[8 min] How to Reframe Your Mindset for Success with Lewis Howes

"What if this doesn't work out?"

That one lingering question that drives just about every entrepreneur crazy (like a fly at a barbeque).

But what if—instead of letting it buzz around our heads—we reframed our mindset to see it as an opportunity for growth?

“OK. Sounds great, Jasmine. But how?” I’m so glad you asked…

In this episode, Lewis Howes shares strategies for overcoming fear and self-doubt. But that’s not all, you’ll also learn how to reframe your mindset by focusing on potential success rather than failure and what actionable steps to take toward your goals.

Click play to hear all of this and…

(00:00:19) The best questions to ask to initiate change and overcome fear.

(00:00:23) How to create a fear list, face fears, and overcome self-doubt through actionable steps.

(00:02:13) How Lewis overcame the fear of public speaking.

(00:04:47) How you can gain confidence through embracing feedback (and how!).

(00:06:27) What you can REALLY achieve when you overcome fear.

(00:07:24) How you can work on overcoming the fear of criticism.

For full show notes, visit: https://jasminestar.com/podcast/episode428

Transcript

Jade Hall (00:00:00) - Have you ever felt like you were stuck in place, unable to make a decision because of fear? Hey there, I'm Jade Coco for Jasmine Star, and in this short and sweet episode of The Jasmine Star Show, you'll get actionable advice from Lewis Howes to help you not only overcome challenges, but use them to fuel your success. Now grab your coffee. Let's listen in.

Jasmine Star (00:00:19) - Kind of courageous questions can we start asking ourselves to change?

Lewis Howes (00:00:22) - I mean.

Lewis Howes (00:00:23) - What if it does work out? You know what? And what would need to happen in order for to workout? Not asking what if it doesn't work out? And then how would people think about me? Or what will they say about me? Or I'll feel like a failure and then I won't try again. But more so in a world of possibilities. If this could work out, what would I need to create, do, become asked for in order for it to happen? Maybe it doesn't happen in the timeline I want, but if it had to happen, who would I need to be? And I think when you ask who you need to be, that's when you face a lot of your fears.

Lewis Howes (00:00:56) - And I have a whole section in the book about creating a fear list and writing down an entire list of all your fears and insecurities. When you have these fears that are consuming your energy, that are holding you back from taking action again, this is not a conversation of your good or bad, right and wrong. It's just. Is it useful for you in life to have these fears holding you back? If it's not useful, then it's going to take courage for you to act on them consistently until you overcome them. You cannot outthink your fears. You cannot strategize your fears. You must face them emotionally, psychologically, and physically, and deal with the pain of failing on the way because you will fail. One of my biggest fears was public speaking early on, and I met a mentor who was a professional public speaker, and I was like, I have no clue how to speak in front of a group of five people without stuttering, stumbling, sweating, forgetting what I was going to say and feeling like an idiot because I just felt like everyone was smarter around me and he goes, if you want to be impactful in the world, whether you get a job and you want to speak in a boardroom, or you want to influence a partner of yours in a moving way, you want to speak in front of a crowd.

Lewis Howes (00:02:13) - Whatever it is, you've got to be able to enroll people in your vision. And if you want to enroll people in your vision, you must learn to communicate what your vision is effectively. It doesn't mean you have to become the best public speaker in the world, but you've got to learn how to have some skills, some tools on how to just communicate. And I didn't have that skill except for one on one. But I couldn't do it in group because I was so afraid of judgment. That was my biggest fear. There's three main fears that cause us to doubt ourselves. Self doubt is the killer of dreams. It's what holds us back from acting courageously. When we doubt ourselves, we don't ask the girl out. You know we don't get out of the toxic relationship. We don't ask for the raise. We don't make a bigger offer in our business to get bigger clients. We are afraid and we doubt ourselves. And so we just don't act. We think we wait, we analyze, we don't act.

Lewis Howes (00:03:03) - It's not bad. It's just isn't getting you the results you want in your life. And do you feel good about yourself when you are crippled by fear? I never did, I just felt insecure and not enough. And so when I learned to say, all right, I'm going to go all in on this fear of public speaking. And he told me exactly what to do, and I just followed it like an athlete. Okay, give me the steps. I will do everything you tell me. He said. You need to go every week for a year to Toastmasters, which is a public speaking course, and you need to fail. You need to fail and experience the humiliation of what it feels like. And then you need to realize you're still alive. You're okay. Maybe some people thought of you in a certain way, but you get back up, you do it next week, and then you're going to fail again. But maybe it won't be as bad because you'll learn one thing to improve and do this every week for a year, and come back to me and tell me what happens.

