60. The Self Worth Reset After Trying To Earn Love

this is not like a laughing matter what i'm about to talk about but like i'm just like huh i've been feeling very worthless the past couple of weeks like i said it in my last podcast episode i was like i can't fathom and i mean it i said i can't fathom why you guys watch me and like why you guys care about me and have continued to watch me for like the past four years and even with other social media stuff like TikTok on Instagram like I couldn't fathom why people still watched me I don't even know why my videos do so well and I meant that when I said it and the past few weeks I've felt very very worthless and like a scary way where I couldn't see anything about myself that I liked it did get pretty dark for a minute a couple days ago pull myself out of that fucking hole like I always do but I had to go through it only way out is through so it got like to a scary point of feeling worthless where I was like heartbroken by how I couldn't see any value in myself at all genuinely and for me to be saying that is kind of nuts to me but I don't know how to structure this episode or how to talk about it so I'm just going to talk about what have I've been feeling what's led me up to this point and then like the awareness that cracked through so with social media and online fame and all that and my podcast there's been this thing about me where I get no residual carryover confidence like every time I do something it wipes out in my brain like I could never understand why I'm not able to be a cocky asshole why am i not allowed to look at my tiktok account that has 10.9 million followers and feel any kind of self-esteem like yeah i have all these five people with 100 000 followers walk around in day-to-day life like they got the biggest dick in the world so like i was always a little envious of like people who get confidence from such superficial bullshit it kind of was irritating me it was it was but like even when i went on tour after it happened i get no confidence from thinking about past achievements with being a nurse getting my real estate license going on tour amassing the following that i have having my podcast be what it is and be so successful for so long so low i never had a guest i don't feel any kind of it doesn't feed me like the external validation of like the numbers doesn't feed me and it never has and I felt very broken I felt like this for a while where it's like an empty cup but like the bottom is broken it's like it doesn't matter how much external validation comes in it just falls through and it's been sad for me like I've someone asked me the other day what is it like to be you and I said you'd never want to fucking no because I've felt trapped in this like personal hell of nothing I do can make me feel any kind of self-esteem for long it's like every single day I wake up everything resets in my mind like when I drop merch or when I am doing my pop-up the dates are March 28th and 29th in Houston so just want to throw that in there but even with that when I drop merch or do the pop-up store do anything like that, I feel no confidence that people will show up or that people will buy my merch. It doesn't matter how many followers I have. It doesn't matter how many people have bought things from me in the past. Every time I drop merch, it's like I'm starting from zero. I have no confidence and no entitlement really. People are going to buy it. And with the pop-up, I'm like, I have zero faith that people will show up. When I go outside in public, when I go to the gym, I get stopped at least 10 times during my workout by people coming up to me, recognizing me, saying hi, being happy, being sweet, appreciating me, asking to take a photo. I always stop and make sure I take time with people that see me out in public. I fucking love you guys. But you'd think with as much external proof and reassurance that I have nonstop, I could feel some kind of hope that when I do this pop-up people will come when I drop merch people will want it I don't have it and it's so destabilizing and it's so not fun because I don't have any stability with it like I genuinely don't have any kind of what is the even the word I have no hope anytime I do anything I'm just kind of like I hope it goes well but I have no like positive expectation of it i'm just like literally just like an anxiety-ridden wreck of like hope it works every time i post a video i never know if it's gonna do well most of my videos on tiktok for the past four years every video i've posted has hit at least a million views recently they did this new update and everything's kind of weird but like four years of every video I posted got a million views plus and every single time I post I wonder I don't know if it's gonna do well I don't know if people are gonna like it I don't know if people are gonna like me it's like I think that the internet forgets about me and I think that people stop caring about me a lot it's like every day I wake up I have no faith that people will tune into a podcast or people will want to see what I'm doing or like see a video that I'm posting I it's like that it just wipes out of my brain every single time and you can understand why that's a painful thing to experience but like I said the broken cup of like no bottom it's like my life has been so much external validation and I've been so confused and I felt very defective about it like what the fuck i should not be feeling like this at this point i should have some kind of hope or some kind of confidence that when i do something drop something post a fucking video that people