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