Lewis Howes (00:03:54) - And this is what I did every week. The first speech I did, I wrote out word for word, this five minute speech, and I thought to myself, I have no idea what to say. For five minutes it felt like a lifetime. And I wrote out and I and I got behind a podium and I spoke, and I didn't look up one time at the crowd of about 20 people. Now, this is a safe space. This is like an environment where you're supposed to give good feedback and people are there to help you. It's not like they're going to laugh at you.

Lewis Howes (00:04:21) - How old are you at this time?

Lewis Howes (00:04:22) - 23. Okay, 24 or 23. I also had a full arm cast on, so I had a cast from here to here, just kind of standing as I'm reading this paper with a cut off shirt, a backwards cap, baggy jeans, just got done playing football, and everyone's in suits and they're all professionals and they're all incredible speakers. And I get up there behind the podium, stuttering, stumbling, just feeling like the Biggest loser.

Lewis Howes (00:04:47) - And I looked down and read word for word. The whole thing would flip the page, read the whole thing. And then I finally looked up the end after these five minute speech. And, you know, people clap and I kind of see some mixed faces. And then three different people are supposed to give feedback. This is the whole part of it. You're supposed to get feedback and coaching and they're supposed to give like, you know, positive and, you know, critical feedback as well. And all of them said like kind things like, hey Louis, great job for having the courage for getting up here. Next time, just try to look up once or twice in the speech and just connect with us, connect with the audience. So I remembered that okay Louis, great job again. You had a great story in there. Just make sure to add a couple of pauses because you just went really fast. Okay. So I got the feedback. And then the next week I said I literally wrote the script again.

Lewis Howes (00:05:35) - Word for word. And I look up, I look up.

Lewis Howes (00:05:39) - And I look.

Lewis Howes (00:05:40) - Up and I look back down.

Lewis Howes (00:05:42) - And again it was I was fumbling my way through this. It wasn't like I.

Lewis Howes (00:05:46) - Was doing.

Lewis Howes (00:05:47) - A great job, but I was practicing. And at the end of the year, I was able to be in front of the audience, give a speech, not need a podium, not needing no cars, not needing notes and give an effective speech where I got a standing ovation. And then within six months after that, I made my first thousand dollars at a speaking event, which a year and a half before then, I would have never thought anyone would ever pay me to speak in front of an audience. And now, today, speaking. I'm not the best in the world, but it's become one of my superpowers. Whereas before is the thing that made me feel the most powerless. I faced the fear by going all in on it until it disappeared, and now it's a superpower.

Lewis Howes (00:06:27) - So I did that one by one by one. I had a lot of fears, and I just went down the list and started doing this. Okay, salsa dancing, this is terrifying for me. I did the same thing. I went every week for a year and threw myself into humiliation. And I realized, okay, at the end of the day, maybe there are some people laughing at me. Maybe this is very uncomfortable. Maybe I do stand out and the more I show up and the better I get, the more confident I become. Not just in this area of my life, but every area. Because when you overcome one thing that's a fear of yours that cripples you, that causes you to doubt yourself. It expands your ability to be confident in every other area of life. These things I did in my early 20s allowed me to have take so much action in business in my mid to late 20s, where I had no place of doing the things that I was supposed to do, and everyone was like, Louis, how are you growing so fast? I was like, I'm just not afraid of failure.

Lewis Howes (00:07:24) - I'm not afraid of it. And I was afraid of judgment. But the fear of failure did not hold me back from taking action. Now, I still would get reactive when people were critical or leave nasty comments online or all these things. I still had that wound, but I was driven to succeed and so I wasn't afraid of failure or success. But it was the fear of judgment which was making me feel not good inside. Most people are afraid of failure and success. Those weren't my fears. Judgment was. And it wasn't until I, ten years ago, when I started to face the wounds where I was able to do the things that I love and not worry about the criticism anymore. It doesn't mean I don't pay attention. And I take what's useful and I say, okay, how can I improve this myself? But I don't react to all the criticism that I used to ten years ago.

Jade Hall (00:08:16) - Wasn't that good. Thanks for listening with me. Our hope is that you go out there, defeat your fears and pursue your dreams.

Jade Hall (00:08:23) - Until next time.