A Talk on Reframing Time, and Answering People's Greatest Weakness
Host: Eric Chow · March 18, 2020 · Episode 28 · 56 minutes
Transcribed from the episode audio and edited to read cleanly: names and terms corrected, grammar fixed, filler words and false starts removed, punctuation added. Words in [brackets] could not be made out with certainty. The episode itself is the record.
At Eric’s request, the names of the people he mentions, other than public figures, are withheld and shown as [name withheld].
What is up everybody? Welcome to episode 28 of The Eric Chow Empowers Podcast this episode is a little different than usual, but it is a valuable one. I think the first clip is going to be from a talk I gave to some classes of juniors and seniors in high school back in January. I recorded it for this podcast episode and wanted to release it now so that's what the first clip is it's about 35 minutes of a clip or something like that. Then after that is a couple of clips about college Acceptances college rejection letters but also just about acceptance and rejection in general because that's something that a lot of us have to consider and deal with in our lives, whether it's accepted and rejected from a job or going on a date or an internship or some other opportunity or whatever it may be and also talking a little bit about just my attitude on some of the things going on right now. Of course, I'm unfortunately referring to the coronavirus, I promise.
I kept that bit short as much as I could and by short I mean less than like probably less than like five minutes probably like two and a half minutes. Maybe I don't know because I'm extremely extremely tired of hearing about it and talking about it at this point. I also talk about I think a lot of people's biggest weakness is self-deprecation and I got some insights from the book I'm currently reading so I shared that as well. So yeah, that's what this episode is. Hope you guys enjoy. This is episode 28. I want to start with the story. I was sitting at my desk in my room working on a presentation I was going to give in about a week's time.
I was feeling pretty anxious about it since I didn't really know what I was going to talk about. But I had a week, so I really wasn't that nervous, especially since, students, do the essay, do the presentation the night before anyway, so it hardly matters to work on it early. I'm still going to be working on it the night before, so, whatever. But I wasn't too... So I wasn't worried about, like, finishing it, but...
Nevertheless, I was a little nervous, so I was working on it and I had about a week until the presentation sitting at my desk in my room and at the time my dad. I was only one's home my mother and sister were out of the house my dad started walking down the stairs and Suddenly my entire body. It just went cold my hands and arms started shaking and my body started trembling and my breathing became somewhat rapid and shallow and my mind was just running haywire. I was basically having a panic attack and the reason I was having a panic attack was because downstairs on the kitchen table was a letter for my dad that I had hand-written for him.
Revealing to him a secret I had been keeping from him for about five months at the time and apologizing for keeping it a secret. Now I would tell you what that secret was and why it was such a big deal. But that requires a significant amount of context into my life and my past dynamic with my parents that I don't feel is necessary to go into because it has nothing to do with the rest of the talk. But nevertheless, I suppose a decent analogy is if a child comes out to their parents, they are gay, for example. That's that's something that is core to sort of who they are and their character if they're put down it's like putting down who they are and while my secret was certainly not as significant or core to me as something like that.
It definitely had the aspect of potentially having who I was and what I care about, put down. So anyways, my dad walks down the stairs and my body's cold. I'm shaking, my breathing's shallow and rapid and my mind is all over the damn place and I hear him stop moving. Now keep in mind, again, my dad and I would only ones home so I can hear him if he's moving or not. I hear him stop because I don't hear motion and he's reading the letter. I'm shaking still.
I hear him flip the page any moment. I'm waiting for him to say something like Eric but the house is silent then I hear him move again. He's putting Pat Pat's I said paths really pots or pans on the stove to make himself lunch I'm still waiting for him to say something to me bodies so cold I'll get back to that story in a little bit. But that story outlines the way a lot of tea teenagers and young adults feel a lot of the time. I think we're worried about what other people think of us. We are anxious for what's going to happen in the future.
We're afraid of admitting mistakes and failing. We're holding on to memories of the past that prevent us from moving forward. A friend of mine told me once, Eric, people are depressed because they live in the past. People are anxious because they live in the future.
