Lessons

Lesson Info

3:15 pm - Handling Criticism, Lack of Confidence, and Self Doubt

I'm ending on what I believe is the most significant way to wreck this I don't want to just put out a bunch of content and then say and good luck with that, but I want to do is put it all together in a way that enables you as best as I know, how to be able to put it into action and also to have some sort of protection in place when you go back out into the big scary world or you ready in there if you have been watching this well and I've heard so many people saying that they've been glued to their screens, watching every single hour, which is a fabulous you've picked up a lot of information let's talk about this big harry, scary thing, handling criticism and lack of confidence and self doubt. This is a core, major, major part of when we talk about how the most complex person in the room to sell to is you. This is what I'm talking about. I'm not the only person who's ever said that, but I want to break it down a little bit further to explain why I mean that there is going to be barrier ...

after barrier out there, but most of it's going to come from inside you so let's talk about what kind of strategy strategy we could have for dealing with it. Does that sound? Did here's the problem with this with befalling letting this be follow you? Is that a way to say it before you letting this take you down? Is that lack of confidence self doubt it gets inside you and it starts to erode u it corrodes you, it does, it has an effect on the way you see things the way you see possibility, the way you see beauty, it starts to change your filter. You start to feel if enough people said something or came at you a certain way, that it must be true about you and so you're not going to try for the things you used to try for. This is just it's a natural, very natural way to respond. I want to talk a little bit more specifically about the fact that I have been struggling with this. This is something that it just struck me the other day how to be able to explain this. But when I look around me, if everybody I know who is the most successful in in their field and I've been very lucky, I have redefined show was built around the fact that I wanted to talk to people who are at the top of their game creatively and say, what is it? What are you doing? Theoretically especially emotionally, but specifically in detail? What is it and I always get to the part where I say, well, what about the resistance, the obstacles when you come across stuff, what do you find? And after researching enough creatives in photography and talking to musicians and comedians and people who are really good in business, I came to the realization that all of them have this one thing in common. And that is the answer to the question. Do you ever deal with criticism anymore? Do you ever get hit by it? Does it ever knock you down? Some people I thought would have moved beyond it, like have a nirvana be able to deal with it in a way that you know what that happens, but I don't even hear it anymore, it's just out there is just space. It doesn't affect me anymore. The amount of people who said that to me was this. This was the amount of people who said, I don't even feel it anymore. I don't even know it's there it's noise, they can say on the surface, I've learned how to deal with it. I've learned how to compartmentalize it. I've learned how to give it its worth and put it in the space it deserves, but if I say blue sky you mean honestly on no lever level doesn't register at all when we're on camera. There's certain things said we're off camera there's other things said well yes I mean of course right when I heard it I was mad I was angry I was stung I was like that's not true but then when I did was this I put it where it belongs and being able to work towards that is so significant when it comes to the idea of building success how do you learn what is a worthy of your attention kind of problem and what is just a blanket on top of your creativity? We need a fire in us to succeed especially in the art world criticism and self doubt and hits your confidence that's like a blanket on your fire, isn't it? It puts it out you can't just go out there and say I'm gonna be myself I'm going to do my thing if you're worried what people are seeing and thinking and feeling and how they might come at you because they will come at you it is kind of where we are today knowing that and being able to put it in its spot is really significant to be able to move forward successfully you're not alone that's the best thing I just told you on that last slide everybody everybody in every industry across the board deals with it this is the most comforting information I can give to you the worst enemy to creativity is self doubt and the reason why is self doubt leaves to self censorship self centered censorship kills kills your ability to create you're always stopping and thinking should I say that? Should I do that? What are they going to think? What are they going to feel? The other thing that I find is that the internet has brought us so much good such amazing ways to connect with each other but it's also this great place to hide and just throw balls of hate right big flaming balls of eight behind this word anonymous and all of us have experienced this in some form have we not? It gets scary because nowhere else in our written history have we ever had it to such a degree that the documentation of hate is seen by so many there's always been criticism and calling people out and having an issue with somebody but never has been put out to such a degree that you're like now why do I see that my mother sees that my this sees that might that see it? Just go on and on and on and it's been a disruption to the photography world and to the potter's world into the painters world into the writers roll into the musicians world it pushes us down a lot because that is up I mean how do you feel when you see a terrible, horrible thing put out there about you directly and now everyone's lining up behind you like that verizon commercial over there they're all with you and they're looking over your shoulder all of your five thousand friends and like, hey, I called you out that is painful thing about criticism though is we know we can find gold in the dirt, right? We do know that it's not all ugly ugly noise that we can hear something said to us and say ok, what can I sift through to find something that will better me about three months ago is driving back from a talk in new jersey and I was in the back of a town car going to manhattan from a talk in new jersey and thinking to myself how sex in the city I wass I was like business house and have me driven by a driver in a town car and I'm in the back and I'm just working on my phone and he's got like a classical music station playing and I'm thinking first of all outside of the section it's anything but as you know, of course I'm picking my character and who I am the next thing I'm doing is thinking I can't remember the last time I tuned in a classical music station this is so peaceful