– Why self-leadership has to come before every other kind of leadership

Jaclyn Strominger 0:21

Hello, everybody, and welcome to another amazing episode of Unstoppable Success. I'm your host, Jacqueline Strominger. And on this podcast, we hear from amazing leaders, influential professionals who are basically sharing their tips, their tricks, their insights on having unstoppable success and great leadership. And today I am so excited to introduce all of you to Dr. Bobby Sheldon, although I'm sure he doesn't want me to say doctor too many times. That's the only time. So Bobby is someone who I know truly understands that your success is not just about what you build on the outside, it's about what you become on the inside. And it starts there. As the high as high achieving leaders, it is easy to look successful while pri while privately feeling drained, disconnected, and more off course. And Bobby helps high-achieving professionals rebuild the intentional foundation that's that lasting success requires discipline, clarity, health, resilience, and peace. He is the author of Easy Hard versus Hard Hard. He's the host of Self Leadership Lab podcast and holds a doctor of strategic leadership through coaching, speaking, and transformational content. Bobby helps leaders close the gap between who they appear to be and who they know they are capable of becoming. This conversation is going to be incredibly powerful. It's going to be a reminder that unstoppable success begins with self-leadership because you can lead a business, a team, a family, or a movement. You have to be able to lead yourself. So welcome, Bobby. And oh, and I do have to say what I'm so excited about we share the same alma matter.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Yeah, no, no, I absolutely, absolutely. That's what got us together was the uh Carnegie Mellon connection. So, no, I'm super happy to be here. I've been looking forward to this. Like I told you before we started recording, I've been looking forward to this all week because I think we're gonna have an engaging conversation. And I like the whole unstoppable piece because once we develop self-leadership in our lives, we do become unstoppable and we remove all the self-doubt, all the anxiety, everything that's holding us back. I think it all starts within and all leadership. There's a lot of great leadership theories out there. And I'm not proposing one over the other, but the self-leadership theory is where I focus uh most of my research on because it's what I needed to get myself out of a hole that I had dug myself. As you can see, the common theme here: me, me, me. Not in a selfish way, but I was I was my own obstacle for so many years. And removing the obstacle of myself and reinventing myself was the way that I started seeing success and gaining peace and tranquility in my life.

Jaclyn Strominger 3:01

So I so I think so many people have that same thing. Like we right, like we we have to learn to lead ourselves first, but we don't, we're not taught that. I mean, I I talk about being the CEO of you, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Yeah, I mean, uh all the leadership text is it's basically managerial text, right? It's like it's like dealing with people or dealing with profits, dealing with everything other than yourself, but really you are the instrument, right? I, you know, I went to CMU, but I was a tuba major, so I know a lot about music. And it doesn't matter how good you are if the instrument you're playing is is trash, right? So we we don't spend time focusing on ourselves. And so therefore, how do we show up for others? How do we know what our, you know, as coaches, we say values, vision, whatever word you want to put on it? How do we know what those are if we don't take time to work on that element of our lives and really sit back and develop? And and often in society today, Jacqueline, I'm seeing so much of us outsourcing our soul. It's to the news, social media, it could be a sport, it could be whatever we fall into line with what society tells us we should do. We another thing we were talking about is all the things people tell you you should do. Well, you should be yourself because if you're doing something that's not you, inherently you lose that self-leadership and you, you know, and and I hope no one gets to where I did. I got to a point where I didn't know who I was, I didn't like myself, I didn't love myself, and I was completely lost because I never once took a second to think what does Bobby want.

Jaclyn Strominger 4:38

So I think there's a lot of people out there that that have that same, I'm gonna call it the syndrome of doing the doing like the told syndrome, right? You know, if you want to put a label on it, oh we're told to do this, you're told to do that. And so few of us real we or we or we get to the point in our lives so much later when we realize I want to do what I love, I want to do what what's what is you know fits my soul.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

Yeah. Yeah, and I think that just is because you know, we have expectations, right? People have expectations of us, and then we adopt those as expectations for ourselves. But at the end of the day, I have no idea what you're thinking. I mean, you may say, hey, good job, Bobby, I'm proud of you, this, that, or the other. But at the end, I have no clue what you want. So why would I try to serve and please you all the time? It could be your parents, it could be anyone in your life. If you really step back and say, what do I want to do? What makes me happy? One of the things I've been playing around with lately is building your personal standards. What are your non-negotiables on how you live your life? Once you identify those, like maybe you don't need the car. Maybe you don't need this X amount in your bank account. Maybe what's happy to you is taking a walk every day with your dogs for two hours. Maybe it's fly fishing every day. I I don't know what it is, but

– Building your "personal standards" (the non-negotiables nobody taught you)

SPEAKER_00 6:10

you can build your life around that. And the real question comes down to are we living our lives? Are we just existing in the lives that others want us to live? And that is so to me, I know so many people talk about it, but it is so groundbreaking in making progress and becoming unstoppable.