are gonna care that people still like me and that i'm likable like it's it's been the weirdest thing and even with kind things that i do or things that i do for people like when i donated 25 000 to pay off school lunch debt two months ago i didn't get any kind of like oh self-esteem from it it's like i did it it happened i know how many people that we helped because you guys matched my donation within like 24 hours you fucking doubled it and like i'm so excited about that and happy about that i'm happy about the cause but personally i get no self-esteem from it like walking around like yeah i helped all these people i don't have that gloat like validation i don't what i don't even know how to word this i wish there was a word to describe it no matter what i do i don't feel safe that people will still care about me or like me or watch me or anything that's kind of the way to word it i guess and it was driving me stupid this got this is the thing that has taken me to a lot of like dark spots before but it took me to a really really dark spot a couple days ago the thing with that experience is like I have no self-worth or self-esteem and like confidence with the things that I do I know that I'll always show up for myself but it's been getting hard to do that but people from the outside don't see me that way nobody knows that I feel like that with when I make posts or release things or sell things everybody just looks at me like they have so much faith in me and they have so much trust that what I do will do well and I've been so envious of that I'm like I wish I could fucking see myself like that I wish I could have the faith that other people have in me I wish that I could have that like perspective a little bit to like ease some of this fucking like frantic constantly trying to prove that i can't prove it's like proving my worth and i can't prove it it doesn't matter how many times i've proven it past what i thought i could ever do it still don't the cups got no bottom it just go right through i've been getting a new understanding of transactional love and like transactional dynamics with things i'm very transactional i like transactions if you tell me okay you can behave this way and you do these things and then you get this outcome i'll take it i have no problem with that i like it i can exceed any expectation or requirement of me i've done it i've had to earn love my entire fucking Well, I've felt like I've had to. I've tried it all. And I got to a point where like I was ready to bash my head into a wall and I was like fuck it I just going to do what I want to do And then I lost that without realizing it And where I talk about the transactional thing of like, this is how like a friendship. This is how you be a good friend and then you'll get good friends in return is how I always looked at it. This is how to be a good brother. This is how to be a good son. this is how to be a good person on social media this is how to be a good business owner like the way that i handle customer service issues you guys saw that that was funny as fuck to me because i thought nobody really gave a damn and appreciated like i came so much out of pocket to rectify it for everybody because i care and then i saw y'all on other people's asses like other influencers who have had like issues with their products and you're like we saw how leo skeppi handled it so cough it up that gags me i loved it i finally saw that you guys like appreciated it my whole thing with the transactional relationships and the only way i've known how to be is kind of transactional now that i'm seeing it i it feels uncomfortable to say it but like that's just what the fuck it is everything's been a transaction for me with that i've felt fucked over by god so many times and for so long so i kind of see how that could happen because like you got to throw it at something bigger than people in life when it gets to a point of where you just wake up and feel betrayed it's like a betrayal has just been a constant thing in my life and feeling fucked over and feeling like i always get the short end of the stick i kind of like god showed me like a different route which is unconditional love that's something that scares the shit out of me and i talked about it in the last episode where i said feeling blessed is terrifying to me like to acknowledge that i'm blessed is horrifying because if i'm blessed and i don't know why i don't know how to maintain staying in god's favor i don't know how to not piss you off i don't know how to continue earning your blessing so it all kind of has just been like coming to a head in different little ways but since just entertaining the idea of unconditional love and kind of like feeling it a little bit through the lens of how god does i feel like he showed it to me for a second anything about me that i used to feel value from gone wiped out like i last night had probably one of the worst nights i've had in a very long time and i was just sitting there writing and just like sitting with myself because I was like I don't see any value in myself I feel completely fucking worthless and it's like anything I would use to try and reassure myself of certain character traits about myself or a pre like trying to even have gratitude like just blessings in my life like my cars and my house I couldn't I it had no impact on how I felt like I felt like completely zero value worthless and this is a thing that i've never heard anyone talk about with trying to love yourself and unconditional love and earning love when you're someone who has only known earning love like you've always had to earn