People are depressed because they live in the past. They are anxious because they live in the future. Now, my friend didn't mean that if you're diagnosed or dealing with serious depression or anxiety, it's purely because of that. Obviously, it's far more complicated and both my friend and myself have dealt with that in our past. But in a general sense, people do get upset because they live in the past. They are anxious because they live in the future. So we're using those words loosely, but nevertheless, it is an issue that people hold on to the past and they worry for the future. Now, in my humble opinion, many of the issues faced by young people today can be solved simply by reframing our and I say our not there because I too am a young person.
By reframing our relationship with the past, future, and the present, and that's what I want to talk about today. I'll start with reframing the past. How often do we look back at things that have already occurred? We say things like, I could have said this instead and won that argument. I shouldn't have done that. It ruined our relationship. Why didn't I change my answer on that test? I would have gotten the score I needed. Why are all these horrible things happening to me? The first thing I think we need to recognize is that we have the power to forgive. Whether it is forgiving ourselves for a mistake that we made or forgiving another person for hurting us, it is vital to forgive if we are ever going to move on. Now it can be hard to forgive.
We like to withhold our ability to forgive because we feel as if by forgiving we are accepting that a behavior is okay. As Russell Brand puts it, forgiveness is not sanctioning. By forgiving someone or forgiving ourselves, we are not saying that a behavior was okay or acceptable. We are recognizing that a situation may have been difficult or wrong or painful or inappropriate in some way, but isn't it worse to hold on to the pain of an experience that is no longer present? Isn't it bad enough that we already had to suffer from this bad experience or this mistake or whatever it was? It's bad enough that we already had to experience it, but why hold on to the pain of an experience that is no longer present. In fact, when Russell Brand shared that, quote, Forgiveness is not sanctioning what he was talking about how he was abused as a child.
He wouldn't say that this adult in this life abusing him is by any means okay or acceptable, but he recognized that it was worse to suffer from something no longer happening in his life. So he forgave. He didn't say it was okay for that to happen. He decided to forgive. Forgive. Not because they deserve it or because you deserve it, but because you deserve peace. So the first step in reframing the past is to forgive any wrongdoings made by others towards you wrongdoings that you have done to others wrongdoings that you have done to yourself. By forgiving, we begin the process of letting go. You can say this, I forgive not because what happened was okay.
But because I deserve to move forward. Now this doesn't just go for wrongdoings or mistakes or failures. Anytime we are holding on to the past, recognize that we continue to live in a moment that is no longer present when we reflect on the blessings, on the amazing moments of our lives, we are continuing to live in a moment that is no longer present. We have a life moments in front of us make it count. We have a limited time on this earth. Make it count. Don't spend it living in the past. Now there is a place and a time for reflection and reminiscing. It's always nice to do that every once in a while, but don't spend all your time there.
Sometimes we get caught thinking about some of those positive and wonderful moments of our lives and forget that we have the opportunity to make more of those moments right now. We end up missing the past and not making the most of our present moments, thereby creating less moments for us in the future to reflect on and see as positive and wonderful. Now the second step to reframing the past is realizing that our past has led us to become who we are now you know, it's kind of funny when people compliment me sometimes I laugh in the back of my mind a little bit because you know, they think I'm smart or cool or whatever it is but I know the truth is I've suffered.
I've cried I've been hurt. I've hurt others and I've just plain lived in order to become who I am today. So those compliments, as they say them, I'm imagining some of the moments that have led me to develop whatever it is. How did I become smart in a certain subject? How did I decide to make a certain choice that other people think is cool? What was the process leading up to receiving this compliment?
I kind of smile or laugh in the back of my mind when I think about that. The same is true of you and anyone else. It's a quote Russell Brand again. He said, I recognize that every single incident, whether I judge it good or bad is contributing to the person that I've become, that person, the person you are. Is someone capable of contributing to others. We have the power to turn our pain and our hardship into something meaningful and with purpose. I'm going to interrupt the talk right now for the podcast listeners. I've talked about this on the podcast. We've talked about this. Think about [name withheld]'s story in episode, what was that 22 maybe I think? [name withheld] episode 22.