and beautiful and impactful and powerful and I'm really getting into it and it turned out it was a live taking of the conductor's last show at the very end of it he just came up and he gave a couple words thinking I think was like his wife and his family and he said and one more note to my detractors I thank you you have bettered me and that was the end of his talk and I was like, can you rewind that because no it's radio and that struck me so powerfully like that is a whole not that he ended on that that was the biggest thank you that was what got him to where he was which was clearly a very popular and successful symphony person was a called conductor and what he probably had the choice we talk about happiness is choice and the decisions you make are always a choice he always had the choice instead of that to just lash back you said this you did this to me I'm gonna lash back and we see that online to right you see the comment and u c o that lashing that khun b voluminous how often that goes on and the level of depths of depravity it gets too I think lashing back is a terrible way to respond because it's all emotion and it's all ego the only thing we need to consider when we have something put out like that is let me just give a few minutes for logic to show up to the party because ego runs in right away anger runs and right away pride how dare you! How can you say that about me when we give it a little bit of time in a space and look for something in there some gold in the dirt? What could this possibly? What am I hearing that actually I could learn from? I love the shot depicted for a special reason. One of the reasons is because I love the idea of how if you look at everybody, you know there's someone inside them that's just like a little toppling taught, you know there really is, no matter what age we are, what our experiences are, what our religion is, what her background is, what our values are inside somewhere, there's just this little like I'm scared of getting my feelings hurt. I'm scared of trying because what happens if I fail that's very, very normal people are watching me what happens if if we're going to summarize this class? This is this is what we learned in three days. Three very intense days we learned the problem with labeling ourself as a sales person has to do with language and outdated and outdated ideas of what a sales person is, right, a lot of it is caught up in our old experiences of sales, not with sales is today and it's the language I don't want to be a sales person, I want to be a portrait consulted we also learned that we can own the sale in a certain way, that people buy for a certain reason and they don't buy for other reasons, and they'll buy from you specifically if they like you, if they trust you, if they're comfortable with you, if there's a report that they're going to buy you over the product or the service, you stuff to bring it, but what they want is that connection, they want to trust you. We also learned in excruciating detail, step by step the sales process. We went through every one of those steps and had a lot of examples it took, I think we lapped over three or four different breaks going through that, that how to use the do's and the don'ts it's a lot of data, and there are a lot of specific data we knock down the barriers to feeling awkward with sales were going to feel it again, right? I mean, they're completely knocked down for mostly way over cave objections and talks. I'm drew about the idea of just building in clarity and understanding and paraphrasing, we learned a lot about how we interrupt because of self consciousness, that we don't give the pregnant pause we need to birth the sale. And then we saw how you guys have doing doing it how how you guys have done it and what you've done really really well and need to make sure you know and keep doing we also learned the things that maybe I rushed into soon at that part or gosh, I went right into the logic and I skipped the heart and that's where they're going to buy from and that's a big deal and you guys were amazing and brave to put that out and I think you again for that because I know already heard how much people have learned from that and that I think all of this was still yesterday so today, which feels like a very long day we started out we get a little bit more q and a on that and then we went into the actual shoot powder we prepped for shoot how do we handle it? What do we do when we go out there? What do we keep in mind when we did the transforming good good perch good images to best sellers? What are we thinking about on the chute to be ableto make genuine expression happen out there even if that means yelling and screaming and rolling over and doing whatever it takes because it doesn't matter the camera's not pointed at ourselves it's pointed at our subjects it doesn't matter what we look like are we sound like no matter what the internet says, it doesn't matter because the point is to get the photographs that you can sell not to look good while you're doing it. I changed clothes because I went into this scrubby little clothes because that's what I wear when I shoot it's t shirt, it's ripped jeans, it's flip flops and I get sweaty and I get dirty and I get ugly I by the end of the shoot the worst I love this means things are going really well and then afterwards I changed back into this why did I change back into a nicer outfit? Because people don't want a hand thousands of dollars to somebody who's, scrubby and dirty and sweaty we still have this idea in our head of value and even though I changed in about four seconds hair up here down it makes a difference in terms of who I now feel like I'm talking tio I don't want to get money that screaming woman in an alley but you have a nice dress so way sold they have an idea of a good cell and we talked about some things, some ideas they had concerns they had I love the debut for the client I loved them being able to tell you yeah, I was worried about this and I was afraid of this and likely this didn't happen I was glad that that was under control we learned that they have a lot of thought and feeling in this and they're pairing up with us and we could bring that together at the end and of course we talked about the energy we need to keep going here and sometimes it's not the obvious things like everything the top ten lists for energy because sometimes it's those riel raw things that we really need to build in every day so we don't get to the end of our life and say I totally forgot about her friends I forgot about being happy craft is it too late? Yeah, it kind of is it's a decision we make every day and that that is the biggest thing I want to talk about as we close this is something that when we went on break last time it came up to me that there's sometimes a feeling that out there it's like this but for me it's like this, we feel that all the time like yeah it's easy for you because x y and z, whatever that is and you can give me days and days with a detailed process that that is built from scratch that's completely honest, hiding