it and work for it and prove yourself for it you base your self-worth off of the things that you think will get you love is what i've learned so i look at it like you have like a scale of okay all these different things about myself are how you can place yourself on that scale and then your brain for safety will look at these things whenever you feel insecure or doubt or any kind of issue of like someone not liking you you have this scale that you've built with all these things about yourself your integrity your personality, the way you look, the way you treat people. There's XYZ amount of fucking shit that you can use to increase your perceived self-worth based on how lovable you would be to other people. So that scale is what I've been operating with my whole life. It's like I've been able to grade myself on a scale and I would take a little bit of pride and feel a little bit valuable when I saw these traits that increase my likelihood of being loved. So I loved those things about myself. I felt good when I saw those things. And that's the way your brain gets safety is like spotting these things about yourself. But that scale is just a measure of external validation. When you bring in the idea of unconditional love, it breaks that scale. It throws it out the window. The scale no longer exists. If you never had to earn love, if your brain is conditioned to evaluate yourself on how good and how easy you are to love and how much value you can give to other people and how lovable you are. If that's how you know how to get yourself worth and that's how it's all set up, when you take that away and say you've never had to earn it, there's nothing to base your worth around. And that's what I've been caught in. And that's where I got to a really, really dark spot where I could not think and figure out anything about myself that had value at all. I couldn't see it because when you crack open your awareness to unconditional love, the scale goes away. It disappears. So there's no way to grade your self-worth anymore. And I had none last night. Like I literally felt absolutely worthless. And then I started to see, wait, like Leo, I was like frantic. I'm like, what do you like about yourself like do you like anything about yourself and I wrote down I don't know because I realized the things that I liked about myself were just the best things on the scale I never stopped to appreciate things about myself just to appreciate them I lost the ability to do that like I didn't have that there was nothing I appreciated about myself that I could not exchange for love and that That was not a nice pill to swallow. I kind of look at it like poker chips. All the different traits and values that you have about yourself is like all these little chips you're collecting. So it helps your bargaining chances when you're trying to gain people's approval or gain their love. It's like you can look down and see all these chips. Okay, these are all the reasons that people would like me. These are all the reasons I would like someone else. I have all these traits. Look how lovable I am. You have all these chips. and it feels good when you're like able to make a bet and you bet on yourself for an opportunity or for a person to love you or relationship friendship whatever you're betting on yourself you slide all these fucking chips in and then when it doesn't work or you still aren't chosen you still aren't loved you watch all those chips get wiped away and that's that devastation feeling that i would feel all the time feel fucked over by god of like i have all this value and people just mistreat the fuck out of it like i'm start i'm gonna start hoarding my chips and it's like you introduced the idea of unconditional love the chips disappear there's no more chip so there's no more traits and then it's like wait did i even like anything on those chips why did i have those chips the traits were just to have a chip to bargain but love is not something you have to bargain for so this is the mind fuck that nobody will ever talk about and i haven't seen anyone talk about it because this is very uncomfortable to talk about. Unconditional love is not an easy thing to entertain and trying to stop earning love, you lose yourself. Then it's like, okay, one step further. All the things you've been doing to earn all these chips and collect all these chips, why am I doing them? It's a whole deconstruction of like your self-identity and self-concept of like with your actions and the way your life is set up and what you value. Because you don't fucking know what you value. You only value things that give you value in a chip that you can bet. That's me right now. But how I felt, like another way I can put this into words, before I started realizing all this, I felt like I had every chip you could fucking amass. And I'm sitting at a poker table. I keep trying to bet them. And the teller says they're invalid. Try it again. That's how I felt before. it's like all the shit that i've done it didn't like invalid chips invalid invalid you don't even get to try and bet it like it just the empty empty glass emoji emoji the empty glass analogy where there's no bottom to it just it falls out anything any validation that comes through falls right out that's how it feels with the chips it's like i was working so hard for all these chips got all these chips and it just keeps saying error they're all invalid like i could never earn a fucking chip or they would take them and i'm like that's how it felt emotionally that i could put it into like a visual but when i was writing yesterday and i started getting to this i was