Jaclyn Strominger 6:30

So I I think I've shared this before, and I'll share it again if those of you haven't heard it. But I mean, that was actually part of it was me. Like, you know, you but I left Carnegie Mellon with this massive, massive like focus. I'm going into this industry, I want to go here. And somewhere along the way, I forgot what I was doing. Like, I forgot. I wasn't, I wasn't doing that. And it was like, oh, you're on that hamster wheel. And my and I would say like that is the one thing if if and is getting off the hamster wheel and knowing that we are not just existing, we are living, we're thriving. So, how how do you do that? How do you how did you do it and and how do you help people do that?

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Yeah, so it took a while, it took a lot of failed attempts. So you mentioned in the bio, I wrote a book called The Easy Hard versus Hard Hard. And that was me, the way I had to wrap my brain around what I was doing. So easy hard is working for the approval of others, and hard hard is doing the work that matters to you. And that separating line, because you said earlier you left school and you had all these things you wanted to do, but eventually you forgot about them. Well, because you probably thought about them for a long time, right? But you felt guilty because you weren't doing them, or you felt guilty because you started doing them and you're like, but I have this job now, I have these expectations of others. And so it really what it took was me sitting down one day and saying to myself, what do I want to do? What did I want to do? And it it really was pretty simple for me. It's like, I want to be a nice guy, I want to make people's lives better. And I realized that maybe I was doing that, but probably not to the extent I I could, you know. You know, I don't I don't know if you know the the the two greatest commandments in the Bible says, love the Lord your God, treat your neighbor as yourself. Well, I found that I was not only making myself my God, but I didn't like or love myself. So how could I like or love other people? And what I tell people now, the simplest step for step you can take is what do you think about when you have nothing to think about? And I know that sounds kind of stupid, but when you're right before you're going to sleep, if you think about your aspirations or things that you want to do or things that you've been putting off forever, most likely that's what you want to be doing. Now, I'm not a burn the boats kind of guy. You know, if if you wake up one day and you're uh let's just say you're a surgeon or something like that, and you're like, I don't want to do surgery anymore. I'm not saying stop being a surgeon. What I'm saying is be more of what you can be where you are right now. Because change is not a switch, it's a dial. So you have to do it gradually and start practicing the things you want to do in the place you're at, because what a better way. Like you and I are both in the coaching arena. So many coaches want to just quit their job and start coaching. Well, that's great if that's what you can do, but what opportunities are you missing coaching where you are right now? Observe people, ask questions, learn the way they think, learn what bugs them because eventually those are gonna become your clients. And so again, when you when you find what you want to do, it here's the caution stamp for everyone. It may take a little bit of time, but don't worry about it because you're gonna feel more fulfilled. You're you're not gonna wake up every day and say, Oh, I have to go to work. You're gonna say, Oh, I get to go to work, and what can I learn today that I didn't know before? What can I observe? What feelings, what emotions, what what like common connection can I have to get to where I want to be.

Jaclyn Strominger 10:00

And I think that's you know, it's so it's such a key thing because you know, like as you're and I'll just say, how many times have you heard, and people have said it thousands and thousands of times, you know, if you do love do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life, right? But it takes us so long to either understand that or get to that point for some of us, or you might wake up, and I think this is the other key thing, you might wake up one day and say, you know what, I I have loved doing this, but I don't love it anymore. I need to change. And that's and we have to remind ourselves that that's okay. And then the other thing that I want to mention, you know, you as I was sharing my story, you said, you know, you you I may have forgotten or whatever. One of the other key things for me was the outside people that said to me, Oh, you don't need to do that, you don't need to do that. And when actually when actually when actuality, I I wasn't feeling strong enough to say, Yeah, I do go take a hike. I go, I do need to go and do this.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Yeah, yeah, there's a lot to unpack. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Jaclyn Strominger 11:07

