← Build with Leila Hormozi
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You look at traits of super high achievers. Most of them start off highly anxious. God, I'd rather have that than not be able to get out of bed and not have anything worth living for. Like, I'm grateful that I have things I care about so much that I stress out over them, because a lot of people have nothing they care about. When I first got into business, I felt anxious all the time. And I think very successful, but anxious and stressed and not happy. I didn't feel like I was like a vibrant version version of myself. I felt stifled. In a weird way, people underestimate how important it is as the leader of a company to be able to manage your stress. Trying to make sure everything is absolutely dialed perfect at all times is unrealistic. And so it's like, then we stress ourselves out over it and actually in stressing ourselves out, act like a worse leader, act like a worse co worker, we make worse decisions. For me, it's like, when I have a lot going on, I think the most important thing is I don't take it too seriously. Because if I do, I stress myself out more. I make poor decisions. I'm not a great leader. People don't tell me problems because they're worried about stressing me out more. In the morning, I would say, is like, when my brain is the most wild. And so I go on a walk and oftentimes, like, anxious thoughts will pop up. And the first thing I do is just practice thought diffusion. Whether it be picturing those thoughts as I do, like leaves in a river, or it could be questioning the thoughts and trying to accumulate evidence to build up, like, is it real? Is it not? And I always set little goals for myself based on kind of how I start my day. It's like, okay, well, if this is how I'm feeling, then, like, my goal is to carry on despite this stress, despite this thing, despite this, like, maybe impending problem in the business that's stressing me out and I want to do something about it, right? And I'm like, okay, my goal is just to get through the day without giving it any more attention. I'll acknowledge the thought when it comes up. I'm not going to do anything about it. I'm able to say, oh, wow, that's a. That's an interesting thought. Yeah, that's pretty stressful. But you know what? I'm not going to do anything about that. You know, something I like to say to myself is, I like to say, that's just spam. I'm like, dang, I Got a lot of spam today. It's like, you know when you open your email and it's like you have a ton of spam, you're like, oh, God. Like, I thought these were important emails, but they're not. I think that was my thought. Unuseful, unproductive thoughts. And some days I really want to act on them, but I don't. Because the question I ask myself is, do I want more of these thoughts or less of them? Well, if I want less of them, then I won't act on this. And now there are thoughts that are valid, meaning, like there's evidence to support them. And so I think that the way that you differentiate is just to ask yourself, like, what evidence supports that this is true? Acting on our thoughts and emotions like they are facts and directives has led to so many people hating work, you know, because they are in this environment where it's perpetually fueled by anxiety and stress and fear. I genuinely really love working. And I think people often see me and Alex and they think, gosh, they must be miserable working all the time like robots. I'm like, I love what I do. I don't feel like a ball of stress every day. I think that the only way that you can get there is you break the link to between thought to action. I think if you want to break the link between thought and action, the first step is accepting that you don't control your thought. Realize that everybody has crazy, weird up, scary, anxious thoughts. You don't need to do anything about them. They can exist and you can exist in the world simultaneously. You can have terrible thoughts. And you can also show up today and record content or run a company. The more that you can accept them, the more that they don't stress you out. Don't try to find the meaning behind it. Not trying to figure out, why did I have that, that thought? Like the moment that you try to make sense of the brain, that's when you're getting too caught up in it. So it's acknowledging the thought, making yourself aware of the thought, and then saying, you know what? Cool, maybe today I've got a ton of thoughts. I'm going to go on with my day anyways. The second piece to it is how can you detach from it? I think that's just how can you change your perspective on it? The thought does not dictate behavior. You can have a thought and then go do something else. So a great practice for this is go walk in a circle and then tell yourself you can't Walk in a circle, keep walking in a circle and keep telling yourself you can't, oh my God, you can think, think something and do the opposite. You can have a thought, what if I my pants when I give that speech? And you can still go give that speech. And often what you'll find is that the thought never comes to reality. And so I think that that's really the second step is teaching yourself that