The Importance of and Ideas Around Raising Self-Image
Host: Eric Chow · August 11, 2021 · Episode 52 · 35 minutes
Transcribed from the episode audio and edited for names and terms. Wording can differ slightly from what was said; the episode itself is the record.
Quoted from this episode: 7 quotes on the quotes page.
What is up everybody? Welcome. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of the Eric Chown Power Podcast. I'm your host Eric Chown and this is episode number 52 and it's a solo episode. I mean, those of you guys who've been around for a while, I haven't done a solo episode for a year, maybe even a year and a half now. It's kind of crazy. But everything for the past, I don't know, 20, so episodes, 20 plus episodes has all been guests and it's been awesome. And I love it. And I'm going to keep on doing them. So don't think that I'm only going to be doing solo episodes from now on. I'm going to absolutely continue doing conversations and recording these great conversations for you guys and sharing them on the podcast. But.
Now that it's been two years of the show, I figure hopefully I've learned a thing or two and I can add some value on my own and do these kinds of solo episodes. I guess quick monologues and answer some questions. In fact, this particular episode, I have two segments. One of them, I am answering a question from my Instagram. I put up a quick poll earlier today. Questions that I should answer. I took one of them and I'm gonna answer that today on the podcast and then I'll do a quick talk on Something that I feel is really really really important which is self-image I believe that and I'll talk about this way more in that segment But I believe that most of the problems we have in life are the result or symptoms of not believing in ourselves enough And I know I said that pretty quickly So I guess I'll say it again.
I'm gonna say it again later, but most of the problems we have in life are the results or symptoms of not believing in ourselves enough. I'm going to talk about self-image. I'm going to talk about that later on. So before I get started, before I get into that, those two segments, I want to talk about how I'm going to kind of do these. So I'm going to have still do, like I said, all these conversations and record these conversations with guests and release episodes just like that. But for these solo episodes, what I'm thinking to do is I'll take questions from you guys and answer them.
And then if I want to, if I have something that I really want to just like is on my heart that I want to share and talk about, I'll take these opportunities to talk about them. And that'll be a solo episode. So it'll be a little shorter hopefully and just me sharing my heart and answering some questions from you guys. So if you have any questions that you want me to answer, I would say shoot me a message on Instagram.
at Eric Chow Real or at Eric Chow Empowers. One of those two accounts. Actually, let's just make it simple. Follow me on my personal account, Eric Chow Real and follow the podcast. And if you have a question, ask it to me, at Eric Chow Empowers, that's at ERIC, CHOW Empowers. That's the podcast Instagram. And of course, find me anywhere else, Eric Chow Real. And you can just message me any questions that you may have and at some point hopefully I'll answer it in a podcast. But with all that being said, thank you for tuning into this episode and let's get into the question. Okay, at TrulySafira on Instagram asks, what inspired you to start a podcast?
So this is a good story. I'm gonna tell it on the long version because this is my podcast and I can do what I want.
And by the way, that's actually the short answer to this question. But you'll get that in a second. So I started my podcast August 9th, 2019. That year was an interesting year for me because I was really looking for a way to express myself and kind of share my thoughts, my feelings, my experiences, my ideas, my... philosophies, whatever, right? I just wanted to express myself and I had done a lot of different things in terms of you know Instagram I had been writing these really fascinating captions in various different ways and I had at some point started writing articles on medium and I had done some videos on Instagram, you know, regular videos and IGTV videos and things like that.
Just literally pointing the camera to myself and talking about different things. And those were great, but I really wanted a platform, a way of creating and expressing myself that was more liberating. I didn't, I felt like I was too limited somehow or it didn't feel natural to me. And I had been listening to podcasts at the time and so I figured, wait, what if I start my own podcast? And I'll be honest, I didn't think it was a good idea at first. I mean, I was like, it's not a bad idea, but I don't know what I'm doing. I've never, I don't know how to start a podcast.
Has anybody even going to listen to me? Do I have anything really that interesting to share, right? Is it a good idea to even talk? You know, maybe I'm better at writing.
And I had all these questions and all these doubts. And honestly, I think I sat on it for probably a week and a half, two weeks or so. And I think honestly, it probably would have gone a lot longer in terms of just sitting there with my doubts. But what ended up happening was August 9th, 2019. I woke up and I was feeling really spontaneous that day. So I literally recorded the introduction to the Eric Chow Empowers Podcast. I recorded it, published it, wrote everything I needed to write. Announced it and boom. I mean that was literally my morning and early afternoon And I just did all of that and boom Eric Shao has a podcast now and that weekend I remember being so interesting to me especially I though these moments and I think remember Saturday evening Where I was just sitting down looking at my socials and I saw so many positive comments people were excited.