She turned her pain and hardship from having to watch this close family member suffer from a stroke, have to deal with breast cancer, all while she was only a freshman. Then now she's turned that pain, that hardship, that struggle into her purpose when it comes to what major she is choosing to pursue, which is nursing. We have the power to turn our pain and our hardship into something meaningful and with purpose. We have the power to turn our past experiences into something we can use to contribute to other people because my friends, every single one of us is the unique combination of all of our past experiences and the people we've met. We have something unique.
A unique combination to share with others. Now, I think some people get confused. They feel like they have to have something completely new. They have to innovate. They have to, they think, oh, this other person's already doing it. Why would I do such a thing? Or why would someone listen to me if this other person can do it better? It's simple. Because everyone has a voice and everyone has different meaning they put to their words and everyone has a unique perspective and a unique combination of life experiences that have led them to say such a thing. Look guys, I present a lot of stuff, but the truth is every single thing I've learned, everything I've ever preached is not completely new.
It's I've come up with it because of my life or or I've heard it from someone else or my mentors have taught it to me or I've listened to something like I've quoted Russell Brand twice or three times during this past clip or this however long this talk has been so far guys it's about putting it in your own voice that makes it powerful all right now back to the talk so to reframe the past there are two steps. Number one, forgive. Number two, recognize that the past has led you to become who you are now. Moving into reframing the future, I've had a strategy for several years that I use whenever I feel anxious about something coming up.
The truth is I haven't used it in a little while, but it was a good strategy that I used for a long time and it's this.
Anytime I noticed myself feeling anxious, I asked myself. I pause and ask myself. Eric, is there something you can do to prepare? Sometimes the answer is yes, I can say, oh yeah, I got two hours. I can study for that test tomorrow. I can prepare for the presentation. I can run through the presentation one more time before going to bed or run through my notes before going to bed or I can do more research and take more notes to prepare for that debate or that talk or whatever it is. Sometimes there's something we can do. Sometimes the answer is no. Sometimes it's Eric, what the hell are you thinking?
You're already sitting in the desk and the test is starting in two minutes. I can't do anything. Or it's the person is literally about to introduce me and I'm about to go give this presentation. No, there's no time to prepare.
So when the answer is yes, I do whatever I can I prepare if there's an opportunity for me to prepare for something that I am anxious about then I will prepare but if the answer is no then there is nothing I can do further. I'm anxious about something but I can't do anything about it. So the best possible move I can make is simple relax breathe a stressed and worried mind does not perform well all anyone can ever ask is for your best. So give it to them. Breathe. The late singer, Christina Grimmie, had a wonderful quote. It was this, confidence is not they will like me.
That person will like me. Confidence is I'll be fine if they don't. I prefer to expand on that quote and say, confidence isn't knowing that something is going to go my way or that I'm going to do well. Confidence is knowing I'm going to be okay even if this doesn't. When one can be secure in the knowledge that no matter how something goes, they are going to be okay, that is self-esteem. I personally believe a lot of the problems that people face today can be solved.
With proper self-esteem. People are insecure so they overvalue other people's opinions or how something needs to go. Or they compare the best of their lives with someone else's highlight reel of posts on Instagram. It's so easy for us to go. Oh man, that person is on an amazing vacation. Or damn, that person, they went to like three parties over two days or whatever it is or that person. They have so many friends or whatever. It's so easy for us to compare our entire lives with someone else's highlight reel. Most people only post the best of themselves. So be careful when you compare. People are also arrogant. They put others down because they appear to be better in some misguided and inherently flawed perspective. Confidence and humility.
