This Video Will Turn Your Anxiety into Success

Summary

• Being highly anxious can be a sign of caring deeply about your pursuits, and it's better than having nothing that motivates you.
• Early in my career, success came hand-in-hand with stress and anxiety, making me feel less vibrant and more stifled.
• It's essential for leaders to manage stress effectively since striving for perennial perfection leads to poor decisions and ineffective leadership.
• I try not to take things too seriously, which helps prevent stress from impacting my decision-making and leadership.
• During anxious moments, especially in the morning, I practice 'thought diffusion' by visualizing my thoughts as leaves in a river or questioning their validity.
• Setting small daily goals helps me focus on moving forward despite business concerns that cause stress.
• Reframing thoughts as "spam" and choosing not to act on them reduces their frequency and intensity. This stops reinforcing a fear-mongering mindset.
• Differentiating between valid concerns, supported by evidence, and useless worries is key to not letting every thought dictate your actions.
• Accepting that you can't control your thoughts and allowing them to exist without reacting can break the cycle of anxiety and stress.
• Practicing detachment from thoughts, such as envisioning them as external entities like cars or fish, can help you continue with your day despite mental distractions.
• Stress is inevitable, but choosing the stress of change over the stress of stagnation is more productive.
• Embrace the overwhelming and stressful times; they often lead to learning and growth, setting the stage for subsequent periods of relief.
• Recognize that nothing is permanent, and each challenging season is followed by an easier one, so make the most of the present moment.

Video

How To Take Action

I would suggest starting your day by setting small goals. This can keep you moving forward even when you're feeling stressed or anxious about your business. Think of a tiny step you can take that day, and focus on that instead of worrying about everything at once.

When anxious thoughts pop up, imagine them as something else, like leaves in a river, as I do. It sounds simple, but it can help you see your thoughts as separate from yourself. You don’t have to react to every thought that comes your way.

Try labeling your worries as "spam". When you have lots of spam in your email, most of it isn't important, right? Treat unhelpful thoughts the same way. Acknowledge them, but then decide not to act on them because you want to reduce their number. Ask yourself if there's real evidence that supports your stress. If not, it might just be spam.

Remember that stressful times can lead to growth. When you're in a tough spot, understand it's not going to last forever. Every difficult moment is followed by an easier one. If you choose to change something, yes, you'll feel stressed, but that stress can actually move you forward.

Lastly, accept that stress is a part of life. Choose the stress that comes with positive change over the stress that keeps you stuck. Learn from challenging times and know that they will eventually lead to periods of relief and growth.

So every day, take small steps, watch your thoughts float by without getting involved, and choose the kind of stress that helps you grow. This way, you can feel less anxious and use stress in a way that's helpful for you and your business.

Quotes by Leila Hormozi

"I'm grateful that I have things I care about so much that I stress out over them, cuz a lot of people have nothing they care about"

– Leila Hormozi

"People underestimate how important it is as the leader of a company to be able to manage your stress"

– Leila Hormozi

"The only way that you can get there is you break the link between thought to action"

– Leila Hormozi

"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"

– Leila Hormozi

"You're going to feel stressed no matter what, you might as well feel awful and productive at the same time"

– Leila Hormozi

Full Transcript

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 cuz 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 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 and 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 coworker 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 often times 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 BAS Bas 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 with 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 between thought to action I think if you want to break the 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 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 up 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 something and do the opposite you can have a thought what if I my pants and 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 thoughts 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 I think at one point in my early career like I was almost to a degree I was like I got to 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 often times 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 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 cuz 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 often times 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 I even joke that you'll see like the soiled one which is like the shitty 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 detached 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 I'm 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 shitty 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 [Music] in