like writing that i was like wow I started crying I did I boohooed It felt like such a release and like an integration because I weirdly became aware that like there so many things about myself that I haven't appreciated and haven't been able to appreciate because I can't exchange them for anything. I can't make them be valuable to anybody else. And that's my biggest problem with now discovering things that I like just for myself. Like for me to appreciate something about myself, I looked at it as useless. Like if other people don't appreciate something and I own it, what the fuck is the point in having it if I can't exchange it for nothing? Like if it's worthless to everybody else, but I like it, that's not something smart to have. Let's go ahead and get rid of it. Replace it with something that I can trade or like have that people would like, does that make sense? I looked at traits like that in myself where all the times that I've felt so unappreciated, it's like I got to this point with my integrity and my integrity has done nothing but bite me in the ass. I was thinking like, why am I so hard and desperately holding onto my integrity? i see zero benefit of it besides i get to sleep peaceful at night i get fucked in so many situations and it's like i should kill you but i don't because it's illegal if it was legal best believe i'd have a whole hit list of bodies under my fucking belt but my integrity it's like i was questioning it like why the fuck do i hold on to it so hard for myself so i feel better for me it's like i see people with no integrity get so far and get so much shit and i'm like i could really just like take it there you know like if i just flip i could really be like the worst person that anyone's ever fucking seen like i really was contemplating that because i'm like why do i hold on to this integrity shit so hard it's like nobody seems to value it nobody seems to care and that's not a chip that I've ever been able to bet and it's not something that I've felt is appreciated at all in me it's like it's just a trait for me so I feel better but I'm like why like for fucking what like just for me like I didn't care about it and you like I didn't care about it for a second I was like why am I even holding on to this I wouldn't want it anymore I felt like it was a useless thing like my integrity as much as I want to change it i can't it just is how my brain works it's my way of making decisions it doesn't cross my mind certain things like it handling it the way i'm gonna handle it is just how i do it i don't think of the other option until like after i'm like oh i could have avoided this by fucking them over actually like when i would be a good friend to people and i wouldn't receive good friendship back or i'd be betrayed i looked at the fact that i'm a good friend as useless like this is not something that gets me anything why am i a good friend like let's start questioning this chip why are we holding it same thing with the integrity it's like when people externally wouldn't appreciate something i would start to question it i would start to be like why am i even holding on to this chip why do i even have this thing about myself why don't i just get the fuck rid of it you know so that's that's not good that's not like a good way to be living so i've i see now like i was living my life not that external validation made me feel good as in numbers money success things like that it's the things about myself that i was allowed to value are only what was valued that's the only time i could appreciate something in myself is when it was appreciated externally or else I would see it as worthless like I got to that point with my body and I'm like I look the way that I do I put a lot of effort into myself I don't sleep the fuck around and I can't find a person who appreciates that for shit so it's like why am I holding on to this so hard yes it builds me up in my scale of like earning worth but I'm holding on to this thing am I just supposed to fucking die alone knowing that I had integrity and then I had to start being like wait wait I got a question if I want this that's what came next was like okay even if it's never externally validated do I want it do I like the way that I'm living do I like who I am and how I am and that's been a question that's been unfolding but that's not a question I was able to ask because I saw there was like that's the rush feeling it's like there's no time to figure out what I want to hold on to just for myself I didn't like stop and think of that I didn't feel like I could it's like I feel like I was told by life what was good or bad about me I know where the fuck that comes from but the weird weird weird thing is when I first started my podcast I did like 60 something episodes over a year doing it before it ever got any traction before it ever got like people listening and tuning in in numbers that people would look at like okay it's successful but I was confident in my episodes every single week when I put out an episode I was like yes this is a good episode I could feel good about it I was like okay this will be appreciated and that's the one thing it's like the value that I saw in myself and what I was doing and the things that I was sharing that is what carried me to keep going because I didn't have the external validation of oh there's followers just people watching all this shit it's like that was wasn't there I actually could see and feel the value in what I was doing and that's what carried me to keep going and then it was just a matter of time before the views caught up but in my head I was so convicted