Go a very long way. So to reframe the future ask yourself is there something I can do to prepare for this thing? I am anxious about if the answer is yes, do the damn thing if the answer is no Relax and remember you're going to be okay even if it doesn't go how you want it to go. I'll interrupt the talk again when I was giving this talk I noticed like right before as usual for a presentation I was feeling a little nervous. Actually, I was feeling a little less nervous than I usually do, but nevertheless, I was a little nervous, but I recognized like, hey, the truth is I don't really care about most of these people's opinions of me. Look, I want to, I hope they, I would love if they...
Enjoyed my talk and they got value out of it and they like me and all of that stuff that would be great. But it is so much more important that I like myself that even if this talk didn't go very well it's okay. I don't really need all of them to approve of me. I don't even need two of them to approve of me it's fine there were only a few people in that room who I actually care about their opinion of me and even then even if they disapprove my opinion of myself is so much more important back to the talk so for the present moment now because we've talked about the past we've talked about the future let's talk about the present for many being in the present moment starts with the breath everyone knows Aloha as the standard Hawaiian greeting, but in the traditional Hawaiian language, aloe means face and ha means breath.
Traditionally, they would greet each other by putting their faces, pressing their faces together, especially their foreheads, and breathing in and out together. It was the quote, active, exchanging one's life force with another. If you consider it scientifically, we breathe out carbon dioxide plants take in carbon dioxide and give us the oxygen for us to breathe. The very act of breathing is the cycle of life itself. Now I learned about the true Aloha from a short film by Sam Potter and Nainoa Langer, I'm not sure how to pronounce his last name. I'm sorry. On YouTube called True Hawaii, which is an amazing short film. Just you can just search that up on YouTube, True Hawaii, Sam Potter, and Nainoa Langer.
Absolutely amazing short film. It's like 12 minutes, if I remember right. In meditation practice, the breath is often used as the anchor to the present moment. Now I don't meditate every day, but I do utilize the power of the breath to center myself. Sometimes I take a cold shower. My body will...
Panic from the shock of entering the cold water and to control that, I will breathe. When my mind is feeling rushed or busy from a day of constant motion and this happens fairly, I wouldn't say super frequently, but it's definitely happened plenty and plenty of times over the past year. There will be days where my mind is constantly going from thought to thought, task to task, idea to idea and I'm physically moving from place to place and place to place. When my mind is feeling rushed or busy, I will pause to breathe. I will use the breath to center myself. I also like to utilize what I call mental check-ins. I will take some moments throughout my day to just ask, hey, how am I doing? How am I feeling?
Sometimes the answer that comes back is Eric, I'm real worried about this thing coming up and I'll take a moment to ask myself, hey, can you do something to prepare? Yes, okay, do it. No, okay, do your best. You'll be fine. Sometimes the answer is, I wish I'd done this, man, I messed up. Things would be so much better if I had done this. Then I'll take a moment to say... I forgive myself because I deserve to move forward because it is worse to suffer pain for something no longer present. Sometimes it's like I said, I've been so busy today. I've been going from place to place.
I've been mentally moving. I feel so rushed and I'll take a moment to breathe, to relax and say, Hey, just get through the day. As you lie in your bed, you will be proud of how much you did today. Now go.
One thing at a time. So I use these mental check-ins to sort of take a moment to step back from the situation that I'm in and I'll just do a check-in like, hey, what's going on? It's a powerful strategy to live in the moment as well as to take care of oneself and to interrupt the talk again. When I gave this talk, my psychology teacher, which is, I was giving the talk to a psychology two class, my psychology teacher interrupted and said that this tool of taking a mental check-in is actually backed up by something called cognitive behavioral therapy. I've also heard the former Navy SEAL, Jocko Willink, on a podcast talk about how he took mental steps back while on the battlefield so that he can make better judgment calls and tell his troops what they should do next.
Look, I didn't know that when I was like giving the talk, but or when I used the mental check-ins, but I feel pretty smart because like it's supported by some pretty decent shit. So mental check-ins people pretty good back to the talk again. So to reframe the present, breathe. Use the breath to center yourself and check in with yourself. How am I doing? How am I feeling? You can use moments that happen daily to do that. Like you get in the car and you're driving. Hey, how am I doing right now? Or you know, you're brushing your teeth. Hey, how am I doing right now?