I mean, they were like, Eric starting a podcast. This is awesome. You know, I'm so excited to listen. And they were like, man, this is super cool. And I realized something as I was kind of reading those comments. Obviously, I understood that I was very fortunate to have these people who are for whatever reason excited about the fact I was starting a podcast. And not everybody gets that but.
I realized that all the questions I had been asking myself before, all my doubts of, you know, is anybody gonna listen? And that's 375 different ways I asked myself that in the prior two weeks. There was no way for me to know. There was no way for me to know, is anybody gonna listen to me? And that realization has helped me a lot because I think that Self-doubt can sound so loud in our minds But in reality, we just don't know and the only way for us to actually know is to actually go and do the damn thing and find out and as I quickly found out people were excited about the fact I had a podcast and So what ended up happening August 9th 2019 I released that and announced it and I think the following week I probably recorded maybe four episodes, to be honest, maybe three episodes.
And it was a really exciting time. I think episode one, I just talked for a little bit, shared something from an article. But episode two, three and four were literally born from texting people. And they had told me, yo, Eric, you're starting a podcast, man. That's super cool. And I was like, thank you so much. Do you want to be a guest on my show?
And they said yes somehow and we recorded a conversation and we just had a good time and that was literally episodes two, three and four and then episode five came about because I think that same week to be honest, I saw on Twitter this stranger I had been following and I followed him a while back because I thought his tweets were good. That guy had tweeted. I want to do a podcast or if you have a podcast I want to be on and I just started mine obviously I don't even think I'd released episode two or three yet, but I DM the guy and I said hey listen I'm not established.
I've got a brand new podcast But I'd love to have you on I think your tweets are amazing and I'd love to chop it up with you and like I said I'm down and so we hopped on the phone probably Probably a week or two later and week or two after that we ended up doing episode five and That was literally my first five episodes and to be honest. I was still figuring things out by episode 10. I'd say I think episode 10 11 maybe was when I kind of started figuring out my groove in terms of This is how I'm gonna podcast and it took a while to figure that out but That's how I ended up getting started and it was really born from this desire of wanting to express myself and you know, just Be able to share myself authentically without feeling like I was limited in some way and as I started to talk to these guests and have these conversations it also became about having these authentic conversations and being able to share them and not feel like I had to censor something or not feel like I had to hide something or not feel like I was limited by time or something like that.
And it was exciting to be able to not only give myself an opportunity to share but also have these conversations where I gave somebody else the opportunity to share. And I think that was the beginning.
I chose the idea of empowerment because it started as me empowering myself, giving myself an opportunity to be me and share me. But that enabled me to empower other people by giving others the opportunity to share. And in doing so, empowering listeners and the audience, whether it was through, hey, this person is actually able to share their story. Maybe I can do that too. Whether it was somebody saying something, whether me or a guest saying something, that the listener needed to hear. And being able to have these kinds of conversations was really empowering for me because I think a lot of conversations can get superficial and not quite so meaningful. And I think having the opportunity to...
have a conversation with somebody and say, hey, this is going to be a podcast, allowed me an excuse, I suppose, to have these kinds of conversations. And it's just been amazing. So yeah, I mean, that's a long story and a fairly lengthy answer to this question, what inspired me to start a podcast? But really, it was a desire to express myself and a desire to empower myself and that led me into giving other people the opportunity to express themselves and empower them and together empower listeners. So yeah, that's the answer to that. Thank you, Sofira, for that awesome question. All right, so I want to talk about self-image for a little bit.
And it's because I really, really strongly believe that most of the problems and challenges we face in life are not the core problem. It's like if you get sick most of the time that symptom is a symptom of a more serious problem. And I believe that most of the problems we have in life are these symptoms of not believing in ourselves enough. I really do believe that. I'm going to say it again. Most of the problems we have or experience in life.
Are the results or the symptoms of not believing in ourselves enough? I really do believe that if you believe in yourself more, if you raise your self-image, you will find that a lot of those problems either just disappear or become easier to handle. The first step to change your life is to change your self-image. You gotta believe that you're worthy, you're capable. you have something to offer to the world. If you can raise your self-image, then you can, will, and are on your way to raising your life. My friends, so many of us are held back by our own feelings of inadequacy. We hesitate to do things. We say no to opportunity. We realize we have problems.
and don't try to come up with the solutions, instead we look beyond trying to find some sort of secret answer waiting for somebody else to do it for us, to figure it out for us. Or sometimes we don't even recognize we ignore the fact that we have a problem. Maybe we blame, we push blame, we push responsibility, we drown ourselves in content to ignore the fact that we have a problem. and then we rationalize why we are doing those things. To cover up what is truly just our own insecurity. Please rewind the last two minutes and listen to this again. My friends, all of us exist.
We have a life we were fortunate enough to be born. The unfortunate thing is that most people don't use that life. They don't make something of that life. Most people die having barely lived.
