You vs You: How We Self-Sabotage and Heal Our Relationship with Ourselves

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We have a really great session lined up for you all, and the topic for today is going to be you versus you, how we self-sabotage and heal our relationship. With ourselves. So I'm sure many of us can relate to just going through those seasons where we go into a state of self-sabotage. And I'm gonna go into some of the reasons why we fall into this self-sabotage, why we get into the habit of just messing up what we have from time to time. Doesn't happen all the time, but I know I most certainly have gone into different aspects of self saab sabotage throughout the course of my life. And there's so many different reasons. And I know a lot of you guys are gonna be able to get value from today's topic specifically. But how many of us can relate to knowing that we have to deepen our relationship with ourselves? And one of the things about personal development is that on your journey through personal development and just growing yourself, you're going to realize that a lot of it is centered around healing aspects of your past. A lot of it is censored around. You just having a genuine relationship with yourself, with your inner child, whatever it is that you wanna refer to it as. But it is important and awareness is always going to be the first step to healing. You have to have the awareness that you even have to heal in the first place. But I know that today's session is definitely gonna hit home for a lot of people. So excited to jump into that. If you guys, by the way, don't mind drop a light, comment, share, tag, all of that stuff. The more engagement we have, the better. Let us know where in the world you are tuning in from what cities are represented here this morning. You guys can drop a comment. On that and sharing tag someone who can get value. By the way, there are so many people that their very first time jumping on the Breakfast Club was because someone tagged them onto the Breakfast Club. So a really great way to get the word out for those who can use some motivation to get them throughout get them through the week. And a lot of people don't know this, but with the Breakfast Club, I originally started it in person. I would gather together with my community for these in-person gatherings. And it was literally. Monday through Saturday, we would have it. And everybody would bring different value that they learned something that they learned throughout the course of the week. And we just share different aspects of personal development before people would go off to their nine to fives. And then eventually it evolved to online where we were able to reach a lot more people. Always excited to just evolve and reach a lot more people from all around the world. So I see we have people tuning in from New York. Shout out to New York City. I'm from New York by the way, and I see we have Stewart, Florida in the house. We got Texas in the house. Shout out to everybody tuning in on the other side of the country where it's a lot earlier. I know we have people tuning in from the West coast as well at it's 4:00 AM on that side. So we got the DMV in the house, we got The Bahamas, Jamaica. Love it. Welcome. Welcome everyone. Happy to be here with you all and let's jump right into it. We have some life hacks and fun facts to get us kickstarted for this morning and to get us started, the very first life hack is the five minute rule. The five minute rule. What is the five minute rule? The five minute rule is essentially if a task takes less than five minutes, do it immediately. This reduces mental clutter and procrastination. So think about how many things legit take less than five minutes that we put on the back burner. We know that it's something simple. For example, with one of my businesses, we typically have to promote the daily webinar, and this process literally takes about two minutes to do, and for whatever reason, I end up putting it on the back burner and it ends up not going out at all. And this tends to happen from time to time with me. And I always have to remind myself, okay, Josh, take the five minutes to just do the small things. And that five minutes could literally be you even spreading your bed in the morning and making your bed before you go off to work. That five minutes could legit be you even putting up some content creation. Content creation doesn't have to take very long, but it could just be you taking the time to even send out that email, respond to those messages. A lot of these things don't take very long. And what tends to happen is if you don't do these things you go into a state of self-sabotage because you're beating up on yourself and you have a sense of guilt that you didn't, let's say follow through on the things that you know you could follow through on. So one of the best ways you can build momentum is by doing a lot of the small things. One of the things that I do as well for example, is with the Breakfast Club. I know that. I, if I shave the night before and I trim up my beard the night before, that's gonna save me anywhere from five to 10 minutes the morning of the Breakfast Club, and I can give myself more time to just ease into my morning. Another thing is having the coffee ready, having all of that stuff ready to save myself some time or having my clothes ready, or whatever it is. But all of these things most certainly help. So think about whatever it is that you need to do throughout the course of the day that takes less than five minutes and just make it happen. Okay, now next up we have the second Life hack is name your negative thoughts, name your negative thoughts, give your inner critic a funny name, like. Doubtful, Debbie or Johnny Raincloud or whatever it is. And what happens is it creates distance and makes self-talk easier to manage. So we all have that, that scared little boy, scared little girl inside of us that tends to creep out from time to time. And we fall into self-sabotage by our negative self-talk. And one of the ways that you can detach from that is by giving it a negative name. So I have mine for the sake of the young people who are on the Breakfast Club. I'm not going to use any type of profanity this morning. But that name always makes me laugh when I think of my inner critic or that little voice or that's scared of taking action or whatever it is, but have a name for it, whatever it is for you. So next up we have. Let's see here. Number three, we have use your alarm for more than waking up set alarms throughout the day with affirmations like you are doing great. Or pause and breathe. It recenters your mindset. So it can be for affirmations, it can be like I, I always set reminders. So prime example, I'm not sure how many of you can relate to this, but I have, I've had so many situations where people will say, Hey, can you do this? And I agree to it and for whatever reason life just happens throughout the course of the day. And I just forget, I would always forget. And I realized that it's probably not the wisest thing to just rely on my memory. And maybe you guys have an incredible memory, but I know for me. This brother needs a reminder. So I always set reminders for every single thing. If someone says, Hey, are you gonna be able to come on this call at 4:00 PM I'm literally setting a reminder right away to get it on my calendar and to set an alarm to remind me. So I set alarms pretty much for everything you could possibly imagine. And even for my, my, my calendar. So the way I work my calendar is I have alarms set for certain activities that I have to do throughout the day. So if it's working out, if it's, I. Let's say doing content creation or just taking care of business or doing something with my family, I have these alarms set and I actually start setting alarms for certain things 24 hours in advance. So I know that if, let's just say I have an event tomorrow, I don't wanna wait till tomorrow to find out that I have an event tomorrow. So the way I set up my calendar is I'll set an alarm 24 hours in advance. That way it's on my mind. It's at the forefront of my mind, and this helps with so many things. If you guys are looking to take your productivity to the next level, I highly recommend that you set alarms for basically everything that you do. Next up, we have some fun facts for you all. The very first fun fact is the word motivation comes from the Latin word mo. I may be butchering this, but I'm gonna do my best to pronounce it in the best way possible, vere. So the word motivation comes from the Latin word vere, which means to move movement creates momentum, even a small step forward matters. So motivation to move, that's the root meaning of motivation. And it reminds me of the saying that a body in motion stays in motion sometimes when we are not feeling super motivated. It is just important to get yourself moving. You have to get your body in a peak state by getting it to move. This is a big reason why on the Breakfast Club, I'm typically recommending that you go for a walk. Just getting outside and going for a walk. There's just something about it that helps you build momentum throughout the day if you don't have it in you to go. Exercise. If you don't have it in you to even go jogging, then just go for a walk and you'd be amazed at how much momentum you can build just by the process of going for a walk. Second fun fact we have is you have about 60,000 thoughts per day, and about 80% of those thoughts are negative. Awareness is power. You can train your mind to think better thoughts, so think about that. Why does the brain even think predominantly negative thoughts? Why is that even a thing? The reason why our brain thinks negative thoughts is because our brain isn't necessarily wired to keep us happy. Our brain is wired to keep us alive. That's really what it is. So your brain isn't naturally going to look for all the positive aspects of life that makes you feel happy. Your brain is actually looking for all of the negative