You're sitting on a toilet. You're taking a shower. You're drinking some water. You're sitting down for some food. I don't know. Use something to just like as a moment to.
As a trigger moment to ask, hey, how am I doing? How am I feeling? Super simple, takes moments. You can use that moment to see how you're doing, to take care of yourself and to reframe whatever it is you're dealing with. I had the opportunity to ask two people what they would say to juniors and seniors in high school if they got the chance. The entrepreneur, [name withheld], shout out to [name withheld], said, quote, at that age, young age, people love to do what others, parents or friends want them to do, rather than that of their own wants, end quote. We all have chores that we have to do, adults have to do taxes, they have to laundry, they have to cook.
Get food, etc. There's always going to be things we don't want to do but if we can find reasons to do it for ourselves we become significantly more likely to put in more time effort and energy into that thing for example, I don't like doing dishes I really I'm not one of those people who likes doing dishes but when I have to I could say look you do these dishes right now, Eric, and come the next meal you go have a plate to eat from. As someone who literally wakes up some days with the express purpose of eating food, that's a big deal to me.
There are some days where I wake up and my entire goal, purpose for that day is I'm going to have a really good lunch today. Or I'm going to have a really good dinner today. Or I'm about to make the bomb breakfast. Now, [name withheld] went on to say, you must believe in yourself and most importantly follow happiness. Whether it is something as big as a career path or a major or something as simple as washing the dishes, prioritize you, do it for you, and prioritize your happiness and your growth. A student at University of California, Davis, [name withheld], said, the name or prestige of the college you are going to attend is not as important.
It is what someone makes of their college experience that will propel them forward in their career." not just for college and life what I've realized is that a role or a title tells someone next to nothing. I introduce [name withheld] as entrepreneur, but that says little about who he is. Sure, that tells you a little bit about what kind of person is an entrepreneur, but that doesn't tell you too much about [name withheld] as the human being. I added University of California Davis student to [name withheld], but that tells you little about who he is. If I tell you, I'm a student at a Loney college. I'm a private math tutor. I'm a podcaster. I'm Asian.
It tells you a little bit about the kind of things that I do and maybe a little bit about my skill set or what I'm interested in or whatever else. But it tells you very little about who I really am and what I believe in and what my story is. It doesn't tell you very much and the same goes for a college name. I've had the amazing opportunity to talk to a lot of college students first years second years third years graduates people who've gone to UCs and CSU's and private colleges and community colleges and didn't even go to college or out of state college.
I remember one person told me and they go to Berkeley they were saying dude I went to Berkeley because it's Berkeley like I got accepted. I'm going to go to Berkeley like obviously it's fucking Berkeley like prestige big name duh but dude I hate it here. This wasn't the right choice and I have another friend who also goes to Berkeley and they said dude, it's so hard here. I'm like duh and then they said yeah, but I don't regret it at all it's they're both talking about the same thing. It's both UC Berkeley, but it's about there it's just was it right for them? That's what it comes down to so in college and in life focus on making the experience rather than the role or the title of what you do where you go what you wear none of that those labels are limiting focus on the experience focus on the journey focus on you.
[name withheld] went on to say, I want to further emphasize how important it is to network and meet people. My friends, there is a direct correlation between the quality of one's relationships and their happiness in life. There have been studies done on that. I believe there was a Harvard study. It was over the course of 70 years, one of the longest studies.
It said there was a direct correlation between the quality of one's relationships and their happiness in life. So the better one's relationships with people, the happier they will be. It's definitely not the only factor, but it is a big one. So care about people, please. Now, to end, I said I would get back to a story at the beginning of the talk. I was sitting at my desk in my room. Working on a presentation I was giving in about a week's time. My dad started walking down the stairs and suddenly my body went cold, my hands and arms started shaking, my body started trembling, my breathing became rapid and shallow into my mind was running haywire. All because my dad was about to read a handwritten letter revealing to him a secret I had been keeping for him.