Most people die day to day only experiencing those small joys, not realizing that there's so much more to life, so much more experiences, so many emotions, so many sights to see, food to taste, people to talk to, so much to experience and enjoy. And... Unfortunately, most people don't take that opportunity that they have been blessed with. Benjamin Franklin once said, a lot of people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75 when their physical body catches up. I don't want to die like that. I don't want to die at 25 and just wait for myself to die. What kind of way to live life is that? And that's not a fancy quote that just sounds good.
If you're not believing in yourself, you're holding yourself back from your own potential. And that's such a sorry thing to me. So don't hesitate to do something. Do it. I get it. You're afraid. I just talked about that. You know, I talked about doubting myself when it came to start on my own podcast. Here we are right now. Two years later, literally, I mean, I think it's kind of funny to think about Is anybody gonna listen to my podcast today? I've been listened to and downloaded in 49 countries around the world Guys what the heck I could never have imagined that two years ago, and I'm not saying that to brag I'm saying you don't know So don't hesitate to do something don't doubt yourself so much you don't know Do it If something works, you jump on it, kick it into high gear, keep going.
Just like I did with my podcast and if it doesn't work out after some time, try something else. Ladies and gentlemen, failure leads to growth, not trying leads to stagnancy. And stagnancy, in a way, is the same as a mental death. And I'm not willing to do that.
So how do you raise yourself image? I think there's a lot of things you can do. I think one thing is you got to change your inputs if you're constantly around negative doubt people who say, are you sure about that? People who say you can never do something like that. That's too ambitious. That's too much. Why are you dreaming that big? Why do you really think you can do that? If you're around people and content and whatever it is that is limiting you, then of course your self-image isn't that high. So you've got to change that. You've got to start getting around people who are going to encourage you and believe in you and inspire you.
I mean, one of my blessings in my life right now is the fact that my friends are people I admire. My friends are people who inspire me. My friends are people who I look at and I go, damn, these people are cool. These people are going to be successful. These people are going to make an impact in the world. These people are an amazing And it's crazy that I get to hang out with these guys and be associated with these guys. It's crazy that somebody will say their name and my name in the same sentence. And it's actually in a positive way. You want to be around people like that.
You want to be around people who make you want to be better. Don't be around people who are going to limit you. And I get it. It's not easy to do.
But I think life is worth it and your self-image is worth it and believing in yourself is far worth of losing a few people who Don't even treat you how you should be treated and I get it. Maybe you're thinking it's hard to find people like that. I really do get it and Maybe the thing that you do then is you consume content. That's what I did You know you get some books that are positive and encouraging and believing and you listen to podcasts and you watch creators and you consume content online and physically that is like the friends you want to have. I did that for years guys.
Years. And I think it's kind of funny. Like sometimes people will ask me different questions and it's hard sometimes for me to answer how do you raise self image for example.
You know, there are a few things that I can share, but the truth is I raised myself image not through three secret techniques, but through several years of just putting good into my mind learning and studying and getting around the right people and the right sources. That's the truth. I mean, this ain't easy. This ain't some short term thing. I'm gonna be raising my self image for the rest of my damn life. I'm sure I still have my fair share doubts. Don't get me wrong Don't think that I'm actually always positive. I'm not Don't think that I am perfect and that myself image is super high because I do nothing wrong.
I make mistakes all the time. I mess up all the time I'm growing all the time too though, and I think that's part of self image myself image isn't tied to Other people's opinion or what other people say Are my feelings hurt? Do I feel down when something goes wrong when somebody says something I might a lot of time I do But I pick myself back up man. I speak positive. I'd say you know what I don't care what this person said I can do this man. I'm capable I'm worthy I can do it No question about it. I can do it and I just say that and I put in my earbuds and I put in a good podcast or something and That podcast will say the same thing and I'll pick up a book and I'll read it and that book will say the same thing And I'll just reinforce that and drown my mind in positive.
I always want to drown my mind in positive. I can't control my circumstances. I Know that success and anything takes time But I can control my attitude and I feel the easiest way to do that is to input positive And so that's one very powerful way to raise yourself image And it's not something that takes a day or a week or a month it takes I mean at least for me it took years, but you'll see a big difference a lot sooner I mean I think myself image is even higher than it was maybe six months ago year ago for sure I think another great strategy to raise your self-image is to do things that make you go, man, I really did that.
Like, just do things like that. Like, if you can be able to say, man, I really did that. That's awesome. I feel good about that. Oh, man, that's such a self-image booster. You know, maybe you start with taking cold showers. That's hard.