things, all of the things that can potentially be harmful to you. All of the things that can put you in danger. That's the way the brain is wired. So the vast majority of our thoughts, if you don't train your brain, it's naturally going to gravitate towards a lot of the ne negative aspects of your life. It's going to naturally gravitate towards what's not working, what's not right in your life, or what you feel isn't right in your life. So the best thing that you can do is flood your mind with positive things. So those positive things could very well be personal development audios. It can be just, let's say spiritual music if that's your thing. But you have to flood your mind with positive things because as the old cliche saying goes, greatness in, greatness out, garbage in, garbage out. So if you're constantly watching negative news, for example, it's going to amplify those negative thoughts. And what you focus on the longest grows the strongest in your life. What you focus on ultimately expands in your life. So you have to be super intentional about protecting your brain and your mind from all the negativity of the world, and feel your day with just as much positivity as you possibly can. And you'd be amazed at how much of a difference this makes in your life. Okay, so think about that. Up to 60 thoughts per day. You have 80% of 60,000 thoughts is a whole lot. That's a whole lot of. Of thoughts that are just thinking about what's not working in your life. So really powerful fun fact there. Last but not least, the last fun fact we have is writing things by hand helps you remember them better than typing, try journaling your goals or dreams or even taking notes, the old school way of writing things down. So super helpful. And I always say here in the Breakfast Club that the weakest ink is stronger than the strongest memory history. Note takers are history makers, and you have to take notes as if you're going to teach this information you're gonna process a lot more of what it is that you learn if you're actually writing it down. Now, if you don't have a paper and pen, cool take some time to just even get it on your notepad, but. You're going to be more likely to retain the information if you, of course take notes on it. Super beneficial. I have people, every now and then I'll jump on a coaching session with people and they'll show me their journals and that's one of the proudest moments for me is when I see somebody show me their Journal of Breakfast Club notes that they've taken over the years, and I've had people just pretty much fill up an entire journal just with Breakfast Club notes. It's interesting how much content over the years I've been sharing and how many people have gone through just hours and hours of Breakfast Club content. In fact, if you listen to the Breakfast Club, let's just say one hour a day, based on all of the sessions that were put out online over the years, if you just listen to the Breakfast Club for one hour a day, I. It'll take you over a year to go through all of the different breakfast club sessions that are out there. But this there's so much great value that, that you can learn just by not only hopping on, but also just taking time to take notes. And you never know when you're going to have to deliver a workshop. You never know when you're going to, let's just say, be invited to teach on something. And just the other day I was invited on a business call and I literally went to some of my past notes that I took from years and years ago and just read through the notes and it was great value for the audience. So one of the things that you can do when it comes to even note taking is because I know some of you are probably like what if I lose the journal, right? Or what if I don't have the journal on me? But I want access to those notes. What I typically do is I'll take pictures of the journal entry. So that can be another form of journaling. You can write it down, but then you could also take pictures of what it is that you write down. All right before we jump into today's meat and potatoes that we have, and we have tons of food for thought for you guys here this morning. But before we jump into that I released my masterclass on how to build a successful coaching and consulting and speaking business. How I personally have done it after years of not making any income from my expertise, from years of doing free coaching, how I finally managed to figure out how to build a profitable, successful coaching practice. As you guys know, coaching and consulting is pretty much my bread and butter outside of all the businesses that I have. And I've done really well for myself over the years. So I created this masterclass to teach you guys for free. You can hop on and get all that amazing information. I know some of you guys weren't able to attend. The webinar live. So I do have a recording, so if you would like the recording, just DM me the word coach, and I'd be more than happy to send you over the recording of the masterclass. You can hit me up pretty much on any social media platform. I'm pretty responsive on there. And also, every once in a while I'll have people ask for complimentary coaching sessions, and I open up my calendar for a few of them every single week. So I'm gonna share my Calendly link for you guys. And if for whatever reason you don't see my Calendly link, if you're on the podcast, by the way you should be able to see it on the description. If you're on any of my social media channels, you should be able to see it in the comment threads. So if you don't see it, just hit me up in my dm, I'd be more than happy to send you over that information. Okay. So let's jump right into it before we do, I'm gonna share also all of my links for you all, and the links will be able to. Take you guys to wherever the podcast is streamed. So the best way you can possibly thank me is by leaving a review on whatever podcast platform you use is definitely greatly appreciated. So thank you to all of you who do leave a review. And I'm going to drop the links there. You guys should be able to see all of the links and let's jump right into it. Really excited to go into today's topic. And I know today I was just thinking about some of the value that I wanted to share over the next couple of weeks, and I was thinking about what are some of the problems that most people struggle with. What are some of the biggest challenges most people are challenged with right throughout the course of their lives? And I realized that one of the, one of the problems that most people encounter at some point in time is going into a state of self sabotage. If you can relate to a point in your life. Where you've gone through self-sabotage. If you guys don't mind, drop a one in the comments. I'm just curious, who in our breakfast club community has gone through a period of self-sabotaging their lives? And I most certainly have, whether it's been relationships, whether it's been business, whether it's been my personal legacy, whether it's been just about every aspect, even finances, right? How many of us have gone through retail therapy because we've gone through very difficult seasons and just did not know how to really process our emotions in the best way? And what we do is we tend to mask the pain. We mask the pain with things that can bring us a temporary relief, things that can bring us temporary satisfaction. The thing about happiness, it's very fleeting. It's like the leaves on a tree. It just leaves with any with any type of storm that comes about. It's not sustainable. And we tend to put bandaids on gaping wounds that essentially need stitching and it needs proper healing. And we all at some point in time tend to fall into a state of self sabotage. So it is super important to, to have the awareness of when you are going to a space of self sabotage when you are your greatest enemy many times it's not the enemy outside, it's the enemy within, it's the inner me that's causing you to not get to where you wanna be in life. So how do you know when this is a situation or you're in that downward spiral, if you will, you're in this downward spiral that's leading you into more and more self-sabotage, and you have to catch it quick. Because what tends to happen is people end up hitting rock bottom because it's like too late at that point. And you're either going to have to take action now out of inspiration or desperation, and it's so much better to take action out of inspiration as opposed to desperation because people smell desperation like a dog smells fear. And if you're in the marketplace and you're out there trying to build a business and a space of desperation, it'll permeate through you. Nobody wants to do business with someone who's given desperate vibes, someone who's giving needy vibes, if that makes sense. So you always want to build whatever it is that you're working on from a place of inspiration. Okay, so hopefully that's making sense so far. Next we have. What is self-sabotage? Self-sabotage is essentially when we consciously or unconsciously block our own success. It's acting against our own best interests, often out of fear, insecurity, or unhealed pain. Think about that. When was the last time you've gotten in the way of your success? So as I was reflecting on this, I'm like, man, what are some of the greatest pain points within the community? And some of the things that people struggle with the most? And what I've seen just working with so many clients over the years, mentoring thousands of people, what I've discovered is most people self-sabotage due to trauma. Something triggers them, and that trigger oftentimes affects their entire day because people have a tendency to allow a bad moment to dictate an entire day. Never let a bad moment create a bad day. A moment is just a moment. Just because you had a bad moment doesn't necessarily mean that it had to be a bad day. It's 24 hours in the day. That moment probably just lasted a few minutes if that. So be very mindful and cognizant of the fact that, hey, I'm going