The self-doubt that keeps you from becoming the 1%

In this episode of The Fuck It Shift, Adam Ross breaks down the kind of self-doubt that keeps people from taking the risk, chasing the next level, and becoming part of the 1%.

Adam talks openly about rebuilding after failure, the fear of trying again, and how old losses can create a belief system that quietly convinces you it can’t be you.

He explains why self-doubt is rarely about skill. More often, it’s about the stories you keep telling yourself, the roadblocks you create in your own mind, and the fear of becoming someone you don’t yet believe you are.

This episode also introduces a practical exercise for getting past self-doubt: writing down the negative thoughts, writing the opposite truth beside them, and crossing out the lies your brain keeps repeating.

Adam shares why failure doesn’t have to be the thing that stops you. Sometimes, once you learn from it, failure becomes the thing that builds you.

Because faith doesn’t make it happen.

It makes it possible.

Socials:

IG: @adamross_online
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LinkedIn: Adam Ross

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Fuck It Shift Podcast. I'm Adam Ross and I'm joined by producer Jay to kick it off.

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Jay, what's up? Adam, when you're rebuilding, how important is it to get over uh self-doubt that you can actually get there?

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Man, look, your self-doubt is paralyzing you. Off camera, we were talking about the the 1% and the 99% that's that's not making it, and how that stops you. That I don't think it's me. Everyone wants to be in a Hollywood Bollywood movie. It's they want to be that guy, that girl. But how many times you catch yourself talking yourself out of it? When I was going through, and people would think right now I've arrived, like I and I would tell you, I'm not even close to being satisfied or done, quote unquote done. Um, and I don't look at myself as I've I'm in any percentage. I'm hustling to get to the next level. The difference with me is I don't have the self-doubt anymore. I know I can make it happen. I make shit happen. But that wasn't the way it was 10 years ago. 10 years ago, I like discovered that I know what it feels like to have a panic attack because I wanted it so bad. And I spent so much of my time starting this company and rebuilding out of losing a company, telling myself that I wasn't good enough. I didn't want to do that again, I would never take that risk. It wasn't worth the payoff. It's safer to get a job, it's safer. I'm telling you, AI may not even let you get a job anymore. You might have to be an entrepreneur, you might have to roll the dice, you might have to couple those skills with the ability to connect and and reach people. So if you take that and add that into the equation, you don't have room for self-doubt. So I would encourage you, and and I struggled with it, man. I struggled with it really hard that I wasn't good enough. It wouldn't be me. I wouldn't uh I I wouldn't know how to do it, or I wouldn't know what to do with it if I made it. And so we talked off camera about how big fear is the paralyzer. It's not your skills, it's the fact that you're afraid to put the work in because if you do get to the 1%, that's not who you believe you are. And that's that's a tragedy because it's in you, it's in everybody. But the bullshit stories you tell yourself, the reasons you make up, the roadblocks you've put in, the black balloons you hold on to stop you from saying, Fuck yeah, it's me. I can do it. And that took me years to get to even wanting to do something like this, to be an entrepreneur again, because the sting and the pain of knowing what it feels like to fail now's a gift back then was paralyzing.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Are you okay if I stereotype for a second on this podcast? Okay, so um everyone else is doing it. I I feel like one of the paralyzing things people have is their identity and what they look like, that they don't look like, in quotes, the person that is, you know, in charge, successful, up there where they want to get, and that holds them back. If I were to say to you, my vision, and this is what I'm going to stereotype of the individual who is leading a massively successful business in the mortgage world, you know, uh clean cut hair, quarter zips, khaki pants, dress shoes, which you are none of that individual.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

No, no, in the comments on the undertaker. Hey, that guy's a legend then. I'll take it. I wouldn't I wouldn't mess with the undertaker. So it's the hair. It's the hair.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Based on that stereotype that I have, was that something that ever held you back from getting to where you wanted to go? Um, the way that you look or perceive your looks, and were there ever ideas of like, okay, I feel like I should shave, but it doesn't feel right. But I want to do it because I have that perception of that's what that individual looks like.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

I think I worried more about my pedigree and my history. I was a mutt, I was a failure, I didn't make it work at business, and sitting in banking meetings, being told by the banker, well, like, you know, you didn't uh do so well the last time you had a business. I think those were the things that held me back more. I didn't focus that much on my looks or what uh whether I fit the corporate finance bro mold. Um, I worried more whether people would see behind the mask that I already failed, that I already fucked up, and they wouldn't believe that I could I could do it again. I had a really powerful meeting with a gentleman that was taken way too early in life in an interview. His name was uh Steve. And he, before he passed, he did an interview with me and about my wanted to hire me, wanted me to grow his company, and and he knew the history of what I what the business I had and didn't work. And he's like, Man, I don't even know why you're in this interview. You're the guy, like just do it again. And I left that interview being like, you don't really know what it feels like to fail. You need part, you need time to heal. You don't have the same belief anymore. You climb to a certain plateau and then you got knocked off. And during those times is the times you have the largest self-doubt. The there's no fucking way I'm doing it again. I won't measure up. Everyone will know I'm a failure. I can't make it work. And that poison in your system takes time to get out. If I was to run into me now, I would have had a framework to get out of it because I developed it myself by reading books and figuring out what other people who failed did. But I had the balls to dive into that and figure out how to fix it. I'm telling you now from this perspective, fuck all that. The reason why you're not moving forward or the you're afraid to take the risk is for what? Because you might have failed. We did an episode about the a real king, isn't given a crown. It's earned by fucking things up or failing and being empathetic for others who failed and learning through that process. So when we talk about fear paralyzing, and we talk about going from you know, trying to get to the 1% or taking the risk or running a business or having what lessons do you need to be successful? I would tell you, you just need to believe faith doesn't make it happen, it makes it possible. Because faith is believing that you can get it done.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

For someone that has all these paralyzing self-doubts currently, what's um would you say is the best way to start to get over them?

SPEAKER_01 7:18

If you get anything from this to get past the self-doubt, and I wish I learned this a long time ago, get quiet, get a piece of paper. It's gotta be a piece of paper. Get a pencil, pen, and you need to put a line down the middle of the page and you need to write down every single thing that you have a doubt about, everything that you think you fucked up, everything you think you won't do, everything you won't be successful at, everything you suck at. And then I need you to take another colored pen. And I need you to write the opposite of whatever you wrote on the left side of the page. When you write that out, take the colored pen and stroke out the bullshit you wrote on the other side. That will be the quickest way for you to mentally go through the process of popping the black balloons, breaking down the myth, breaking down the self-doubt. And I would tell you, you probably got to do it weekly at first. You probably make some time to sit down and do it because you'll have new self-doubts because the brain loves to trick you. The brain is really good at reminding you that you suck, that you should be careful, that everything's dangerous. And then you can probably get down to it once a month, once every two months. But it's something I still do to this day, no matter where I am, is will this work? Why isn't this working? What's wrong with me? Taking self-inventory. That's the way to get past this roadblock.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

So someone like yourself, who I would say is very successful, still has self-doubt in their life at times.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

No matter what level of success you have or what you think you've achieved or arrived, a true entrepreneur, a true leader will still have self-doubt. The difference between it being crippling and forcing in action is believing enough in yourself and having the faith in yourself that you know that you're a tactical leader, you make the right decisions, you've made them in the past, you've done the exercises I've told you about all the lists of negative things, and then the opposite page, all the things that are positive, and staying focused on feeding yourself, the belief system, the word tracks, planting the good seeds that will make you the leader you need to be. Until next time, see you on the other side.