in myself and what I was sharing that I was like okay the internet's eventually going to appreciate what I'm sharing and what I'm doing they're eventually gonna appreciate it and then i got to a point i was like it's probably gonna be after i'm dead the videos will live for a long time i don't know if people are gonna appreciate me in this life but i feel called to talk about this shit so i'm just gonna do it and i was convicted in it so convicted i was like the value might not be seen there might not be any external appreciation of this until after I'm dead but I was still convicted in it after I started getting traction on social media and getting traction on the podcast and it charted number one I lost it like I haven't felt convicted in what I'm sharing and what I'm doing with any episodes it's like yeah I could say okay this one's good I like this one but I never had conviction like i did before before all the external validation so it's the weirdest assessment to kind of make and see but i do feel like i'm reconnecting with myself before of like me who did things for me i've been caught up in the external validation of it all even though it didn't mean anything to me it didn't make me feel shit i still been caught up in it that'll make no sense that i pissed myself off i need to drink some water i just pissed myself off that don't make no goddamn sense oh now that i think about it like back then before i got like really big i didn't give a fuck like if i got canceled you couldn't make me question myself at all but i'm really stepping back into like doing everything that i do for myself but another thing that was like another little game I was playing with myself that was not fair that I noticed was money and doing things for myself and doing things because I want to do them that's the whole like thing that I've come to of like my new goal is like seeing what I like about myself just because I like it and what do I want to do just because I like to do it that's kind of how I live my life but I feel like it's about to kick up a notch like just doing what I do just because I want to like I don't give a damn it's this is the weirdest thing to explain because it's not like how i've been living was fake it's like i just did it and followed myself and valued how i felt but felt fucked over and it's like now i feel like i'm finally gonna go into doing what i want to do without feeling fucked over which is nice because there's no more transaction it's just like unconditionally loving myself and doing what the fuck i want to do because i want to do it but the whole like stress of money came up and i didn't realize how much of my self-worth is tied up in how much money i make and have i think that's something all men deal with you should to some extent like you should sorry pay for the fucking women what is this new age bullshit i don know i don like it i albanian i old school take care of the fucking girls all right financial stress is for men okay i don go against women wanting to make their own money i think they should like if you want to go for it but like as men you got some obligation take care of the women gay or not like i don't understand that genuinely and that's not for external validation that's because that's how the fuck i am i like to take care of people and i especially like to take care of women but anyway I was starting to stress out about money I started to get like my self-worth was so like tied up the fuck in it and I'm like looking at all of the numbers that I have on social media looking at all of the ways that I've worked and done so much shit and the way that my life is set up where it's like I'm recognized everywhere I go I'm like for me to be at this level and still be worrying about money, I'm fucking pathetic. That was how I was judging myself. Like I looked at it, like I was so fucking mad at myself, but I was mad at God too. Cause it's like, sure. I could do so many things and capitalize in so many ways, but I choose not to for myself and that's something I feel a lot better about but I was beating myself up for having my self-worth be based off of how much money I make and have but I don't force myself to live in a way where I focus on that I live in a way where I prioritize the way that I feel I don't enjoy constantly trying to monetize shit and that's another thing that popped in my head is like a reason why people I think on social media like me is I'm not monetizing every fucking goddamn thing that I can okay that is irritating like with TikTok like the TikTok shop you never seen me on there never gonna see me doing that I don't do brand deals I would do some if these brands could get their shit together if there's one that aligns I would love to do it but I don't jump at every opportunity. I'm not trying to monetize every single thing. I genuinely make content because I want to make it. With my podcast deal, I gave that up. With how my podcast is doing right now, I should have a podcast deal for a million dollars a year right now, minimum. Minimum guarantee, a million. I choose not to do that. and I gave up one last year for the freedom like I like that I don't have a rigid schedule and I don't have ad slots I have to do and like constantly vetting and constantly like interrupting myself it's like my soul didn't want to be interrupted anymore so I got rid of the podcast deal and then my podcast blew the fuck up again so I should be making buku money from my podcast but I choose to live my life based on how it feels for me not what makes the most money i don't like to live a slave to money and it's not like oh i