No, no, go ahead. No, go ahead. Go.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

No, no, I I I really hate that stay saying if you find something that you love, you'll never work a day in your life. Because how many people do you talk to that would say that's true for them? I mean, I can think of two people in my life who truly love their job, but you know, it's not the job they love, it's the the way that they can interact with the job. So often we have these titles and we have these expectations for ourselves, and that's not who we are. You know, you you said earlier, I don't like to be called Dr. Shelton because I'm not, I am that. I earned that, but I'm just Bobby. And the reason I don't like it is because when I started my doctoral journey, I did it because I thought I would like myself if I was this. Well, you know, the day my diploma came, I opened the garage door and it was a box and it just fell in and it was in like a pizza box. It wasn't even one of those nice folios that you, you know, those padded things. It was just in a box. And on the box it said, you did it. Okay, so you spend all this time and energy and you get a box in a garage. But but you know what? I love that so much because that piece of paper is not me. That piece of paper helped develop me to be what I am. But if that's how I see myself in the world, and if that's where I think I'm gonna get my happiness, where like, you know, all the, you know, another thing is like find your bliss, follow your bliss, follow your passion. Well, follow your passion, but be reasonable about it because you could be a janitor and be fulfilled. You could be the CEO of a company and be completely miserable. But from the world's perspective, which one do they they value most? I would say, who cares? What do you value most and go after it at all costs? And then work becomes a lab, a playground, a place where you can develop yourself along the way.

Jaclyn Strominger 12:54

And I think that's so important. And no matter where you are, whether you're the janitor, the CEO, you have to want to go there and be there and understand that when you go home at night and you put your head on the pillow, you're not cringing or being upset. Like, but there's there's it's it's aligned with who you are, right? It's aligned with you as a person. And and I think that's the part where and I would say that a lot of people get caught up is is sometimes they'll they'll get caught up in the title, or they'll get caught up in wanting to get to that next step. But what does that next step bring? Like, how does that actually align with what actually fills their cup?

SPEAKER_00 13:47

Yeah, yeah. And I and I use the the janitor as an example because a janitor gets to impact so many people's lives, where a CEO goes into an office, they're ushered in, ushered out, you know, given the red carpet treatment, all this, but they don't get to connect with the people. But if you're a people person and you want to help and build people, maybe the janitor is the better role for you. Now, I'm not I'm not giving career advice here, folks. I'm just using this as an example. But but at the end of the day, it's like I love what you said about when you go to sleep because that's one of the things I found. When I used to put my head on the pillow, I would say one of two things. I'm wasting my life, or if I don't wake up tomorrow, I'm okay with it because I'm so miserable. That's a terrible place to be. And you know, Jaclyn, I thought that was normal until one day I told my wife this, and she goes, Bobby, you need help. This is not right at all. You should not be. I mean, think about it. We have a manual for everything. I'm sure anything in your office right now, appliances you buy, cars, everything has a manual, but there's no manual for ourselves and how we interact and live with ourselves every single day. So, what I propose to people and I work with people is build the manual for yourself, build what's important to you, and then protect that. Some things are out of your control. I'm really big into stoic philosophy and what you can control and what you can't control. You'll find out that you know, you get two sheets of paper, what you can control is gonna have very little on it, what you can't is on the other. Focus on what you can control. And the two things you can control are your thoughts and your happiness and your actions. So your thoughts, happiness, same thing, but but your actions. So build that manual and then follow it. And I think that's the recipe to success. I know it sounds super simplistic, but most most things worth pursuing are simplistic, right?

Jaclyn Strominger 15:31

No, they it is it is the it's simple, is you know, when you try to overcomplicate things, it gets muddy. But knowing, you know, controlling controlling your thoughts, god, I mean, I I feel like that is it's it is truly like the number one thing that you can do for success. And think about all the books. I mean, this is like this is you know, name the book, whether it's you know, I I'm reading part of you know the five Am Club. Maybe it's and I've got the other one that's over there, Success Principles by Jack Canville. It's you know, the butt, you know, the energy bus, every like

– The night it took 90 minutes just to stand up

Jaclyn Strominger 16:21

name all these great books. I mean, there's hundreds, right? Hundreds of books, right? They can grow rich, right? All of those things, right? Are all what does it start with? Our brains, our minds, and our thoughts, right? Like we need to control those to have success.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