From him for about five months at the time. I hear him stop moving. I hear him flip the page. Any moment I'm waiting for him to say something. He finishes reading the letter, which I know because I hear him move, putting pots or pans on the stove to make himself some lunch. I wait. I body cold and trembling. I wait for him to say something. Then I got up from my chair at my desk. I walked around and I sat on the floor as if I was going to pray. I didn't pray, but what I did do was I stared at a point on the wall in front of me and I started to force myself to take slower, deeper breaths. As I started to center myself and calm down, I asked myself one question. Eric, you've kept the secret for five months now.
Why did you choose to tell him now? The answer that came back to me was because this is my happiness. This is authentically me because I value my happiness and I value being my authentic self even if that means I'm put at risk of being hurt or put down I know I'm going to be okay even if this doesn't go how I hope that it'll go even if my dad doesn't approve like I would want him to. I continued to breathe and I continued to say, it's all going to be okay. By the way, I said I was going to give a presentation in about a week.
I was sitting down at my desk working on a presentation. I was going to give it about a week's time. That presentation, the one I was trying to work on, if you're wondering how it went, I'd actually rather ask you because I just gave you.
That exact presentation. I just gave you that exact talk. That was that talk I was working on ended up being what I just gave to you. So my friends, how was it? Thank you. Hope you guys enjoyed that talk that I gave to that group of psychology juniors and seniors at my local high school. It was a lot of fun for me and I thought that it was pretty damn well written or well, I didn't write it technically I didn't write the talk at all but I kind of laid it out and whatnot. I thought it was pretty good. I was pretty happy with how it went and I got some pretty good reaction.
So I think it went well, but like I said at the very end there like that was the I think you guys are the ones who were supposed to be the judges of that so let me know what you think about this talk. I think I'm pretty happy with it. In any case, thank you for listening to this talk and yeah. Hey guys, so in this clip, I'm going to talk a little bit about a couple of other things that I feel are relevant to the talk that you just heard. But this is not obviously part of that talk. This is separate. In fact, today is March 13th and that talk was done in January.
So yeah, first thing I wanted to talk about is college. I know that for senior yearns in high school, or maybe for those transferring, I guess, this is college acceptance and rejection season, and also the time where you start thinking about what college you actually want to pick to go to. So I wanted to talk about that briefly. If you're getting accepted into a lot of colleges or into your dream colleges, congratulations. I hope that, with the mood these days, people are feeling kind of down and afraid and whatnot. So I hope you take the time to celebrate and really pat yourself on the back because that is an awesome thing and it's worth celebrating. So congratulations. I'm super proud of you. I'm super happy for you and I wish you all.
The best. For those of you who are getting rejected a lot or from your dream colleges or whatever it is, you're feeling upset and disappointed. I want you to know that it's okay to feel that way. I want you to know that it's okay to be upset and angry and disappointed and it's okay to cry and want to punch a wall or something. If you want to punch a wall, go punch a wall. Personally wouldn't recommend it, but hey, sometimes you got to do what you got to do.? It's okay to feel however you're feeling. I think that some people like like put down how people are feeling, hey, don't be mad.
Don't be upset blah blah blah people will have their things to say but I disagree. I think just feel however you're feeling and allow yourself to do that and allow yourself to fully feel the upset. I think that's important. I think a lot of people don't fully process their emotions and how they're feeling and how they're reacting to something and I think that's important to do so really it's okay to feel that however you're feeling. I think it's important so fully process how you're feeling because that's what life is you know humans we're we're going to feel a bunch of emotions. I think it's important just as we would celebrate our wins we should make sure we experience our upsets as well.
But I hope you're not putting yourself down if you're feeling disappointed. If you're disappointed in yourself, it's okay, but putting yourself down and really being upset at yourself, there's a careful line to cross. Part of it is like, wanting to be better, and that's a good thing and using that as motivation, but...
