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In this video, I want to share with you, 10 sentences that changed my life. The first sentence that changed my life was actually something my dad said to me when I was about 18. We were driving the car and I was kind of talking about what I wanted to do with my life. He was trying to give me advice, and he said, you know what? Probably just shouldn't listen to me. In fact, you should probably do the opposite of everything I say. My dad, though, he had a very successful life. You know, he had always expressed he had wanted to do more. He wished he started a business. He wished he had gone out there, took more risks. Though he was just joking. I was like, he's right. I should do the opposite of everything that my dad wouldn't do. So if he wouldn't do it, I should do it. If he would do it, I shouldn't do it. Not because his life is bad, but because I want to see what's possible. This is a person that I trust, I respect, I have a lot of admiration for who's telling me I wish I had taken more risks in my life. I don't think that he knew in the moment how much that impacted me, but I started looking at all the decisions I had in my life. Should I move to California? My dad was like, oh, that's a lot. You don't know anyone out there. I was like, I'll move to California. Should I work at this place or work at this? But I'll work at the place that he doesn't think I should. What it's taught me is a lot of inverse thinking, which is if there are people that I'm asking for advice or they're giving me advice, I then always go to, do they have what I want, or are they happy with what they have? And if they're not, then I would often do the opposite of that. The second question that changed my life was one that my now husband, Alex actually said to me. Because I met him when I was at this weird point in my career where and I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. And I had lost a ton of weight. I wanted to help other people lose weight. And I was just really trying to figure out how to package that and what that looked like. And he said, well, what do you really want to do? Like, how much money do you want to make? And I was like, I don't even think about money. I was like, I just want to help people, and I want to do something I'm passionate about. And I Remember you said to me, what if you could do something you're passionate about and make money? And I was like, like, mind blown. It's so funny. And look back on now, so obvious, like, of course you should try and do something that you're passionate about and make money. But I was never trying to also make money. And the irony of that is that when you're not trying to make money, often what you're doing is not scalable. So. So I was one on one training all these people, like, working my ass off, like I couldn't max out anymore. I was also trying to make money. I would figure out a scalable solution that could help these people to help more people. The third sentence that changed my life was, the only difference between humans and animals is that humans can learn from the mistakes of others and animals cannot. We can save ourselves all the time and pain learning from other people rather than experiencing ourselves. How do humans innovate the world? They take the learnings from other people, apply them so they can go faster, and then actually get ahead. Do I want to spend my life making mistakes that other people made, or do I want to take the advice from other people and just take their word for it and try and avoid those mistakes? I will take anyone who has what I want. If they say, don't do this thing or do this thing, I will absolutely do it. I will test it, I will try it, I will experiment with it. Because obviously you can take everything with grain of salt. And so when people always ask, they're like, layla, have you done so much by this age? I'm like, I literally just listened to other people. The fourth sentence that changed my life was said to me by a therapist because I moved from Michigan to California. I was super anxious all the time. I was nervous, I was stressed, and I was like, I just need to talk to somebody. I go to this therapist and I actually just been in a relationship for a little while and I had broken up with that person. I started talking to her about it and I was like, I'm just not over him yet. And she said, well, how long do you think it'll take you to get over him? And I said, well, I think, you know what people say is it takes you half the length of the relationship to get over that person. So if we were together for like a year and a half, half, it might take me like eight months. And she was like, I think it takes however long you decide it takes, Leila. And I remember she said it with such certainty that I was like, she's like, I'm saying it could take a day. She's like, you could be over him by Thursday. And I was like, that would be amazing. Let's be over him by Thursday. I went home, I started really thinking about it, and I was like, I believe because society says, because I've heard online or on Reddit, that it takes half the length of the relationship to get over someone. I thought that to be true. So it's almost what I realized. It's a placebo effect. We've been told these things that then we assume to be true. We take them on as beliefs, the repeated thoughts, and then we put them on us. And I was enduring this pain and suffering for really no reason other than I thought that's what I was supposed to do. So I took that, and I've now applied that to different areas of my life. I've really tried to rid myself of any societal norms that have been put on me, that have been spoken into me from when I was young. So that was extremely helpful for me because literally by Thursday, I decided I was over the guy. And then by Saturday, I was on Bumble and I was starting to date again. Always question the norm. The fifth sentence that changed my life. Alex and I had been working together. We started Gym Launch. We'd gone through a year and a half, eating shit, sleeping in motels, like, just trying to figure it out. And we've finally gotten it right. We finally, like, the model clicked. We went from flying out to gyms to creating a licensing model that people could purchase from us. We were making 350,000amonth from our kitchen counter. It was like, us with the ea. Life was good. It was, like, probably the most freedom I've ever felt in my life. We were making more money than I could ever imagine. We're in this little place, like, we can afford appetizers, we