It's not an easy thing to do. Maybe it's exercise, you know? It's not easy to go to the gym and work out unless you're already got the habit for hitting really good at it. Even then it might still be hard. But you go and you do the damn thing and you get done and yeah, you're tired or yeah, it kind of sucked in some ways, but you're like, man, I really did that. I really did that. I'm doing this. And you do it day after day after day and you go, man, I'm really doing this. Like, this is awesome. I mean, I feel great about the fact that I'm exercising five days a week, you know, for the past maybe six weeks now.
I think I'm on my sixth week consistently and I feel great about that. Do I notice a crazy difference in my physique? No. But I feel good about the fact that I know. I'm taking care of my body. I'm doing that. Is it easy? No. Do I really want to be working out? No. But I am. And it feels good to be able to say that. And so you got to do things that make you feel that way. Because anytime that you go, that you're thinking a disappointed myself is a moment that you are putting yourself image at risk and having a good self image doesn't mean that you ignore your problems or anything like that because it's definitely not what I want to say but you gotta start doing things that are a little bit difficult that you can take pride in doing and then you get yourself image to be attached to the fact that you're doing something.
Not the result. It's the fact that yeah I'm working I'm doing this You get yourself image attached to progress You don't even have to see the progress. You just gotta know the progress is happening Just like you know with your physique you may not notice a difference in a month two months But you can take pride in the fact that you're doing it again. I don't know guys those are two ideas I guess I have for raising your self-image and I want to kind of connect this back to what I was saying in the beginning with you know most problems in life coming down to self-image.
I really do believe that. I think if you're in a relationship that is toxic, I mean I'm gonna put it bluntly. I think that you're not believing yourself enough. Damn it. Get out.
You're not believing yourself enough. You're not valuing yourself enough Get out if you're in a toxic relationship If you're in a rough financial spot, don't pity yourself There's plenty of opportunity out there. You might be thinking oh, but I don't even know where to start. That's an excuse Remember we're holding ourselves back from our own feelings of inadequacy rationalizing why we're doing things to cover up what is really just our own insecurity. So get out there, start doing something, believing yourself a little more. You got this. There's so much out there. The answers are there. You just have to be willing to look for it.
You just have to be willing to do what it takes. You gotta believe in yourself. You gotta value yourself. Come on, guys. I don't know what other problems do you guys have in?
You know, I don't know. I really do believe that if you can raise yourself image you're on your way to raising your life and It's a work in progress. It's something that you do constantly because you're never gonna get rid of all the negative and all the doubts in your mind and You can never escape all the negative that's happening but as much as you can you start to get your self-image associated with the fact that you care about yourself and you're believing in yourself and you're doing what you say you're gonna do and you're taking pride in the fact that you're doing some things that you feel are important and you're speaking positive to yourself, you're getting around people who encourage you and believe in you and inspire you and You're doing the same thing with the content that you're consuming and the feed that you have.
I was featured in an article recently where they were talking about limiting the Instagram came out with some features to limit showing of certain content. And the reporter asked for my opinion and I gave my thought that lists and features are great, but in the end.
We're the ones who control our feed the algorithm is going to recommend posts to us that That are similar to what we're liking so if you like something you comment on something you share something you save something You download something on any social media be it you know Instagram tick-tock Twitter YouTube whatever You're just gonna see more of that so take charge Take charge of your feet and get the algorithm to work for you guys. I don't know. I think that It all comes down to self-image. There's all these little things But it all comes down to figuring out how you can raise your self-image, so I hope I got my point across It's kind of weird doing an outro for a solo episode Like it's not like I'm saying, you know, you guys after saying bye to a guest now.
It's just like Just saying bye to you. So it's kind of weird But anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. I hope you guys enjoyed Me bringing back a solo episode if you've been around for a while and of course if you're Haven't been listening to the show for as long then I hope you do enjoyed this solo episode and just having me talk for a little bit and hopefully add some value to you and share some stories and experiences and insights that are valuable and helpful to you. So I'm really, I like this idea. I think that it's an opportunity for me to answer questions from you guys. Like I said, just shoot me a message at Eric Chow Empowers or at Eric Chow Real on any social media.
If you have any questions that you'd like me to answer on the podcast and to just share things that are on my mind, things that I am noticing and feeling like are valuable insights that I can share. As you guys know, I'm constantly reading and listening and learning and developing myself. So hopefully I'll have a couple of interesting things to add value as But if you guys like this on our episode, listen, I'd love it if you could shoot me a message at Eric Chow Real at Eric Chow Empowers. Let me know you like this episode. Let me know you want more of them. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me.
And I would greatly, greatly appreciate it. If you're on a platform like Apple Podcasts, where you can actually rate the show or pod chaser, please rate the show five stars. I'd greatly appreciate that.
have recommended to your friends or something. I don't know. I'd love getting messages from you guys and I would greatly, greatly appreciate any form of support that you're willing to give. But that brings us to the conclusion of this episode and I guess I will see you in the next one. Bye bye.