I think that you shouldn't be too hard on yourself at the same time. Like it's okay to be push yourself and be hard on yourself to some extent, but don't be too hard on yourself. Don't. The thing I would say to that is realize that being rejected is simply somebody looking at you and having an opinion. It's not even that they're looking at you. They're looking at an application that you wrote, which I would argue and you would probably agree that that application is not exactly fully representative of you. So they're not even rejecting you, they're rejecting your application. Someone else's opinion of you is never indicative of your value, your worth, and your ability to succeed or fail.
I believe that someone else can never decide if I am a failure. Only I can make that decision. Only we can choose for ourselves I am a failure or I am a success. Someone else does not get to make that decision. You become a failure only when you decide that you are a failure. That is it. If someone else has their opinion, it doesn't matter unless you accept that statement to be true.
I personally choose to believe that I can never be a failure. I can fail, but I can never be a failure because I believe failure is an event and occurrence, a happening and not a characteristic or a trait or a description of a human being. That is my personal opinion. So if you. Are feeling upset if you feel like you are a failure, recognize that you are the only one who gets to decide that. It's okay to fail. It's okay to mess up. All you can do is move forward as best you can. I promise you, one of my biggest beliefs in life is everything works out in the end. If it hasn't worked out yet, that means it's not the end. That's what I personally choose to believe.
I think for anyone who isn't having to make that decision of college, first of all, that's awesome because that's a shitty decision to have to make. So whether you're too young or you're already past that decision, that's great. But I think this is relevant for any sort of acceptance or rejection, job, internship, a date, literally anything. Yeah, I think that advice really does apply in so many different areas even though the context of what I'm talking about is college. You know speaking of college when you when it comes to making the decision of where you should go a lot of people get so stuck up in prestige and reputation and what other people tell them they should want or what they should do I think that's what's so much more important is what is right for you and what is right for you and your family if they are helping you pay for it.
So please be logical and make the decision based on what is best and also on emotion what feels right to you. In fact, no, I wouldn't even say emotion. I would say gut. What is right for you, especially when you visit the campus and I hope you do figure out.
Hey, is this the right where I want to be? Because the truth is, you can go to a prestigious university and you can be happy as shit, you can be miserable. You can graduate from a prestigious university and you can be average, you can be struggling, or you can be successful. If you go to a community college or any other college, or a state college you can be successful. You can be average. You can be a failure. You can be happy. You can be miserable it's the same damn experience in the end people feel the same way no matter where they go it's more about what is right for you and what you make of your experience while you were there than the actual place itself so yeah, that's what I would say when it comes to picking where you want to go.
Finally, I want to talk briefly, and I promise I'm going to keep this short because I hate talking about this. The coronavirus, I'm going to keep this at like two minutes. No, I'm going to make it less than two minutes. I promise. My thoughts on this is I'm going to treat this seriously. I'm going to, it's there's a lot going on. People are upset. People are afraid.
Things are getting canceled. I'm upset because a lot of the things that I've been wanting to do are being canceled as a result of this. You know what? I'm allowing myself to be upset. I'm okay with that. I'm mad. I'm annoyed. I am really quite upset when it comes to a couple different things being canceled and how it's affecting what's going on for me. I'm allowing myself to do that because I believe that all my emotions are valid and so I'm going to allow myself to experience that upset because I think that is important to do. But at the same time, I'm not going to be foolish.
I'm not going to be naive enough to ignore it and to dismiss it and to believe that it is nothing and that it is unimportant and that it is not happening. I'm not going to be in denial of it happening I am going to accept it and I'm going to deal with it as much as I have to you know I'll like in the coronavirus situation to food and dishes. Yes, that is the analogy I'm creating. I love food, I love to eat, and I will eat, eat, eat, eat, and eat. But unfortunately after I do that, that does mean I have to do dishes and I'm going to have to deal with that because I love food. So I'm going to do the dishes anyways because I...