Yeah, it and and the brain is such a powerful computer, and you know, Think and Grow Rich, all the books that you named, they all talk about controlling your thinking. But I'm gonna take it a step further, and I think some of these missed the mark on this. You actually have to believe what you're saying because take your and my example. We both left school, we had these high ambitions and things that we wanted to do, but we might have thought they weren't possible. We didn't believe they were possible, but we thought, hey, we're gonna get in this corporate environment and we're gonna work 14, 16, 20 hour days and it's gonna become possible. Well, we believe that, but we didn't believe in ourselves. And so thought, so so manifestation. That's that's one thing that I that I really love. I like if I believe it and I talk it enough, it's gonna come. Well, you've got to take some action about that. And but but you gotta believe it because if you believe you can make a change, like like the day the turning point for me was I was sitting in a chair and I just put my eighth friend in the ground from suicide. I was devastated and I was in a depression like I never felt in my body before. And I was a pretty depressed dude for a while. And I told my wife, I said, I'm not gonna stand up until I give myself permission to like myself again. Not like myself again, just the permission to start that journey. And so I'm sitting there and I knew because I've read all the science, I did all the research behind how the brain works and all this stuff, I knew I couldn't do that if I didn't believe it. It took me an hour and a half, Jaclyn, to stand up. And it was so ironic or divine intervention, whatever you want to call it. About 15 minutes after that, a friend of mine in California calls me. And I say California because this is relevant to the story, but he called me, he said, Bobby, how are you doing? And for the first time in my life that I remembered, I answered that question truthfully. I said, I'm not well. I don't know how I can become well, but I know that I will be well. And this friend of mine happened to know a guy in Maryland, which is just right across the river from me. And he said, Go talk to this guy. And this guy was a successful physician, top of his class in oncology, top of the, you know, in the country, he was one of the best, dealing with the same thing. And you know what he said? He said, I knew all these things, but I didn't believe they could be true to me. And that was the stepping stone that he started taking. And that just clicked for me. It was like, yeah, I don't believe it. I don't believe that I can make these changes. But once I did, you know, it's like, I think I can, I think I can. I think again, what's that little trade trade story or whatever? Yeah, it's so so valuable. And once I made that shift, boom. It it was like it was like the floodgates opened for me and possibilities started, and it became a journey where I wasn't well all the time, but I was okay not being well because I was always being like, like sometimes we get so caught in our thoughts and what we haven't done and how you know depressed or anxious we are about the future that we forget who we are and we don't be, we're just human doings. But right, we don't say that, right? We say human beings. In fact, when when we when we talk to people on the street, we say, How are you doing? For a while I played around with asking people, How are you being? I got too many weird looks and too many weird answers. So I've cut that out. But but think of the power if you said that to yourself every day. Who am I being?

Jaclyn Strominger 19:53

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

Yeah.

Jaclyn Strominger 19:55

You know, it's it's it's interesting, you know, you're you're sharing this, and it's and I can't begin to tell you, like, there's so many people that I've connected with and people that I know and from different parts. I mean, it's it's true. You have to believe. I mean, belief starts, and you have to you have to believe it in your heart. And sometimes, you know, and I'm curious your thoughts. I mean, I've you know, things that I have shared is sometimes you have to keep repeating it to yourself over and over and over again until your brain truly believes it as well you believe it. Like it I've I'm a I believe belief that it belief doesn't happen overnight.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

Oh, yeah, no, and and you know, we talk to ourselves all the time, whether consciously or subconsciously, we're always saying something to ourselves. So I challenge everyone what's your self-talk like? Is it positive or is it negative? If if it's negative, start treating yourself like a friend. The same thing you're thinking about. Think if it was me saying this on the street or over coffee, would you say, Oh, Bobby, you're you're crap. You're not ever gonna amount to anything, you're worthless, you don't do anything right. You know, we always go to the extremes in our mind because remember, another thing about the mind is it's there to protect us. So the more we live in these patterns where we're we fill of self-doubt, or uh full of self-doubt, easy for me to say, and full of anxiety, then our brain's like, Well, he needs to be in this state because that's where he feels safe or she feels safe. So once you change that approach and you start talking positively to yourself, and I'm with you repeating it, I got to the point where I had to say what was going on in my head out loud, not only so I could actually hear it, but so my wife or others could hear it. And it was so vile and disgusting. If my mom was here right now, I wouldn't say the words sometimes that were going through my head to me about me. But when I changed that narrative, like and it's funny, like you could like spill cat food or something, something really stupid in your life and just go to town on yourself. Now, when I do something like that, sometimes I laugh because I was like six or seven years ago, I could have ruined my entire day, I could have ruined my wife's day, I could have ruined everybody's. Day around me over spilt cat food. Maybe that's a new thing instead of spilled milk, spilled cat food. I don't know.

