5 things you probably need to hear

Here are five things you probably need to hear.

Number one: Not everything that happens to you is your fault, but everything that happens to you is your responsibility. Right off the bat, you might think to yourself, “Everything is my responsibility.” How is everything that happens to me my responsibility? I can't possibly account for every little thing that life throws my way— the chaos, the triumph. And if something goes wrong, which it inevitably will, am I supposed to blame myself because I was responsible for having that thing not go wrong?

That's not really what I'm getting at here. Because for most of us, our domain of influence is fairly small. We usually go to similar places, we see similar people, we do similar activities as we do most days. Occasionally, we step outside the norm and we experience new people, places, and things to freshen things up. Along the way, we'll be put in situations that we don't like—situations that make us feel uncomfortable or angry. We'll talk to people that we think are idiots, and occasionally we'll be blindsided by tragedy or misfortune.

I don't have to tell you what life is like; life is spicy. But if it is in our life, it is our responsibility to figure out what we're going to do about it. Because who else's responsibility is it? Who else is responsible for your physical fitness, your mental health, your social life? Who else is responsible for the types of people that you're inviting into your life, the type of reaction that you have when something doesn't go your way? When you break it down like this, it's really hard to think of anything that's not your responsibility—anything that you would realistically do, interact with, experience. Aren't you tired of delegating the responsibility of your own flourishing onto other people? It's probably time that you have some confidence in your ability to make decisions for yourself—to assume responsibility over the outcomes of your life, regardless of whose fault it may be. Because at the end of the day, it affects you. So what are you gonna do about it?

Number two: Life gets easier when you're on your own side. If you love yourself first and treat yourself with respect, you'll have more love to give. When you dislike yourself and treat yourself poorly, then you'll start to subliminally feel unlikable and worthless. If this is your default mode of being—if you continue to treat yourself poorly, if you don't like yourself very much—then every single interaction that you have with every single person in your life will be tainted with the need to solve this inherent problem.

Because we need to feel loved and accepted, and if you starve yourself of your own approval off the get-go, then every interaction that we have with people will be trying to gain that approval back. You'll start to rely heavily on other people to make you feel validated and worth something. If you do this long enough, you'll start to lean on this external validation like a crutch—addicted to compliments, constantly searching for validation and approval.

You'll start to wear clothes that you don't necessarily like but you think you're going to get a lot of compliments on. You think you're being kind of bold and brash by wearing it, and when you don't get that attention that you so desperately require, you'll start to build resentment. You'll start to feel butt hurt; you'll be kind of passive-aggressive for no reason because they owe you something, right? Every interaction that you have is an exchange. You're nice to people, you compliment people, just so that you can be complimented back. If people treat you poorly—holy smokes—that ruins your day. Because when a person doesn't just not return your compliment but they're rude to you, they become public enemy number one.

You've conditioned yourself to place your entire sense of self-worth in the hands of other people. But at the end of the day, what you think other people owe you, you owe to yourself. If you start treating yourself like somebody that you genuinely care about and want the best for—if you start acting as if you're on your own side—then it will change every single aspect of your life. It will change the way you walk into a room, it will change the way that you interact with other people, it will change the clothes that you wear, the way that you speak, and every decision that you make. When you treat yourself with respect and you love yourself, then you will actually be able to give compliments without expecting any in return. You will actually have the ability to be generous with your time, with your attention, with your resources because you genuinely want to. It comes from a place of abundance.

Number three: Nobody owes you anything. You are not entitled to any job position, any lifestyle, any relationship. Just because you have big muscles and work out doesn't mean you're entitled to a hot girlfriend. Maybe your personality is the equivalent of a wet sock or a dirty diaper. Just because you have a business degree from a community college doesn't mean that you're entitled to be on the board of directors. Even if your business degree is from Harvard or some other prestigious school, you're still not entitled to anything.