It is the trade-off that I have to make. That is the same way I'm going to treat this. I'm going to deal with it because I have to and because it is happening and because it is necessary to deal with. But at the same time, I'm going to live my life and I'm going to choose not to live in fear because if I am living my life worrying about dying, then I might as well be dead. So... I'm going to choose to live. That is an insight I got from a book. Speaking of insights I got from a book, I also wanted to share this because this was relevant to the talk that you just heard.
I'm reading a book and they were talking about how a lot of interviewers like to ask the question, what do you think is your greatest weakness? I've gotten that question in the past. We come up with answers.
Oftentimes people come up with answers that they feel the interviewer wants to hear. I think that, well, anyway, that's not important. What the book was saying was for a lot of people, and I put myself in this as well, a lot of people's greatest weakness is self-deprecation. Or as I would like to put it, I would prefer to put it as self-doubt. We sell ourselves short. We don't believe in ourselves. As a result, we overvalue other people's opinions or we hesitate and don't do things that would otherwise move us forward. We forget that the truth is no matter how something goes. We are going to be okay.
So even if something doesn't go so well, it's okay it is about learning and it is about growth. It is about moving forward as best we can I think we get so caught up in trying to be perfect that we forget that it's really about progress and even though I preach this a lot I still continue to make the mistake of being focused on perfection without realizing it or being controlled by self-doubt without realizing it. I think that's something that a lot of us deal with. As I said in the talk, a lot of the issues that we face are a result of not believing in ourselves enough and dwelling and being upset and putting ourselves down.
I actually don't know if I talked about that in the talk, but whatever. It's something I'm thinking about now. My defense, that talk was in January, so I don't actually remember. But I feel like, what I said about confidence, I know I talked about that in the talk. Confidence is recognizing that you are going to be okay, no matter how something goes, and no matter what other people think.
I think that's important to build and to work on even for me as I preach these things and I talk about these things and I work on myself. It's something I continue to be challenged by and I continue to work to combat, I suppose. So yeah. Most people's greatest weakness is self-deprecation or as I would like to put it self-doubt, the way to combat that is by building self-esteem and confidence and the way to do that is to be accountable to yourself. It is to be able to trust that you are going to stay true to your word. It's being able to trust that you are able to do amazing things and I think the way to show yourself that you have to prove to yourself that you can do that.
It's kind of funny that when we do something that requires some level of confidence and belief in ourself, we develop belief in ourself. As you, I was reading the book and they said, if you speak up, even when you're concerned that you may not be right or not, that you may not be qualified or not, that you may look stupid. When you speak up and you realize, hey, people actually liked what I said, then you develop confidence. You think normally that you in order to speak, you have to have confidence, but actually sometimes it's the other way around where you speak. Then you realize that you should be confident because you actually have something to say of value.
Even if you say something that isn't that valuable? Just by putting yourself out there. I think that already develops confidence. So it's kind of interesting that people think you need confidence to do certain things and in some ways it may be true, but also I think doing things that prove to yourself that you are of value. That you are accountable to yourself and all of that.
I think that also builds confidence already. I think that's pretty cool. Simple ways to do that that I have heard take cold showers, that takes discipline. You do something hard. You come out and you have belief in yourself because you did something difficult. If you, make sure you push yourself in the gym, that's another way. Do things that make you feel uncomfortable. I think that develops a tremendous amount of confidence. Yeah. So that's what I have all for this episode yeah, that's pretty much all I have for this episode I hope you guys enjoyed listening to the talk. I hope you guys enjoyed listening to this little clip that I've thrown into it and the rest of this episode as always, if you did enjoy this episode, please message me on Instagram and Twitter at underscore chowerick.
Let me know that you enjoyed this episode. Share this episode all across social media and with your friends who this might be relevant for.
Because I think this is relevant for a lot of people and I'd love to be able to not only grow my audience but also more importantly provide value to as many people as possible, especially in a time like this. Yeah, that's pretty much it. I will see you in the next episode. Thank you for tuning in and have a fantastic rest of the day.