Jaclyn Strominger 22:07

But you know, but it it's true. I you know, and and it's amazing how one thought can change your entire day, good or bad. And when it's at somebody else, somebody else's whether they responded or did not respond, we have to almost like stop and think, like you know, you send the text, right? You know, think about this, right? You send the text to somebody and they don't respond. And you're like, oh, oh my god, they didn't respond. What's happening? Like, my life is like it's just gonna fall apart. Or like, what if they really what if they're really mad at me? What if they're really upset that I didn't show up? Or maybe they're whatever the like you can spiral yourself because you're all of a sudden you're telling yourself something, but then you could smack yourself like in the face and say, Okay, come on, like everybody has busy lives. Do you respond to everything right? I mean, like, change the thought, change that.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

Yeah, we're so unreasonable with ourselves, and that's one thing I'd like to really. I mean, I'd like to understand more. Why are we so hard on ourselves but so compassionate to others? You know, someone told me one time is like, who do you spend the most time with? It's yourself. So why not treat yourself as your best friend? You know, encourage yourself. I I like to tell people to bathe themselves in positivity. And I know you and I have talked about this earlier. If there's anything in your life that causes stress or anxiety, cut it out of your lives. If anything makes you unreasonably mad or upset, you don't need it in your life. Switch the narrative immediately, whether it's actual external, like let's say you're listening to something on the radio while you're driving around, get you upset, change the channel. Do people listen to channels anymore? Or change, you know, hit hit fast forward on your hit next on your whatever you use, or change the music on the Spotify or whatever it is.

Jaclyn Strominger 24:04

I mean, yeah, change it.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

Yeah, yeah, don't dwell in that state, but also often we think we need to. I mean, how often do you go to anything, a dinner, cocktail party, whatever you go to? And people always talk about how miserable they are. How I can't stand it. But I used to be that guy, so I'm pointing the finger back at me. If you go to a place, show up, be energetic, be positive, because a little bit of light in a very dark situation will do so good. So you need to do it both to others, but you need to more importantly do it for yourself because everything that we think about transcends to how we act, how we behave, and really how successful, unsuccessful we're gonna be in this world.

Jaclyn Strominger 24:44

Right. And and listeners, I really want, I mean, we're talking about this, the the thoughts. It's true like for you to have unstoppable success, it it really does come down to something so simple as the way you think and understand and remember that business life, it's not your business success, is not a linear upline, right? You know, think of yes, maybe over time, like again, I've I've shared this example with the stock market, right? You know, the stock market, if you look at it from you know, five years ago to now, yeah, it might look like a straight line, but holy crap, I mean, yes, they take. I mean, right? It's up and down, up and down. So is like, so what's your thought? Your if you but if your thoughts can stay positive and that can stay level or up, everything else can can can stay up and keep going. And you're gonna need that in your business

– 354 pounds: the comeback that started it all

Jaclyn Strominger 25:46

and in life to have that positivity to keep you going for when you got those days where the the business does something lower, or like the stock market tanks, and you're like, oh my god, there goes my 401k, or whatever it is, right? But that's part of life, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:06