to have moments throughout the day where it's not so great, but if you wait a long enough period, you'll eventually have some good moments, but never let a bad moment create a bad day. That's the idea. So what tends to happen is someone, maybe they get triggered by someone else and their mood is thrown off, and then what ends up happening is they fall into a space of doing what it is that they feel not. It is not what they know. You never want to get to a place in your life where you're constantly doing what you feel and not what you know. If you truly want to be a disciplined, consistent person, you have to be able to do what you know, not what you feel in the moment. How many of us can relate to that? You have one thing that kind of throws off your day, and you allow your entire day to go into this downward spiral, and you sell sabotage your entire productivity. So it is important to be able to respond to those obstacles, respond to those, let's just say those emotional flare ups from time to time, and be able to handle it in a very mature way. Because as you guys oftentimes hear me say, responsibility is nothing more than your ability to respond, your ability to respond and your success is going to be predicated on your capacity for responsibility. How much stress can you comfortably live with? How much responsibility can you comfortably live with? Can you get to a place where you're okay with being comfortable, being uncomfortable because growth requires you embarking on going into the unknown. Growth requires you getting very uncomfortable. There's just no there's no growth or transformation or leveling up in your life without getting very uncomfortable. It's almost like discomfort is a prerequisite for success. You have to navigate through the discomfort. So how do you get to a place in your life where you can have a bad moment, but be able to bounce back right away and say, you know what? Like there are moments where I. I can just sense I'm on a lower frequency. I'm vibrating super low. And I notice that as you guys hear the old cliche saying, when it rains, it pours. And when I start noticing myself going into a place where I'm starting to attract a lot of negative circumstances, immediately I catch it and I'm like, all right, Josh, get you shake off. Shake off this negative energy because this is not it. You have to raise your vibration so that you're attracting a lot more positive outcomes in your life. Because remember, you are not necessarily attracting your thoughts, you're attracting your emotions. Emotion is energy in motion. And when you are in, let's just say a negative emotion, what tends to happen is that permeates through you and you're not in your right mind, and you tend to. Get to a place where emotion is high, but logic is low, and you're making decisions that are irrational because of the way that you feel in the moment. So the idea is to process whatever it is that you're going through, but let it go so that you're not attracting more negative circumstances in your life. In fact, in the words of JFK, he once said, the only thing that we should fear is fear itself. Why is that? Because by living in a state of fear, you naturally attract more circumstances that bring you more fear. Do you know that it's possible to be addicted to the stress hormones in your body? There are people that are addicted to their own toxicity. To toxic circumstances, to toxic environments, toxic people, they have an addiction to it. Why is that? Because the very chemicals that are released during very pleasurable experiences are some of the same chemicals that are released when you are in a state of fight or flight. When your sympathetic nervous system kicks in, you have those adrenal glands firing where now it's like the epinephrine in your body the adre the adrenal glands, all of these different things that are triggered, like that adrenaline rush is what you're addicted to. So when that cortisol level spikes and remember your body goes into a state of fight or flight, and when it goes into a state of fight or flight, that's when you have your adrenaline or your epinephrine. That's an at an all time high. And that's what people tend to get addicted to. So you have to be very mindful of this because if you're not, you'll end up naturally attracting a lot of circumstances that bring you stressful situations. Next we have, here are some examples of how people self-sabotage procrastination. Before a big opportunity. How many of us have fallen into a state of procrastination and you know that you've gotta get these things done and they're actually not even that difficult to do, but you just can't get yourself around doing it, and you have this big opportunity ahead of you, but you're not taking advantage of it. Why is that? It could be a few things. It could be the fear of success, it could be the fear of failure. But there are a lot of things like that this opportunity is super important and timely, like the time to act is now, but you end up not taking any action at all because subconsciously you probably have an underlying fear and underlying fear of not being enough or good enough, and underlying fear of can I handle this success? And underlying fear of what will people think of me? So it is important to dissect why you feel the way that you feel. Take time to actually reflect on it, journal about it. When was the last time that you felt a negative feeling and actually journaled on why you think you're feeling the way that you're feeling, and actually peel back the layers of that onion. To get to the root cause of why you feel insecure, why you're feeling imposter syndrome, why you're feeling jealous, why you're feeling frustrated or bitter. And oftentimes when you get to the root of all of these different emotions, you'll find this scared little boy or girl that just is simply triggered by something or this scared little boy or girl that was probably told that they were not enough when they were a young child. You're not smart enough, you're not good enough and you still are holding on to this limiting belief, so you have to peel back the layers. Awareness is the first step of healing. Next, another example of self-sabotage is talking yourself out of pursuing a dream. How many of us fall into a space of paralysis of over analysis? You think your weight out of the dream? Hello. Can anybody relate to that? How many of us have gotten to a place where we thought ourselves out of a dream? Isn't that crazy how that works? So it's essential to also question why are you overthinking it? There's a saying that ignorance on fire is better than intellect on ice. A lot of people who get things in done in life, what tends to happen is they just shut down their brain. They shut down their brain, and they just take action. Some, sometimes the best thing that you can do on your journey to success is shut down your brain because you're overthinking it and you're thinking yourself out of the dream. Don't get so caught up in the minutia of whatever that dream entails. Oftentimes, we major in minor things. We're doing things that aren't necessarily moving the needle for the results of what we want for our lives. Next, another example of self-sabotage is settling in toxic relationships. Have any of you ever dated the same person but many different humans, the same version of that person with different faces? How many of you can relate? You've dated the same toxic person, but with different faces, so you've repeated the cycle of the same type of person over and over. How many of you have been through that? I mentor a lot of people and oftentimes what I find is you'll have people, for example, they end up in toxic relationships over and over again, and they're repeating the cycle. Until you learn the lesson. Unfortunately, the way life works, how many of you can relate to this? Unfortunately, the way life works is it will continuously put you through that lesson until you learn the lesson. It'll put you through different versions of that same lesson that needs to be learned. So you may have not healed from that relationship, but you end up attracting someone who's very similar to your ex, someone who's toxic. And why is that? Because some people, the way that they process love is possibly by the person that they're with, let's just say, being super toxic or condescending. Someone that treats them a certain way, that's the way they process love because that's the way they saw their parents love each other or their parents be loved. Perhaps they, they have, let's just say daddy issues or mommy issues, and they're attracting someone who's like their parent. You understand? Not all the time, but in many cases that's really what's happening. And if you don't have the awareness that this is the cycle that you've boxed yourself into, then how could you ever grow out of it? So you need to cultivate the awareness of this, and you have to heal and learn the lesson necessary. That way you're not repeating it. Now, a healthy way to go about a toxic relationship is perhaps you can allow that toxic relationship to teach you and set the standard for how you want to go about choosing your next partner. Because I, I know for a lot of people the way they got to the place where they chose their spouse. It's because of all of the toxic relationships they've gone through that taught them how not to go about choosing a partner. So it is essential to really evaluate these relationships and determine whether or not they're toxic. And how do you know if they're toxic? It's the way you communicate with each other, right? How much of the relationship is always this emotional rollercoaster where you have good times, but the lows are really low, the lows are really low. You'll know if it's a toxic relationship, if the person that you're with says things that are very hurtful to you, always. And there's no, there there's nothing being rectified. There's nothing being corrected, right? It's like we all say hurtful things. Let's be honest. Like all of us at some