nothing, putting it all out there this is exactly how you do it and I may still look at you and say for you and if you're listening, I'm saying all along don't do it for me do it your way this is how I did it these the techniques I use this is what I'm thinking but do it for you your way you have to make it natural in comfort valls for you great but now what? We have all this information where the end of day three were literally it's three thirty we're about to walk out and we're going to go down our path tons of new information we can totally be successful but maybe we've done workshops before and maybe we've learned things and maybe we read great articles and we felt like things were changing but they didn't or they just changed a little or they didn't change enough the problem isn't did I have the right lens all the time? The problem is was I right up here in terms of the challenges I faced when I went forward because I can tell you for sure as you keep going down your path you will not maybe you will get knocked down, you will get thrown to the ground in a way that you didn't see coming and whether it is someone you know or someone anonymous or a situation that just showed up that will happen to you and if you know that ahead of time and have some sort of plan for it in terms of what you will choose to dio you will be better off then just saying I didn't expect that know that it will happen and when you're slammed face to the ground and you're crying and it hurt acknowledged that it hurt, say, owl that hurt I didn't think you would do that. I didn't think that robot would show up and then you have three choices the rule ofthree you have three choices when you're flat to the ground first you can choose to stay down that is absolutely your right to choose to stay down because it hurt when you got knocked down. It hurt when you stop a little hurt when they said that thing it hurt when you put all your effort in and they said not good enough, so you're flat on the ground you're staying down and the beauty in that is that no matter what happens is no matter what comes along, you can't get thrown that far down again because you're already there. The second option is you, khun slowly move into this crouched position this hunched over position where you know what you're no longer on the ground, you have made some progress and that's great, but you're close enough that if someone comes along you can protect yourself and you can keep going down the path, but certainly from that position it's going to be slow going it's hard to move when you're all protecting yourself and if somebody does come along and they knocked you down, you won't fall that far at least the third option and the one I really, really hope that all of this that she choose is to say I know consciously those two other options were available to me, but my third option I'm gonna take and that is I'm going to choose to rise I'm going to choose to go to the most upright position I have and I'm gonna walk at the pace that I can take that I know I'm capable of that when I'm laying in bed and I think about what I do, I know I can do this, but all those fears I have about getting knocked down so I'm going to rise and a walk at my pace and when you do that and I really hope you do that I think about a plan for going down your path as you keep going first and foremost I would think about why did you start this? Why did you get into this? What was the outcome that you had in mind when you look at relationships and they first have difficulty your problems and you go see a counselor, one of the first things they will tell you and I can tell you this from experience is they'll say why where you initially drawn to each other sometimes just the act of remembering that gives you this rejuvenated sense of I do still want that I still want that outcome I know this is work and I do know this is hard but everything I was drawn to then I'm still drawn into now I still want that so have a list that you have written down the reasons you started this path the reason you started doing this have a list so the next time you ask yourself why am I trying so hard you've given yourself the answers the second thing I want you to think about as you're going down this path is have some provisions don't go out there alone expected just have the energy to get through this because we already know what's out there right have some provisions I keep a kind of notes folder and I've always kept this this is something where I put like letters I've gotten or posts that show up on my block or my facebook or twitter and there are plenty of times so I will turn around and I will open up this folder it's now electronic used the favor and I will say let me remember what people said about the times that I have gotten through to them or the times I've created something that they loved or the times I've achieved things or have succeeded in some way that mattered to me these are fortifying thoughts and ideas and feelings and you wanna have them nearby because you will need them sometimes once a year, sometimes two to three times an hour but you will need them so have them and make a record of keeping them as you go. If you have ever written me one of those letters, you have definitely helped me and I think you I'm grateful to you because you have fortified me lastly and this to go full circle on this on this path that you're walking, you will meet marauders like people engaged in bandra thieves and people who steal from you. You will when you meet them, you need to know why you need to know what their purposes they hang out on the side of, not just your path everybody's back and they take from you and all of their energy and their focus is on the taking and having to fill what they need none of their focus very, very little of her focus is ever on you. You personally everything about you, you're a person coming down that path, they don't think about what they take and what relation it has to what's left that's not the point. You're going to meet these marauders and we teach our children that bullies they do it for themselves bullies have a need they need to fill, whether it's to feel powerful or to be respected or they got hurt so they hurt and we teach our children that it's about the boy it's, not about the victim, it's, never the victim's fault, it's, the bully. And yet we grow up and these experiences happen to us, and they're so harsh and they hurt and they feel so personal, it feels like it's absolutely about you, it's about you. That thing they said, if you know why marauders are there and you know why they exist and you know what they're doing, you recognize that they act on behalf of themselves, never on behalf of you, it has to do with what they need and when you know that and that happens, you realize it's, unbelievably impersonal, and so you keep going up, right? Right. I want you to keep going and keep learning, keep growing and keep reaching and know that it's, always it forever, was and always will be your choice to rise. You say you'll do that internet. Do that it's always gonna be your choice.