Like that that compounding interest, like you're talking about and money, is the same with your thoughts and your behaviors. The the more you put into something, the more it's gonna come back. And you know, I didn't talk about this in in my my whole journey, but part of my journey, my comeback tour, my Bobby 2.0 was six years ago, I weighed 354 pounds. Holy crap! Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm 6'5, so so so yeah, 354. I I I stood on a doctor's scale one day, and it was 354. And so I I knew immediately I needed to lose weight. And so I started doing I'm sorry. Oh, okay. And and and and so part of that process is I brought in experts, you know, fitness people to help me along the way. And one of the exercises they told me to do, they said, feel your glutes. Well, I've said this a million times, a 354-pound man is not gonna feel their glutes. But I trusted those people and I kept doing the exercises. I kept doing them probably a year, year and a half. And then one day I'm doing them and I felt the glute for the first time. Okay. Had I not done that for a year and a half, I would have never felt the glute. So the same thing with your thoughts, the same thing with money, the same thing with anything. The more you do it, the more you're gonna get, and you're gonna get discouraged, right? It's just human behavior that that if you don't see results immediately, you're gonna get discouraged. But think I saw an ad one time. You know those total gems like Chuck Norris, you sell them, Christy Brinkley. Yeah, yeah. And and I saw this ad one time and it says, in a year from now, you'll be glad you started. Like what a great promise, right? And and that's the promise we can all tell ourselves. If you start today being positive, and maybe it's not 24 hours of the day, maybe it's only like you get two hours of positive. Well, you had zero today, two is great. The next day it might be 2.2, 2.5. And then eventually you're gonna be filled with joy. And that doesn't mean hardships and things don't come into your life, but you're gonna look at them more objectively. Like this is a blip in the radar. This is one bad day of the stock market. This isn't my entire portfolio. I'm still gonna be able to retire, all these kinds of things.

Jaclyn Strominger 28:22

Right. So, a couple things, and you just made me think about this. I haven't done it in a while, but I used to do this, and I think I'm gonna probably start it back and I'll and I'll start. I'll maybe I'll even start putting this out on a on a YouTube video. But I had a positivity jar. Like every day it was like I'm feeding the positivity. I'm you know, it's like feed me see more, right? You know, little shopping horrors, right? It's like my favorite line of like feed me seymour. And it's like feeding, but feed it, like feed the jar, feed yourself, feed your mind. I I want to bring something up that that you know, it you kind of touched on it, but it was something that I was thinking about in our thoughts and positivity, and that's comparison, right? Like right, like it's it's it's like so evil. And the reason why I wanted to bring it up is because again, everybody's journey is their own. So I wanted to get your take on that part of the thought process too, because I like I've got my own on that, but I'd love to hear yours.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's the famous saying, comparison is the thief of all joy, and that is so true. We talked about things that people say that we don't like, but I love that. But what does that mean? If you compare yourself to anyone, let's just say it's a CEO of some company that's in your industry, you have no idea what it took for them to get there because they don't ever tell you the downtimes, they don't tell you the hours that he spent. You know, one of the one of the things that was so inspirational to me was I read like Jeff Bezos. There's something about like how he built his business. Well, you know, he used to sit in his garage for hours after he worked his nine to five boxing books. And then somebody came and told him, hey, it'll be more comfortable if you get a table and do it. But he was literally sitting on the ground and doing it. But now you look at Jeff Bezos today, I don't know how much he's worth. It's a lot more than me. But if I compared myself to Jeff Bezos, that's a losing battle all the time. But what in Jeff Bezos' path can I adopt or try for myself to gain that success? So maybe comparison to the end result isn't the right idea, but maybe the work ethic or the mentality. I love very successful people. And I know some of them are controversial in the world today, but if you think about the way they think and then apply that to the way you think, that's the only comparison I think you should ever have. And then if you are, if you are someone who thinks that you, oh, I have to compare, well, compare yourself to yourself five years ago. It the only time I say people to look back is look back to where you were five years ago. Like, let's take that glute example again. I can look back a year and a half, couldn't feel the glutes. Well, a year and a half later, I could feel the glutes. So it's again that progress. So sometimes you got to look back to see where you're going, but please do not compare yourself. You know, they say instant success takes a lot of time. People forget the takes a lot of time part. They think that like Jeff

– "Comparison is the thief of joy," and how to actually apply it

SPEAKER_00 31:22

Bezos just had Amazon overnight. Well, no, it took him years and years and years and a lot of risk. And how many of us are willing to take that risk, you know, personally, financially, whatever it is. But I can tell you this take that risk on yourself to be a better person. And boy, in a year from now, you'll be glad you did.