can get guacamole. Like, we were living good, and we had just gotten married. We got invited by a mentor of ours to a private meetup. There were apparently eight people that were all doing over eight figures. And we were like, like, why are they inviting us? We have no idea what we could contribute to this thing. I remember being super nervous, like, you the night before. We're like, what are we going to say? Like, how do we describe the business? Like, we're such peasants compared to everybody here. We're like, off the night before, like, drawing out, like, yeah, we'll tell them this and we can share this. Like, we just want to provide value we get up and present this in front of the room. I'll never forget. It was silent. Nobody said a word. And I was like, fuck, we suck. Like, they think this is a piece of shit bullshit. And all of a sudden, everybody's like, holy shit. We were like, what? And they were like, if what you say is true, you need to hit the gas. Then this guy walked up to Alex and I, and he put his hands on our shoulders. I remember he said, when it's easy is when you hit the gas. And I was like, what? I think what we do so often is when it's easy, you want to coast because it feels good. You want to enjoy it. And I did. I felt great. We're married. We're going out for appetizers. I don't finally feel, like, bone exhaustion every day. And then I think when it's hard is usually when we do want to hit the gas because we want to get out of pain. But what I realize is actually the opposite. In business, when it feels easy, you need to lean in. You need to maximize that shit. You need to go as fast, as hard as possible. When it feels hard is when you need to pull back, slow down, reconsider, because you might be going in the wrong direction. We went from excited kind of coasting, like, not a huge vision of what we want to do to, like, we have a vision, we have a mission. We're building a team. This is going to be an enterprise. We're going to go fast as possible. I'm 23. Alex is 26. They're like, you guys are young. You've got something really good. All these big players in the space are going to see what you're doing soon. They're going to take your shit and eat it for lunch. And I was like, oh, hell no. We went as fast as possible building the team. You know, we went from, like zero to, I think, 30 some people in the first year. And then we had like 75 by the second year, and then 120. I really don't think that that guy knows how much of an impact that had to say that to us. The sixth sentence that changed my life occurred during a conversation I was having with a mentor. If you look at one of my videos, I talk about my biggest mistake. It was really over promoting people in my company. And then they overhiered, and then they had to fire a lot of people in to layoff. I really was in not a great spot. Like, I was losing confidence as a leader. I felt insecure. I hated Showing up on meetings because I just felt like I was a piece of shit. And I'll never forget. Pain may not be optional, but suffering is. Pain will always occur. But the stories we tell ourselves about the pain is up to us. So the story I was telling myself was that because I had to lay these people off, I must not actually care about people. I'm a terrible boss. Everyone's gonna talk shit about me. Nobody's gonna want to work for me. Everybody hates me. I'm actually not who I think I am. What I realized was that that was a choice. I was telling myself that story, thinking that if I felt worse, I would change my behavior. And what it did is it made me feel worse, which I was used to using a lot of negative energy to change my behavior. But it wasn't working. And I realized adding suffering on top of pain prolongs finding the solution. Every time something happens in our life, every time we make a mistake, we mess up. Something bad happens to us. We get to choose how we tell that story. And I realized that I was really not productively telling that story. I was telling a story that was the end rather than the beginning. And so then I started asking myself useful questions. How is this good? How is me laying off all these people good? And how could it be good? How can I use this to create a better future? This is a good thing because I can teach other people. I can help so many other thousands of other people, prevent them from this problem. Me going through this means all these people don't have to, and that's what it's done. So if you look at my video where I talk about my biggest mistake, I can't even tell you the amount of people that have thanked me for that, because they haven't made that mistake. Now, you know, what is it? Making lemonade with lemons or whatever people say. The seventh sentence that changed my life happened during a conversation with a girlfriend of mine who's very smart and intelligent and is into behavioral psychology. We were talking about our past and how so many people identify with their pasts, they allow their past to control them. And I was talking to her about my mother, which I've talked about in some videos, but I don't talk about a ton. I realized that I never wanted who she was to be who I would become. And she said, but if you're trying to be the opposite of what she is, isn't she still controlling you? And I was like, what the fuck? I was fearful of becoming like her. Therefore, I went in the opposite direction. So the actions were still dictated by fear. And because of that, it still controlled me. And that was when I realized when we try to avoid something, we're like, oh, I don't want it to have that effect on me. So I avoid it. It's controlling us because it's making us go in the opposite direction. It's like when a kid, their parent says, go to bed at 9 and they're like, fuck you, I'm going to bed at midnight, or 1am and the next day they're tired of shit. It's like you're parent is still controlling you and you're still suffering the consequences. It's just in a different way. So what's the solution? Right? I had to take a look at myself and say, who do I want to be? I know I don't want to be my mother, right? Take that out of the equation. If she didn't exist. Part of it was also acknowledging the dark side of myself. When I look at someone like her, she's highly anxious, highly stressful, whatever. How could I recognize that I do have some of those attributes, but those are good and I can use them for good. I don't have to let them overtake my life. I can use them to fuel the success in my life, to accept it and move on and show yourself, like, it's okay to be