How to stop caring what others think

To have a winner’s mentality, you have to stop caring what other people think. You’ve gotta get quiet in your own head.

So many people make big life decisions based on other people’s opinions. You care so much about what your mom, dad, brother, or friends think that you’re allowing them to dictate your actions in life.

At the core of it, the barriers so many people have aren’t really about “money” or “time.” They’re about opinions.

It’s the biggest reason so many people are unhappy right now. Because they value someone else’s opinion more than their own.

Once you get past that, life can get real good. 

Here’s how you can get quiet in your own head:

Take feedback with context from others  

The best way to take feedback is to understand where the feedback is coming from.

What’s the agenda behind the feedback? What’s the intent?

For example, so many parents tell their kids what direction they should go in their lives. But parents have an agenda too. Many parents are insecure, and use their kids’ success to justify their own self-esteem.

So they tell Ricky to go to Princeton because they want to brag about it — not because it’s the best move for their kid.

And it goes broader than just parents.

The truth is, no one has 100% context on your life outside of you. The reason I don’t value my wife’s or my mom’s opinion more than my own is because they don’t know 100% of everything.

I have empathy for their opinions because I understand how they could come to their conclusions with limited context.

But I don’t take those opinions to heart.

Regret is the biggest poison of all time   

When I was younger, I would go up to old people and talk to them. I’d ask them to tell me about their life. And their opening line was, “I wish.”

Every one of them — at parks, bars, airports — all started with what they wish they did differently.

They wished they worked harder. They wished they spent more time with their family. They wished they didn’t listen to their Mom and did what they wanted to do.

They wished.

Spend a day volunteering in an old folk’s home, and you’ll see it yourself.

It’s so devastating to me that your life’s choices are being dictated by the opinions of people who you won’t care about when you’re 92 years old.

Don’t judge yourself

Sometimes, people tell me that the negative voice in their head isn’t someone else’s — it’s their own.

But the truth is, someone else put that negative voice there.

Your mom, dad, aunt, uncle is being negative towards you and it gets in your head — until you think that negative voice is your own.

So many people judge themselves for “underachieving” even though they’re in normal positions.

21 year olds judge themselves for not having their life “figured out”, even though virtually no 21 year old knows what they want to do yet. Parents judge themselves on how they’re raising their kids. Entrepreneurs judge themselves on how they’re running their business.

Be your own biggest fan, instead of critiquing every move you make.

Surround yourself with people who are optimistic

The only way I know to build confidence is by surrounding yourself with people who are optimistic.

Who you hang out with is a HUGE deal and most people don’t take it seriously enough.

It’s what happens in any team — traits like confidence and hunger get passed around, just like negativity and pessimism. It’s why a great player can mess up a team if she or he is not a good person.

Surrounding myself with winners has brought unbelievable ROI for me.  

I forced myself to go to SXSW in 2007 and hang out with ambitious kids who had dreams of changing the world. It brought me unbelievable opportunities and friendships. I started meeting people like Mark Zuckerberg, Ev Williams, Chris Sacca, and Travis Kalanik.

I see it with my team too. It’s amazing how much more confident, faster, and smarter they get after hanging around me.

But I get it. Cutting out negative people is hard. Especially if it’s your mom or dad or a friend you’ve been hanging out with since 4th grade.

If your Mom’s bringing you down, talk to her less. If your friend from your old neighborhood, hang out with him for 3 hours a week instead of 7.

If you can’t cut people out, spend less time with them.

You’d be stunned how your life changes.

If you’ve read this far, I think you’ll get a lot of value out of this video. Check it out and leave your 2 cents below 😉