point in time have said something hurtful to someone else. But you have to set proper boundaries for that relationship. If you do not, then it's going to continue on. So you have to teach people how to treat you. Next. We have underearning or over spending is another sign of self-sabotage. Underearning was one of the ones that popped up that I'm like, man, Underearning isn't that something? So many people they don't earn what they're truly worthy of because again it's low self-worth. Like how many of you can relate to being in a season of your life where you weren't being paid what you should be paid, and you were just settling for it? Just settling for scraps, settling for whatever paycheck they, they'd offer you, right? Because you didn't have high standards for yourself. High expectations for yourself. I've been there. Where you're Okay. Okay. I'll take this minimum wage. Listen, you have to truly know your worth. If you're going to liberate yourself financially. You have to know your worth. You have to know your worth. Today I charged$25,000 for a one hour speech. My goal in my lifetime is be able to charge over a quarter million dollars for one hour of my time. That's my goal. I have mentors who charge that. They charge over a quarter million dollars for one hour of their time, and today, what I make in one hour would take me a whole year to make at 20 years old. You understand? What's the difference? Of course you have skillset, you have knowledge, all of these things. But the underlying reason is because I learned my worth. I know my worth today. So I set my prices. I. So you have to get to a place in your life where you truly know your worth, and you set the standard like, this is what I will be compensated, this is what I'm truly worth. And have the courage to go open up new doors for yourself if your current vehicle is not getting you to where you wanna be. So underearning, but also overspending. Also overspending. If you find yourself in a space where you're always overspending, ask yourself is this an extension of how my parents went about their finances? Because many times what happens is we take on a lot of the habits. These are generational cycles because this is how you learn how to navigate through money. If your parent was a parent that wasn't let's say, the most financially responsible person, and the bills were always backed up, the credit was shot. You understand there was always more month at the end of the money. How much of your life is a reflection of the generation before, if you had parents that were constantly overspending and they weren't budgeting properly perhaps that's a generational cycle that you have to eliminate in your lifetime. I know for me I knew that I had a moral obligation to learn how money works and to be able to pass down that knowledge to my children because it wasn't taught to me the generation before, and there's no shade towards my family. It's just they didn't have the tools, they didn't have the resources that we have available today. Today, you can learn anything right at your fingertips. You have the ability to pretty much learn anything. You have so much access to mentorship and knowledge right at your fingertips. But overspending also can lead you into a state of self-sabotage. Think about it when you overspend and now you don't have the money to be able to do what it is that you need to do. It's one of the worst feelings you could ever imagine. How many of you have been in a season of your life where you just didn't have it financially? And it was one of the most painful things that you've ever experienced? Now, of course, there are other painful aspects of life, whether that's the loss of a loved one, that it may be a breakup and things like that. But not being able to provide for your children, not being able to pay for the things that you need to pay for is one of the most painful experiences, and it'll lead you in a state of self-sabotage where you're just drowning in the debt and you don't even see a way out. So it is essential to be able to catch yourself when you're in a space of overspending. Overspending can be one of the most dangerous forms of self-sabotage because think about it, if you overspend and now you don't have any money for everything, the very foundation of your basic human needs is compromised. The very foundation, certainty and security is at the very foundation of your basic human needs. And if you break down that foundation, typically what happens is everything else will follow and you, your life comes crashing down on you. So you have to make sure that you're not overspending. That's why gambling is one of the most harmful aspects because gambling is not only just affecting you if you have a family, your family pays the price. How many of you have had a season of your life where you got caught up in gambling or you had a family member that got caught up in gambling and it affected everybody in the family? So overspending again, is one of the most dangerous aspects of self-sabotage, and it is important to catch it before that monster grows. When do you kill a monster Before it grows? That's the idea. Last but not least, is negative self-talk. Negative self-talk. And there's a really good book that I always recommend here on the Breakfast Club, and it's what's to say when you talk to yourself by Dr. Shot Helmstetter. And I always recommend this book, and it's all about just overcoming your negative self-talk. And one of my favorite things that the book talks about is never say something about yourself that you don't want to be true. So if you tend to procrastinate, don't say that I am a procrastinator. Do you know that the words I am have power two of some of the most important words in life? I am that I am right in the words of God. It's you. You speak so much life into yourself when you use the words I am before whatever it is that you wanna bring into fruition. So I am enough. I am strong, I am bold, I am confident, I am abundant. I am generous. All of these different things, you have to speak life into your situation. Now, it could also work against you. I am a procrastinator. I am not good enough. It will very well work against you. So you have to be very cautious with how you use the words I am and never say something about yourself or your situation that you just don't want to be true. Speak life into your self, but also speak life into the people that you lead. So here's a great quote. We are confined only by the walls. We build ourselves. It's anonymous, by the way. So a really great quote. We are confined only by the walls we build ourselves. If there is no enemy within, the enemy, outside can do us no harm. We tend to build the walls. That's the thing. If you truly want to be free, you have to liberate your mind, be transformed by the renewing of your mind as it stays in scripture. That's how you go about the transformation process. So you have to identify some of the ways that you fall into self-sabotage. I know for me, for example if I catch myself drinking too many days in a row, I have to catch it like, nah, we're not going down that path. Because the drinking also, obviously it's gonna affect your energy levels. And if your energy levels are affected, then it's going to affect your productivity. If your productivity is affected, then you're gonna start beating up on yourself, and it's this downward spiral. If I don't work out for too many days in a row, I also know I'm on a downward spiral. And how do you overcome being on a downward spiral? This is the thing, think of a spiral. I want you guys to visualize what a spiral actually looks like. Now, imagine going like taking a walk down, a downward spiral. You're obviously on this decline and you have gravity working for you. So it's so much easier to walk on a downward spiral than it is to climb up that spiral. You guys with me. So you have gravity working for you. It's so much easier to go down than it is to climb up because you have this gravitational force working for you. And it's very symbolic for life in general. It's so much easy to just screw your life up, but the ascension of your life, the transformation of your life, it requires resistance. You're going against the gravity, right? And it's very symbolic for life because think about it, whenever you wanna get to the next level, you have to put in work. You wanna get your body you have to do the reps in the gym, you have to burn that, that those calories doing the cardio necessary. You wanna heal that relationship you're probably going to have those tough conversations. You want to thrive as a parent you're probably gonna have to put more time into your children. So there's work required going up a spiral. And at any point in time you could be going down or up a spiral. It's just a matter of direction. So how simple is it to change your circumstances? It is just a temp as simple as changing your direction. So look the other way. If you were going on that downward spiral and you're in this state of self-sabotage. You're overspending, you're eating like shit. You're going about your relationships in a negative way because now you don't even have any self-esteem. You don't have any confidence, right? And your peace is disturbed and you're having anxiety because there's more month at the end of the money, those bills are billing and all of this stuff is weighing down on you. It's like the gravitational force pushing down on you, and it's so easy to just continue on that downward spiral. My call to action is look the other way, look the other way, turn the other cheek. Go The path of the resistance. The obstacle is the way. Yes, it's gonna be an ascension through resistance. You're going to have to put in the work, but you know what? You climb up that spiral enough. You end up building muscle, you end up building resilience. You end up building emotional and mental fortitude to help you navigate through life. So it is essential that whenever you're on a downward spiral to catch it, don't let it get to the point where