human. The eighth sentence that changed my life was actually said by Tony Robbins. As you all know, me and Alex don't have kids. And I am used to a lot of people putting their judgment on me of either assuming that I can't have kids and that we've tried and we can't, or assuming that, you know, we're selfish, we don't want kids, whatever. The truth is, is that I just don't have a strong desire to have kids. But until this conversation, which was about a year and a half ago or a year ago, I didn't understand it. And I also judged myself for it. Like, I literally was like, what' wrong with me? I was at a Tony Robbins private event and he started talking about like the six human needs. The one thing I was like, I want to ask him why I don't want kids. Like, do you know why I don't want kids? I don't know. And he went up there and he actually gave the example. He said, so here's the human needs. Fill them out like where you're at. And I saw that I was really 85 to 100 on all the needs. Like, I feel like Most of them are met. And then it was like, how are they met? And it's like, okay, well, there's work, friends, husband, like family. He said, so for example, women that are younger and don't have maybe a husband, career or career, friends, etc. Are much more likely to have kids. They lack these human needs. He said, But a woman who finds her career early in life, has a good support system of friends and family and finds her husband typically doesn't have such a desire to have kids. Why? Because her needs are met. I remember it just clicked for me. I was like, that's exactly what it is. Desire comes from lack and there is none. And that really helped me because I think that a lot of the times there's these societal norms that are put upon us. And I think society is changing a lot right now for me particularly. I know know that I felt like there was something wrong with me. I felt like, this is weird, like, I should want kids. Like, I'm getting older. Like, let's go. You know how I want the desire to come. And I'm like, it's actually just gotten smaller and smaller. And the reason for that is because I've become more fulfilled over time. And I think a lot of times we judge ourselves for having or not having something in life. Oh, I don't have enough friends. Oh, I should, you know, get a boyfriend. Oh, I should get married. Oh, I should have kids. But the reality is, if you're filling those buckets in some way, it's natural to just continue to fill them in that way. There's nothing wrong with not filling it the way that other people tell you you should. The ninth sentence that changed my life, I was discussing with a coach. I was talking to them because I had just had a panic attack. And I hadn't had panic attack in. It was like seven years. I used to get them when I was younger. Like when I moved out on my own. Like, I would get panic attacks when I was freaking out about money and stuff like that. I had one maybe two and a half years ago, and it just completely threw me through a loop. It was like, who am I? How could I be successful and have a panic attack? If people knew I had a panic attack, they would fucking not work for me. I was really judging myself for it. Like, I made it into something bigger than it was because of that. Very quickly started to build up a lot of what I want to call safety behaviors, which is any situation that reminded me of having that panic attack. I, like, try to avoid For a period of time, I, like, didn't want to get near it. I didn't want to be doing it. And I was so scared I was going to have another panic attack and it was completely irrational. And then I remember I was talking to a coach and he said this. Actions to eliminate anxiety also perpetuate it. Mmm. He's like, every time you avoid the situation, you actually just prolong your anxiety. You're actually going to make the fear bigger. I then sought out to do all of it. And so I have this phrase that I gave in my mind. I just said, prove yourself wrong. Because I knew that my brain went into survival mode and it was saying, you must avoid all these things that are completely irrational because you might have a panic attack and that means you could die. I went into this mode where I was like, do the opposite of everything your brain says. Do the opposite, do the opposite. Do the opposite. Prove yourself wrong. And I did it for, like, a solid three months, and I got myself out of that funk. And that's also not to say that I still don't fucking deal with it. There are still times where I'm like, I. Like when I go up to speak on stage, I'm like, what if I have a panic attack? I'm like, it. Let it happen. Do it in front of everybody. You know, like, I'll set an example for everyone who has anxiety. And I made it mean. I am human. I am not a robot. I am not bulletproof. I am unwavering. I am resilient. I am adaptable, But I'm also fucking human. You can see me on YouTube. I'm like, big business, money, all this shit, I am still a human. The 10th sentence that changed my life was something that my friend Dr. Kashi said. You know, he's very intuitive, so he was like, how are you today? And I was like, not good. And that day specifically was one where I knew that I had to fire somebody that was. I was very close to in the company. And I remember, like, weeks leading up to it. I would wake up every day at 3am with nightmares and, like a cold sweat. And it was just because I was stressed, really didn't want to do it. I loved this person. They were great. They felt like a friend, almost like family. And there was someone that's just, like, walked through fire for us. But they just completely had to hit their level of incompetence to the point where the whole team had come to me and said, you need to get rid of this person. When the whole executive team comes to you, it's a problem. I remember he said this one thing, which I think has become a little more popular now, but you hear me say it a lot, which is, what feels bad is often good for you, and what feels good is often not good for you. That's true. I don't think he knows that. Literally. That sentence is probably something I say to myself every day. Because in order to grow and be successful, it requires dedication, sacrifice, hard work. And often those things don't feel good. Right. We're uncomfortable in the moment. We feel anxiety, we feel dread. We feel frustration, we feel anger. We want to give up. Our brains tell us to give up our brains tell us to avoid this thing. And I feel like a lot of times being successful is the result of enduring those feelings.