The type of person who walks around like the world owes them something usually comes from a place of lack. They're usually very ungrateful when they get the thing that they think they deserve, and they're white hot and vengeful when they don't get it. The type of person who thinks this way usually has a giant ego. They have an idea of themselves that is disconnected from reality in some way. They probably have some delusion of grandeur or they want to appear on the surface that they're better than they actually are. But as I've covered in previous videos, ego is brutal—it distorts you from the truth, it stunts growth.

Ego is far more concerned with being somebody rather than doing something. If you followed step two and started treating yourself like somebody you're responsible for helping—which is kind of a direct quote from Jordan Peterson—then you wouldn't require others to give you things to make you feel whole. You will start to want certain positions because of a genuine confidence that you could add value. So instead of chasing status, work on developing competence. Focus on the craft, not the corner office, because 99 times out of 100, your work will speak for itself.

Number four: Communism has failed every time it was tried.

Number five: It's going to be okay. I don't know what you're going through right now. You could be having a very great time in life—it could be, you know, probably the best time that you've ever had. You might feel energetic and optimistic, and like everywhere you go, there's a song singing behind you—a song singing behind you. There's a background track, a cinematic score elevating all of your steps—butterflies everywhere.

But for a lot of people, I know that's indeed not the case. I get the feeling that there's a lot of people watching the video that are in a very rough place. Maybe they're going through something that is just like incomprehensibly tragic. You know, life has a habit of doing that to a lot of people. I know it's hard to think about; it's hard to imagine that things could be better for you. Sometimes it's not better for a little while.

But life's kind of weird because it seems like every dark period that I've ever had in my life has always turned into a period where I looked back and I never regretted the dark period. There was always so much to learn in those periods of darkness—so much to learn about yourself, about other people. And sometimes those realizations about other people are that people can be pretty terrible.

But I think that if you have compassion for yourself, if you have compassion for others, if you realize that at the end of the day, you're still responsible for your own happiness—regardless of whose fault your current happiness levels might be—you're still responsible for making something of it. And there is always something to be made from it as long as you're voluntarily willing to confront whatever your situation is with humility and perseverance. Something good always comes from it, and that's been my experience. The only time something good doesn't come from it is if you bury your head in the sand and give up. But even then, I feel like we're given countless second chances in life.

So if you are currently burying your head in the sand, consider taking your head out of the sand, looking around, dusting yourself off, and getting back on the grind. Because at the end of the day, if you're willing to stick with it, things will be okay. They always will be okay. Even if you're not okay, that's okay too; it's going to be okay.

I just want to give a big thank you to Audible for sponsoring this video. Guys, I really want to recommend an audiobook, and that audiobook is Make Your Bed by William H. McRaven. The book was written by a retired U.S. Navy Admiral, and it really helps shift your mindset into assuming responsibility over the outcomes of your life.

So I really recommend the read; it's super short and you could bang it out in one day very easily as you're cleaning your house. And for those of you who don't know about Audible, it is the leading provider of spoken word entertainment and audiobooks all in one place.

If you're even remotely interested in self-improvement—that's just a wild guess that you are—and you want to enrich your life by enriching the ideas that are bouncing around inside your head, then Audible is honestly a no-brainer. As an Audible member, every single month you receive one credit, which you can spend on any audiobook of your choice regardless of cost, and you get to keep that audiobook forever. If you ever cancel your subscription for any reason at any point, you still keep your entire library of audiobooks.

Audible members also get access to a rapidly expanding catalog of Audible Originals, podcasts, and exclusive series. So if you're interested in joining me in becoming big brain and filling your brain with the best ideas on the face of the earth, then if you use my link in the description below, you get a 30-day free trial. Just click the link, head on over to audible.com/betterideas, or you can even text "better ideas" to 500-500.

So yeah, take advantage of that link or just text "better ideas" to 500-500. Thanks again to Audible for sponsoring this video. If you enjoyed this video, if you got something out of it and you said, “This was a good video,” thank you for that, Joey. I appreciate you; I appreciate the work you're doing, and I just appreciate us. I appreciate the audience members and I appreciate living life to its fullest.

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