now you have to take action out of either inspiration or desperation. Nothing wrong with taking action out of inspiration, but when you're at rock bottom, you'll get to a place in your life where you're so disgusted with how you've been living, that it's just too painful to continue on. And how many of us know of people throughout history that just decided that they didn't wanna participate in this life anymore because it was just too difficult. So that's why you have to catch it early. What are some of the signs that, that you have in your life when you go into a state of self sabotage? What are some of the repeating patterns? Sometimes it's the environment. I know for me, I know I'm going in a space of self sabotage. If I see my home super cluttered and you see them, them dishes piling up, and you don't even have it in you to clean the dishes. Hello. How many of you can relate to this? If you can relate, drop an R in the comments. If you can relate to this, where the dishes start piling. You have a pile of clothes in your room that you haven't hung up, right? You have laundry that needs to be cleaned and you don't even have the capacity to do the little things. Let alone put some time into your business, let alone get into the gym, let alone be able to communicate with your significant other in a loving way because you're in survival. Look at the Rs coming in, the comments, guys. I'm not the only one. And the thing about it is some of us catch it earlier than others. Some of us catch it ear earlier than others. So how do you respond to that self-sabotage? How good is your awareness where you can catch it? Oh, yep, I'm not going down that path. There are certain things that actually tip the domino of self-sabotage. There are certain things that tip that domino of self-sabotage. For example, if you had an issue with drinking that, one thing that tips the domino is that one friend in your life that encourages the drinking. And in order to prevent that initial domino, a self sabotage being tipped over, you have to love that friend at a distance. You have to set proper boundaries for yourself because the temptation is too strong on your life, and sometimes it's a person. Sometimes it's an environment. What is it for you that tips that domino? Maybe it's that one drink. Maybe it's the fact that you have someone in your home who drinks and there's always liquor at home, and just by you seeing it, it's so accessible and that's why you fall back into that self-sabotage. Perhaps it's that toxic relationship that you're in and this person is constantly beating you down and it may not be physically beating you down. It could be verbally beating you down, mentally, emotionally beating you down, and all it really requires is you letting that person go. You raising the rent for who gets to occupy your mental space, rent free. A lot of people occupying your mental space rent free, and it is time for that eviction. And don't be apologetic about it. There's nothing wrong with it. How can you possibly feel from an empty cup? If you're constantly being depleted, you're not going to have anything to give. So it is important to be around people and being in an environments that can fill your cup. Who do you have in your life to fill your cup? What are you plugging into to fill your cup? This is some good stuff. All right if y'all are getting value so far, drop a v for value if this is valuable so far. Okay. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Next up we have, why do we self sabotage? So here are the breakdowns of the root causes of why we self sabotage. Okay, now, number one, fear of failure or success, as I mentioned earlier. So typically what people have going on in their minds is if I fail, I'll feel worthless. If I succeed, I'll lose my comfort zone. Listen, remember this, your comfort zone is your broke zone. There, there is no abundance living in your comfort zone. I have never met a affluent, wealthy, prosperous person that was just living in a constant state of comfort. It's just it doesn't work that way. That's why I say you have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. You have to put in the work, the kingdom of success. The rent is due every single day. There's no oh, I'm just gonna chill. I've done that. I've built up businesses that allowed me to live off of my residual income. And guess what? I start getting comfortable teaching that, treating that residual income like some kind of government check. Like it was gonna come in forever. And guess what? I went backwards, right? And now I was forced to get out of that comfort zone. I've been there. So it is essential to make sure that you're not always in a state of. Comfort zone. And what happens is your comfort zone is also very familiar and it's safe. It's if I just stay here, remember, your brain is designed to keep you alive. So in, in your brain, in your, the way your mind is, it's oh, this is familiar, this is comfortable. I know that I'm going to be okay if I just stay here. But listen, one thing that I will tell you is life is constantly going to change, and you have to be able to adapt. You have to be able to evolve and understand that your comfort zone is an illusion. It is not a permanent situation. You may be comfortable for a little period of time, but here's the thing. The people who really get ahead in life, because they understand that life is cyclical in nature, life is also seasonal. You have your ups, you have your downs, you have your winter seasons, your fall seasons, and so on and so forth. And the people who thrive, they have this mentality. The mentality that it is much better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war. I'll say that for those of you in the back who didn't catch that, it is much better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war. You have to constantly train yourself when times are good for the winter season because winter is inevitable. It will come. For those of y'all who've been around for quite some time, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Life is going to come at you, right? And that's why in the military there's this saying that the more you sweat in times of peace, the less you bleed in times of war. You always have to equip yourself throughout the course of your life. That's why whenever I give my definition of what wealth is, I always say that wealth is how adequately equipped you are for survival. That's what wealth is, in my opinion. How adequately equipped you are for survival. Some people they're going into a gunfight with a knife and in, in life. It's you better be equipped because it is going to bully you. Life will bully you if you're not prepared for it. It's just it's how this interesting aspect of seasons and the way life works, like God made it so that we had contrast. In order for you to feel the joy, you have to go and experience the suffering. Isn't that interesting? That in order for you to truly even appreciate what it is that you have to know struggle. And that's why they say in life you're in one of three situations. You're either in a storm or you're coming out of a storm or you're going into a storm. It's always one of the three. You're either in the storm and navigating through that, or you just got out of a storm or you're getting ready to go into a storm. So the best thing that you can do is prepare yourself and equip yourself and appreciate when the times are good. Appreciate when you are in a space where maybe it isn't a storm that you're in and you just got out of it, but you have an appreciation and a deep reverence for life and what it is that you have. That's why the best thing that you can do for a child is let them struggle. Let them struggle a bit. Let them know what it's like to go through very difficult circumstances. I have so many clients that I work with, that I work with their children as well now, so many clients over the years and what happens is if that parent didn't equip that child for life and didn't allow that child to struggle. Then they get smacked with the reality of life and realize man, I was not prepared for all of this. And now they end up with an aged infant, a whole 30-year-old that doesn't know how to navigate through the world. A whole 30-year-old that doesn't know how to take care of a family. Anybody know anybody like this? Or am I the only one that knows people like this? I think I just have the balls to say it because a lot of this generation are coddling their kids and it's probably the worst thing that you could possibly do. Yes, it is important to be loving and compassionate, but one of the best things that you can do for a child is to prepare them for the inevitable winter season that will approach their life, the inevitable winter season that they will have to go through. You may think that you're sheltering them. You may think that you are, you're keeping them safe, but you're actually doing more harm by coddling them too much. I'm letting you know right now, and I work with so many I children of like their parents are my clients, but then it's like, Hey can you help my, my, my son? Can you help my daughter? They just don't get it. They just don't get it. And now they have a whole 30-year-old that doesn't know how to work and pay the bills and just staying at home and think about that would your child be equipped for life? Would they be able to navigate through life if you were no longer here? My goal is to make my young men, I got three little boys and my goal is to equip them for a world that's not always so kind. Equip them for a world and a marketplace. That can be a little bit rootless from time to time. So that's the idea. And it's not just with our children. It's not just with the people that we lead, it's ourselves. That's why personal development is essential, because personal development equips you for how to navigate through life. You get essential tools and strategies for how to navigate through life. That's what, that's why I'm so passionate about it. People are like, how in