are they

good enough or are they not this work of

being the hero means going all the way

back to the beginning

the origin the inception of that story

to face that fear

all the way back to the start to

deconstruct that story

incredibly confronting but there is no

other way to prove once and for all that

you matter

having deconstructed that story having

rendered it make no

sense

the final practice is to rewrite the

story

so you are already the one with the pen

you wrote the first story so you’re also

capable of writing the next one

in solving the insecurity problem the

question is not who are you

the question is who do you want to be

we’re storytellers

people who succeed in life do so off the

back of the stories they tell

they tell better stories than those who

don’t

having the pen and paper having cleared

the slate you are now free

to define who it is that you are and

what are you going to do

you are now responsible for your own

identity

that is solving the insecurity problem

you are then free to show up in the

world at your best where it matters most

with your cup full now you have

something to give

now you are free to connect with purpose

that is bigger than you

and not even about you in order to solve

the purpose problem

you must first solve the insecurity

[Music]

problem