Jaclyn Strominger 31:41

Right. That payoff is absolutely exponential.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

Yeah. Yeah. Cause it think of the think if you did something for the very first time and you were great at it. What would the joy be? You know, people used to always say enjoy the process, not the end result. And I never understood that because I always wanted to know what's next. So I got this certification, I got this degree. Well, what's the next one I can get? What's next? What's next? What's next? And I never got to see the forest from the for the trees. I I was always focused on the end. But once you break it down in the struggle, like a lot of coaches today say, Oh, you have to suffer to grow. I hate that too. If you're suffering, you're probably going after the wrong thing. You may need to struggle a little bit, but during the struggle, what can you learn? How can I be a better person? What can what are the building blocks to my future during this time? Because you learn so much about yourself when you put it under stress and duration. But please don't suffer because we have enough suffering in the world, you know. Work hard at what you want to do and and really figure it out. But but that I don't know, that's a diatribe from comparison, but you got me going.

Jaclyn Strominger 32:52

Right. But I think it's I but and the reason why I wanted to bring it up is is as you know, you also said it's like if something is is giving you those negative thoughts, recognize it, you know, like what remove yourself from that situation. And I'll I'll give an example that that I thought is, you know, seeing and going to award ceremonies, right? And it was, you know, people like, oh my God, I you know, I I could never be like her. And they would spiral, they would spiral down, like she's been up there nonstop, always getting the awards, I'm never gonna do that. So sometimes it's if if you're always spiraling, any number one, under recognize that, see, see it, and then okay, well, maybe during that time of the conference that you are, remove yourself and write out, like write your own reward or that or award for yourself and read that and saying, Oh my god, here's Bobby, he's coming up on stage, and he's like, you know, give yourself the award that you want versus the comparison versus the doubt, or you know, and remove yourself. You will be able to sit in that room eventually, and but also then celebrate and be able to celebrate other people because you've now training your brain to celebrate where you're going and not comparing.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

Man, I I like that personal reward because an external reward is objective. I mean, look at the Oscars, look at whatever. There, there's always somebody who wins something that the world is like, wow, why did this person win? Well, one, you have no control, you don't vote, you don't you don't know what's in the minds of and the hearts of the judges, but that's an external reward. What if you did your best and you go to sleep at night happy with what you did? I mean, that is the ultimate reward, right? It doesn't matter who gives you a piece of paper or a medal, medallion, whatever, trophy. It doesn't really matter because that moment's fleeting. But when you internalize your reward, then it's forever. It's intrinsic motivation versus external, extrinsic motivation. What is it what drives you that keeps you going, like you yourself, or is it for an award? And eventually you'll probably, if you do your little theory, I bet you just won't go to awards ceremony because you're out there doing versus watching someone else get rewarded for something they've done, right? It's like watching sports or playing sports. What which one would you rather do?

Jaclyn Strominger 35:19

Well, when it comes to some of them, I want to watch it, but yeah, but anyway, but yeah, but it's like I'd rather I'd want to be doing something, right? Versus not, right? And it's it really does matter. Change. All right, so Bobby, I could talk to you for absolutely forever on and how can people get in touch with you?

SPEAKER_00 35:36

Yeah, well, you can get me on LinkedIn. I'm pretty active there. The self-leadership lab that you mentioned earlier is my podcast, which uh you were an esteemed guest on and which will be coming out soon as well. Also, uh easy hard versus hardhard uh.com. That can get you to all my you know socials. I also am on Substack. Most everything is the self-leadership lab on social. So just look that up and I and um you'll find me.

Jaclyn Strominger 35:59

Awesome. All right, so everybody connect with Bobby. I'm gonna put all of that in the show notes and listeners, please do me the favor and actually make sure that you connect with him because Bobby is truly amazing. Absolutely, and so you definitely need to be connected with him. And then do me the next favor share this episode with a business friend, a colleague, or somebody that you know, because there has been amazing nuggets in this, and it's it's such a vital part of success. So share this with everybody that you know, and then two other big things. Join our community on School for Unstoppable Success. The link is in the show notes. And if you're looking to grow and expand your relationships, we have a brand new relationship capital seven-day ROI challenge. That means ROI meaning return on investment. And that's really key to growing your business, yourself, working on those relationships. So join the seven-day challenge and you will see some amazing success. Bobby, thank you for being a great guest. I truly appreciate having you. Thank you, everybody. This is really like I couldn't believe you're gonna have to come back. And everybody listeners, thank you so much for listening. This is the Unstoppable Success podcast, where we we help you have unstoppable success that will lead to help you leap to your greatest success. Here's to your unstoppable success. You've been listening to the unstoppable success podcast with Jaclyn Strawminger. Subscribe, share, and keep building your unstoppable life. We'll see you at the top.