the world do you do what you do every single week? You've been doing this, Josh I remember you back when Obama was in office and you'd be out here teaching personal development, and you're still doing this after all these years. Why? Because I know that it's essential for life. I know the healing that it can bring. Having more awareness. I know how much it can equip you and help you navigate through the suffering, help you transcend poverty, help you transcend not only financial poverty, but poverty and thinking. Thinking that's what personal development does, and it's so incredible. And the idea is to grow you so that you can give more, grow me, serve you. That's the idea. I'm gonna grow me so that I can serve you. I have more of a capacity to serve. So it's not growing you just for financial gain. That's just the least of it. Yes, that's a plus, but that's not really what you're doing the personal development for the personal development is more so that you have more of a capacity for what you can be responsible for, and you have more of a capacity to contribute and give more. That's how we make the world a better place. So the fear of failure or success big causes or root causes for self-sabotage. Number two is low self-worth. Believing deep down that you don't deserve good things. Listen some of us tend to beat up on ourselves because of past mistakes. God forgives. Do not let that weigh you down. God forgives I'm here if you need a reminder that you've been forgiven, listen. You have been forgiven. Just acknowledge your mistakes. Acknowledge your mistakes. Repent if you have to. Be apologetic, if you have to. But do not sit there and dwell in unforgiveness because that will lead you to self-sabotage faster than almost anything. So you are worth it. You are worth it. Yesterday I was some of you may think it is inappropriate for children, but I was actually showing my children a YouTube video of how sperm cells navigate when they're going for the egg. And the average sperm cell is up against 300 million other sperm cell, almost half a billion sperm cell you're in a race against. And I was explaining to them how they were born champions and they're like they're three competitive young men. And they're like was I racing against my brother? I'm like no. That was a different race. You guys each had your own individual race. Only one gets to win. And I was showing them the process of how all of these sperm cell just fight to finally get to the, if you haven't seen the videos, by the way, it's like animated videos that show the journey of a sperm cell. And it's incredible. Like when you see all the things that it has to fight through in order to get to that egg. And I had to let my children know hey. You were born a champion. You were the lone survivor of over 300 million other potential human beings. The their softer side comes out. One of my children was like, oh my, that's so sad and I was like would you rather have, it had been them or you that didn't make it? And they're like, yeah, of course. I would've rather make it like, but there you go. You were the number one champion. You made it to the very end. You were the strongest that made it to the end. And sometimes we have to remind ourselves of our greatness, because all of us, in a very literal sense, were born champions. We were b we were the winners. We were the lone survivors. Out of over 300 million potential human beings, how crazy is that? And I did that intentionally so that they understand their inheritance and their identity navigating through this world. Your identity in a very literal sense is that you were born a winner. You were born a champion, you were born a fighter. That's why from time to time I'll mention how, it's so ironic how God created infants in such a way where that when the birth process happens, babies are born with two bold up fist, two bold up fists. It. It's almost as if it was a sign from God that you were coming into this world to fight you. You were coming in as a fighter, someone who has a capacity to navigate through the third dimension that we call Earth, the Earth school, right? Because. As much as I'm all about positivity, as much as I'm all about good vibes and all of this stuff, the reality is this life is tough, and you have to remind yourself of your greatness. You have to remind yourself of the fact that you came into this world a winner. That's why having low self-worth, it just makes no sense because if you truly understood how precious and fragile and rare your life is, the likelihood that you're even alive. Think about that. Think about how much God loves you so much that he chose you out of over hundreds of millions of other potential human beings to be alive at this point in time. That's how much God loves you. Isn't that something loves you so much, that he puts you in a world where you have all of this abundance around you. When I say abundance, I'm talking all of the resources, all of the knowledge, just to be able to have knowledge at your fingertips. You can learn anything you want in this lifetime at any point in time. We, we are surrounded by abundance. That's how much we're loved by our creator. So you having low self-worth, it just doesn't make any sense because you are truly valuable. God loved you enough to bring you into this existence, right? So I know I'm going down the rabbit hole here, but man I feel like this message needed to reach some of our community that just feels like they're not good enough. And I'm here to remind you that you are. If you made it, if you made it here in 2025, after all you've been through, the fact that you even made it in this lifetime says that you were enough. Next up, number three, we have unhealed trauma or past conditioning. Is another root cause for self-sabotage, childhood wounds or messages. You'll never be good enough there. There's so many, like I, I hear one of the worst things that my wife and I experience is when we are around other parents and they're calling their kids stupid or something like that, or they're saying really negative things to their kids. It's one of the saddest things because they don't realize how much they're actually programming their children's identity. Like their programming, their belief system. And it's so essential. If you ever see a parent do that, my wife is, she's notorious she'll call it out. She's yeah, you probably shouldn't tell them that and she'll go to the kid and just know that you're beautiful. You're enough, you're good enough. She'll, my, my wife will tell that kid right then and there and remind them that they're good enough. They're smart. Because it's crazy how much influence our parents really have over us. Okay, so next we have imposter syndrome. This is an interesting one, feeling like a fraud. Even though you're qualified, you may feel like a fraud. You may feel as if you don't belong or deserve that specific thing that you're working on. And I know for him, I had to catch myself over and over with imposter syndrome. It'll creep up on you out of nowhere. You'll be in certain rooms of really qualified people and that scared little boy or girl kind of creep in I don't know if I belong here, whatever. But listen, imposter syndrome it's part of the process. And when it does creep up, just understand that, hey, this is also a part of my evolution. Getting to a place where I feel deserving. I. Of charging my rates, I feel worthy of teaching these concepts. I remember I turned down a client one time who reached out to me for marriage counseling and I turned them down because I was going through it with my own marriage and I was just like, I didn't feel qualified to give them coaching. And I actually, I didn't even know like a marriage counselor. So I like took some time to Google one and then I found one with good reviews and I like legit sent them over. And it was just like the dumbest thing ever because it is important to separate the teacher from the teaching. More than half of the people we learned from do not got their ish together let's just call it for what it is. They say one of the worst things you could ever do in this lifetime is meet your mentor. Because you'll find that a lot of mentors, a lot of the people that you hold to a high regard are very flawed human beings, just like you and I. Ain't none of us. Perfect. I'm telling you, I, even for me, sometimes I'll have these moments where I'm like, just on edge, I'm like frustrated for me. Like I run a tight shit with my kids. I don't play no games with the, when it comes to these kids, I'm very Caribbean in the way that I go about my parenting style. We're not entertaining foolishness in my household. You're not gonna be saying disrespectful things. Like we shut that down. And that's the way that I go about my parenting style. And honestly, there are moments where I'm just like this isn't very life coachy of you this is probably how a this is probably not how a life coach should be handling this. Situa. I have my moments from time to time right. But I'm not going to allow that to discredit everything else I stand for, to discredit everything else that I do. We have our moments. You should be okay with being perfectly imperfect because all of us are, none of us, all of us are a work in progress. Okay. And don't even get caught up in trying to appear perfect. Because it, it's funny I did this competition one time with the greatest speakers in the world, and one of the things, one of the critiques that the judges were like, everybody was competing pretty much to be on this stage. It was like the greatest stage or greatest event in personal development and business. And I'm here competing against a lot of people. And one of the judges said something so profound, they said, as a speaker, never try to be so polished, never try to be so perfect because the audience will hate you. Like they, they will not connect with you. They will not resonate with you. Because they're just like yeah. This person, like I I can't relate. They're perfect and I'm not. It's one