thought do not need to equate to action. And that what you'll see over time is the more times that you take action that is opposite of the thought, the less the thought will occur. If I have daily stressors that are popping up, which in business I think you get new ones left and right and I'm constantly acting on them. I would just turn into a paranoid freak, you know what I mean? And I think at one point in my career, like I was almost to a degree, I was like, I gotta, you know, block and tackle, like make sure nothing kills the company, right? And what I realized was I was just reinforcing this fear mongering mindset by taking action on those fearful thoughts. Oftentimes solving problems rewards us in some way. But when the problems are thinking problems, not practical problems, then we just chase ourselves in circles. A lot of people try to control their thoughts by changing their environment, changing their circumstances. And the reality is if you just don't try to control your thoughts and don't try to engage with them, allow them to be there, acknowledge them, accept that they exist, they will go away eventually. Unfortunately, a lot of people, and it turns out in business they don't do that. And so then they act on it. And then they just create this life of chaos where they just have so many open loops that they haven't closed because they're constantly trying to solve problems that don't exist. And you see a lot in business with people who get really paranoid and they're constantly thinking, what if this happens, my business will burn down. And so then they have to go do something about it. It's like, well, what if that thought could exist and you could do nothing about it? That's the case for so many things. It's like in relationships, a girl has a thought, she says, what if he's cheating on me? And then she says, you know what? Because I have that thought, I should go check his phone. And then what happens is now she feels better because she checked his phone and nothing was there. So what does she want to do the next time she has that thought? She wants to check his Phone again. One day he walks in and he sees her on his phone and he thinks, do you not trust me? Oftentimes the behavior leads to more problems than it solves for. It solves for a thinking problem, not a practical problem. And so if we can separate ourselves and say, is this a thinking problem or is it a practical problem? A really helpful way to separate yourself from thoughts is just to think of them as outside yourself. And so, like, a lot of practices that allow this are to think of them like something else that we are familiar with. One example could be like, cars passing by in a street. You think of your thought as that. Another way I look at it is like fish in a pond. Even joke that you'll see, like, the soiled one, which is like the thought, and you can just harpoon it out. I think all of those things are helpful exercises mentally to detach from your thoughts. It's not like you need to, like, forever detach. I don't think that that's a good goal. It's like, can you just detach for, like, enough time that you can then do the thing that you said you were going to do, that you can do the thing that scares you, that you can do the thing that stresses you out, that you can move forward with your day, that you can get out of bed, Whatever it is, I think that it's just giving yourself enough space that you can take the first step. You're going to feel stressed no matter what. If you're in a situation that you don't like and you're stressed about it, you're going to remain stressed. If you don't do anything, if you try to change, you will also feel stressed. Only in one scenario does the stress also move you forward. And in my opinion, the stress of change, I would take any day to the stress of remaining the same and fearing what my life may look like if I don't change. For me, it's very freeing to have the realization when I'm feeling very stressed because maybe I feel stuck in a decision. I'm like, oh, my gosh, you know what? I will feel just as stressed making a change. Only one of them is going to drive me forward. And so it's a great frame shift. If you're trying to change, which is you already feel awful, you might as well feel awful and productive at the same time. Things are overwhelming sometimes. There's just no fighting it. And I think it's always so much worse if you don't want to accept that things are going to be overwhelming and stressful, whereas I just feel like I eventually just lean into it. I'm like, this is going to be stressful, overwhelming, not going to like it. I'm not going to enjoy it. Will I be better for it? Will I learn things? Yes. I appreciate those times because I think a lot of the times where I've learned the most in my career have been the times where it's the hardest, where it feels. Where you feel like you just want to be freaking over. After a season of feeling stressful comes a season of relief, and then again a season of stress. It's just life. I've just done this for too long to think that anything is permanent. You just always know that there's an end in sight to every season you're in. Try to make the most of the one that you're in.