of the worst things that you can do. Don't worry about being super polished. Like every now and then, you guys hear me use colorful language from time to time. But that's how I actually speak. It is what it is. I'm not everybody's cup of coffee. And that's okay. And you have to be okay with the fact that you're probably not gonna be everybody's cup of coffee. And it's the worst thing that you can do is just try to be someone you're not. Listen, try to always be the best version of you, but do not get caught up in perfectionism, okay? Because eventually you will get found out. You will get exposed for who you truly are. All right? And it's like I always pride myself, one of the things that I pride myself more than anything is the fact that I always tell people if they wanna know who I am, my, my real character, go to my wife. She'll tell you straight up what I'm about and the fact that. After all these years of being married and everything that we've gone through, she's seen myself underbelly more than anyone. And if there's anything that I'm proud of, is the fact that she still has good things to say, genuinely good things to say. You wanna know who I am, talk to my kids about who I am and they'll tell you, talk to my closest friends. Talk to people who've lived with us for years upon years. People who've come and gone. Like they'll tell you exactly who my character is. And that's one of the best things you can do is be on the outside, who you truly are on the inside. And if you don't like who you are on the inside, do the inner work necessary so that your outer world reflects one of which that is a high caliber, high character person. So perfectionism so many people. That's the last one. The fifth root cause for self sabotage is perfectionism. And so many of us get caught up in the idea that if it's not perfect, I won't even start. You know how many people never get started just because they want everything? Perfect. Listen, there's a saying that you have to go from so many people go aim fire, right? And they say sometimes you have to go to fire and then aim, right? You have to just be a certified trigger pull. You have to go and take action. Don't worry about having it all. Perfect. Listen, if I showed you guys some of the videos, like if I showed you the Breakfast Club sessions five years ago, man I look at those videos now bru, what were you thinking? Like you were looking like a hot mess. Like I was looking like I came out of a scene of castaway like I was Forrest Gump's right hand man in the movie Castaway Tom Hanks. That's what I was looking crazy. And my, my backdrop, everything, nothing looked world class, but you know what? There was great content and it was so good that people just kept coming back and eventually I just kept refining everything. Even our setup right now, it's not perfect, but we just keep putting out the content because it's so much better to just put the work out and then just course correct as you go, as opposed to never starting at all. It's like the good old saying that you don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great. So next up we have here's something that you wanna take into account. Self-sabotage is. At its root a defense mechanism. It's your brain trying to keep you or prov or protect you from perceived threats, but it's outdated programming. Why is it outdated? Programming? Because again, what tends to happen is we go through stress and our sympathetic nervous system kicks in, and you have to go from a sympathetic nervous system to calming your nervous system down and going into a parasympathetic nervous system where you're at ease and your body is at homeostasis, and you don't have all of these adrenal glands firing off in these adrenaline and dopamine and all of that, and cortisol levels at an all time high. And what that does is it wrecks your body. It wrecks your body. So many people are killing themselves because of stress. So self-sabotage. Is one of the things that were necessary to keep us alive during tribal times because again, your brain isn't wired to keep you happy. It's wired to keep you alive. But we tend to stay stressed. We tend to not really navigate through stress in a way where it reduces it as much as possible. Okay? So that's why it's outdated programming, because we stay in this cycle of self-sabotage and a and at a very unconscious level, get addicted to these chemicals that are designed to keep us alive. Okay? So as we get ready to bring the plane in for a landing, here's a real, here are some really great tools for improving the relationship that you have with yourself. Think about that. What if you could have a relationship with your inner child, that little 8-year-old version of you. Because when we have temper tantrums, where do you think it's coming from? That's not an adult. That is that little scared little boy or scared little girl that didn't really know how to properly regulate their emotions. And when you get triggered, that eight-year-old version of you comes out, think about it when people have a temper tantrum. Look at the parallels between a child having a temper tantrum. But now that child is just a big ass adult and they're having temper tantrums, not knowing how to properly communicate or navigate through those emotions. So it's a 8-year-old manifestation of yourself that's coming to the surface and not knowing how to properly deal with those emotions. So this is when we talk about the improvement of the relationship that you have with yourself. A lot of the times it's reconnecting with your inner child. So you have to shift the focus. From self-criticism to self-compassion, from self-criticism, to self-compassion, because let's be honest, sometimes we're just not kind enough to ourselves. We say the meanest stuff about ourselves, we'll beat up on ourselves and that inner voice is really what's leading to our demise and our self-sabotage. So that's why number one, it starts with awareness first. It starts with awareness first. I know I have my little emotional flare outs from time to time and honestly it is like it when I look at moments at my childhood, like I'll reflect back on moments in my childhood like, man, I remember when I used to get these little. Temper tantrums and I would black out on my family. Like I, I would get, so I was in such a state of rage with my family that I would go to the point of no return. Anybody ever have a moment like that in their childhood where you realize you went straight demon mode, like you went dark with it and there was just the point of no return? Or is it just me? I I, I had a lot of trauma that I was navigating through as a child. And now when I reflect back on it, I have a deeper understanding. Oh, that's what I was going through. I didn't know how to properly regulate my emotions and I'd have these. These flare ups against my family and all of that. And then when I have those moments as an adult, it's oh, okay. I see that little boy that handled that very same situation years ago and just ha I haven't properly done the healing necessary. I haven't completely done the healing necessary to not necessarily respond in that way. Okay, so awareness first. Now what you can do is journal moments where you feel resistance or doubt and ask, what am I afraid will happen if I succeed, for example. So perhaps you're having a bit res a bit of resistance on taking the next step with whatever it is that you really want for yourself. And taking some time to journal, like, why am I feeling the way that I'm feeling? And ask what am I afraid will happen if I succeed? Are you afraid that you'll just sabotage it? Are you afraid that you'll lose it? Are you afraid that you'll lose some of those relationships? Are you afraid that you'll let go of what was comfortable and familiar for so many years, but take some time to really reflect on that? Secondly, challenge your inner critic. So identify the negative voice. So as we mentioned, you could even give that negative voice a name, whether it's Johnny Raincloud or negative Nancy, or whatever you wanna go with, and you identify that negative voice and challenge that voice replace. I'm not good enough with, I'm growing and learning, and I'm a work in progress. Okay, number three is practice self-compassion, practice self-compassion, speak to yourself the way you would to a friend, the way you would to a loving friend, of course, because let's be honest, sometimes I. People have these friends that they talk all kinds of craziness to. But you wanna speak to yourself the way you would to a loving friend. Someone that you have deep concern for, like a deep love for, right? And maybe your child, maybe you speak to your child in a very loving way. And that's how you need to essentially speak to yourself. Okay? Forgive yourself for past mistakes. You were basically doing the best that you could with what it was that you had at that moment in time, even for your parents. Think about it think about how challenging navigating through life is and what your parents were up against, what your parents had access to. Maybe they didn't have access to all the resources or the opportunities or the concept of healing. The concept of talking it out, processing your emotions. Self-care. I didn't hear about self-care until my twenties. Like I, I didn't know self-care was a thing growing up. That wasn't something that we spoke about. There was no therapy like that. Back therapy. I don't know how many of y'all can relate, but back in the day, therapy was like for the person that didn't really have their screws together, right? That's who went to get therapy. It wasn't as normalized as it is today. Today it's like socially acceptable to go and get a therapist and we all need some therapy. We all need some coaching and therapy and things that can help us really navigate through these emotions. But there was no self-care. I, we used to eat Cheetos and Oreos and ice cream in the same night in the same that some of y'all are like, man, I still do that, but that's a whole other story. Y'all know exactly what I'm talking. There was no keto diets and no vegan. What are we talking about? Unless it's where I grew up I know where I grew up. What we ate, whatever we wanted to eat. You ate whatever you wanted to eat? No, there was no type of concept whatsoever of eating properly. Maybe as I've climbed up the social hierarchy maybe that's why I'm more aware of it now, but I know for damn sure we ate whatever we wanted to eat. I remember my appendix rupturing at 10 years old because I had food poisoning because we were eating candy and Burger King the night before and all kinds of crazy stuff. Yes. I grew up on, I grew up on spam Kool-Aid Vienna sausages, corn, beef. Hello. Ha. How many of us sorry for the privileged on the Breakfast Club. I know we have some privileged folks, but it's all good. It's all good. No judgment here. Y'all have your own traumas as well. Let's call it for what it is. But I'm talking to those who know exactly what it's like to just grow up with no concept of self-care, no concept of healthy eating but now we know better and that's why we must do better. Your parents were just doing the best that they could with what it is that they have. Number four is set boundaries with yourself. Set boundaries with yourself. Create structures that prevent self-sabotage, like time limits, accountability partners. Scheduled rest. Scheduled rest. Listen this is probably, if there's any big takeaway from the Breakfast Club here this morning, this is probably one of the biggest ones, creating boundaries with yourself to prevent yourself from going into self sabotage. So how does Josh Valentine set boundaries for himself? I mentioned this all the time. I delete my social media because I notice that when I go into a state of doom scrolling where I'm just going through my timeline, I end up feeling terrible. Like it depletes me of all my dopamine. It just gets me in a very unmotivated state. And sometimes justice is not good for my mental health. I'm not sure how many of you can relate to that. So it is essential to, to make sure that you set boundaries for yourself. I delete my apps several times throughout the course of the day, and when I need it for business, I add it. Another thing is I take Sundays off. Man, it was tough. Last Sunday. I had one of my business partners in South Africa was doing a launch and he reached out to me and he had a lot of people on this launch. And I, as much as I wanted to do it, I had to set that boundary for myself. I had to stand strong on what I promised myself because I worked my tail off every single day for about a decade. I worked every single day for a decade. I worked and it wasn't the best it wasn't the best process for cultivating a really healthy family dynamic. If I can just call it for what it's like I needed to get into the habit of every day I have my Holy Sabbath and it's Sunday it's Sunday we do the church thing, we go to the park, we hang out with the kids. We just chill. Sometimes we do nothing, right? And it is just a day to just relax and catch ourselves. And because we've implemented that, it allowed me to always keep close proximity to my family and keep the main things. So have a boundary for yourself where you take some time to relax. Maybe it's at the end of the evening, you just take some time for yourself. I know in the mornings is my time. Like I like to ease into my day, I have this mug. A good friend of mine bought me this mug. I'm Josh doing Josh things and that's a very Josh thing to just be chilling and relax. I got my cat py here, right by us that we inherited from my boy Eddie. And it is usually just me, the cat and the coffee and some good material to read that. That's how I like to ease into my day and that's how I go about self-care. But that is a boundary. That is something that is a must. I do my prayer, meditation. That is a must. I don't compromise on that. Accountability partners. I have tons of community where we hold each other accountable, right? Time limits on certain things. So have these boundaries. Maybe if you do go out drinking, set a limit for yourself. You don't have to go out there and get smashed. You could just go two to maximum three drinks maximum and set. Like I had a set of boundary for myself where I have more days of the week where I don't drink. Then days of the week where I do drink a lot of my friends, like they casually drink. You understand? So from time to time, I'll casually drink and there are some weeks where I don't drink at all. Sometimes like at the beginning of the year, we do a fast and we go several weeks without any type of alcohol consumption. So again, that's a proper boundary to make sure you don't continue on this downward spiral. So hopefully that makes sense for you guys. Now, number five is create affirming habits. So daily affirmations like I am worthy of success, or I show up for myself. These are really great affirmations and things that you could always repeat to yourself. You also wanna celebrate small wins. Don't wait for the big milestones. You have to associate pleasure with productivity. When your brain associates that, if you do this, you get this, you're gonna be more inclined to do a lot of the things that you need to do because you're celebrating yourself. So there's so much power in taking time to celebrate yourself. When my wife and I did our recent business launch back in October, one of the things that we were adamant about was always celebrating ourselves. Once a week, we'd go out and we'd just celebrate, or we'd get a bottle of champagne and just hang out and celebrate ourselves. But this goes a long way. It's a big part of personal development. And number six is get help if needed. Therapy coaching support groups they all can help you re rewire deep seeded patterns. Sometimes we have to get around the thinking that's outthinking us. Sometimes you have to get around people that can identify your blind spots and let you know Hey, I don't know if but like you're walling right now. You're handling this situation a little crazy that was messed up. Or Hey, are you okay? Are you okay? Is everything okay? This doesn't really seem like you, because sometimes you have to be very mindful of judging people or even giving them unsolicited advice because you cannot judge and influence simultaneously. You can't judge and influence someone at the same time. So rather than saying Hey, you're screwing up. Some people need it like that. Let's call it what it is. But in a lot of cases it's just Hey, are you okay just checking in? People process things very differently. So you have to know when it's appropriate to call someone out on their BS or when it's appropriate to just check in on them. Here's a really great quote by Lori Hin, I believe it's pronounced. It is, you can't hate yourself into a better version of yourself. How good is that? You can't hate yourself into a better version of yourself. So if you aspire to be a better version of yourself, you have to love your way there, love yourself. The way there. Just living in a state of self sabotage will not get you to the next level in your life. So have the awareness and do the work necessary and understand that it will require work. Climbing on an upward spiral is going against resistance, but that's how you become stronger, wiser, more resilient. And you have more of a capacity to handle even greater things in your life. So understand that self-sabotage isn't proof that you are broken. It's proof that you are human. But every time you choose to believe in yourself, show up and speak life into your dreams. You are re-writing the script. The relationship you have with yourself sets the tone for everything else. So be kind and most of all, be committed to your growth. Okay, so my call to action to everybody here today who's tuning in. And by the way, if you got value from this, drop a v for value. And if you weren't on earlier and you would like to book a one-on-one coaching session with me, again, I have very limited spots, so only book it if you're serious, right? And my, my call to action to all of you in general is to reflect on. Where have you been getting in your own way? Where have you been getting in your own way? Think about it. Think about your life today and what's holding you back, and take some time to journal about it. Take some time to really ponder what's holding you back and why it's holding you back. Take some time to peel the necessary layers from that onion to get to the root of it, and the root of it may very well find you. Reconnecting with that inner child, reconnecting with that version of you that feels like they're not good enough. That version of you that is scared and fearful and it needs a reminder that he or she is enough, he or she has the ability to do great things. So reconnect with yourself this week, and I wanna encourage you guys to journal. Perhaps you can share your experience on social media. All that good stuff always helps and guys tune into some good reading. Get on some personal development, read some good material. The book. What to Say when you Talk to yourself is probably my top five. I would suggest reading that book if you haven't read it, but flood your mind with positivity throughout the week. Remember, if there is no enemy within, the enemy outside can do us no harm. Garbage in, garbage out. Greatness and greatness out and take some time every day of the week. Go back and listen to past breakfast club sessions if you have to, but flood your mind with positivity. This self-care journey is the best care journey because when it's all said and done, if you can constantly fill your cup, you have more of a capacity to give to the world. Ladies and gentlemen, breakfast is served. God bless every last one of you. Thank you all for tuning in. Please feel free to comment, share, tag someone who can get value from this. Leave a review on the podcast. It's always the best way you can thank me and I look forward to seeing you all next week. Breakfast is served. Take care, everyone.