have so much money where i wouldn't have to worry about the podcast deal i'm fucking stressing out financially right now okay just to be transparent am i regretting not doing the podcast deal no that's just something about me that i now since learning all this appreciate it's like that whole thing i had of my self-worth wrapped up in money i'm always gonna to make money. I'm always going to find a way to do something. I've got enough skills with that. But I don't like to live my life with that as a constant focus of how can I make more. I want to live. I want to have fun. I don't want my focus being on this shit all the time. It's like trying to talk to other people online or other business people. I want to go to lunch and hang out. I want to go have human interaction. I don't want to be sitting here trying to hustle and bustle and think of all these fucking ideas. It's a waste of my time. I like to enjoy my life. I like to have fun. I like to be around people that I like and experience the time with them, not be constantly monetizing every fucking day. Like it literally irritates me, but I choose not to live my life in that way. So for me to choose not to make monetizing every single thing that I do my number one priority and then still have that unfair contract with myself of your self-worth is based on how much money you have. That's not fair and I'm not doing it no more. Like I'm over it. I actually appreciate the way that I live my life and I have more fun. Like, yeah, money comes and goes. It always fucking will. But I'm not willing to throw away my life and having fun in life to pigeonhole and make that my number one priority. Because I feel like that would lose what makes me me. Like, I'm able to be carefree and have fun and be myself and talk any shit that I want and talk about whatever I want. Because if I'm trying to monetize, I have to be brand safe. I have to talk about certain things. Can't be dishonest. Can't be that. It's like it would remove me. It would like destroy who I am. And I can appreciate that in myself now. So I'm just rambling at this point. But this is everything I've kind of learned about the whole like earning love shit and like unconditional love. It's a process. And if you feel stuck in a pit like that, just look at that. Look at what I've just talked about, like the poker chips and like feeling like you have to earn love. And it's been useless. there's a way out and it's back to yourself because i already feel so much better i already feel like lifted out of this fog that i've been in for a minute and i'm just like okay like a truly back to me like uno reverse card back to you yeah and the more time i spend with myself and like writing and seeing what i like about myself just because i like it not because it has to be exchanged for anything i feel free i feel like happy and i feel like i see so many things about myself that i like now and i don't like them just because they're for betting and they're to get something they're like offer and trade it's like no i just like it because i like it so it's like how i said before what's the benefit of having something that nobody else sees as valuable it comes down to your perspective your focus if you value it it's valuable it only takes one person to value something to make it valuable i didn't just say that so that makes sense my soul just tucked right out my mouth but yeah if you got to be that one person one person's focus is all it takes to make something valuable i think and if you got to be that for yourself for now so be it but this is also a weird thing because i've like i'm seeing how i am unconditionally loved by a lot more people than i thought i don't trust people as far as i could fucking throw them but there's some some people in my life that i really trust and there's some people that i have unconditional love with but my lens on the situation has been a subconscious thought of it is transactional like i have to be this way do these things act this way and it's not true and i'm like as soon as i open the lens to unconditional love toward myself it's like i'm seeing it it's like the window's getting cleared and i can see through it i'm like hey wait i got it over here i got it over here fine but yeah that's what i've been learning and thinking and feeling and going through hasn't been fun but i'm glad i get to share it actually and i do have faith in this episode i do have confidence in it because i know exactly how much this just helped me and what this kind of like lifted me up out of i was in a dark fucking pit but yeah that's it that's all i think i got to say for this episode reminder again about the pop-up if you would like to come pop-up store i'm dropping sunglasses a bunch of merch that you don't know about yet it's like secret stuff for the pop-up i gotta give you shit to be excited about when you walk in the store ooh this that yeah and then i'll be there doing a meet and greet so you get to meet me hang out with me shop also i was gonna see i'm gonna do it i was gonna do a bartender and serve champagne for free i'll buy you champagne and i'm also gonna give out water too for my sober folks i'm still sober don't worry since the last episode let's not take it too far but yeah i'm i'm gonna do it i'm not gonna ask you i'm just gonna do it i'm provide for you okay so the dates are march 28th and 29th in Houston if you would like to go. I would love for you to come. So that's it. Hope everybody has a good Valentine's Day. Oh, this is going to come out on Sunday. No! I'm going to post it. I'm recording this on Friday. I'm going to post it tomorrow on Saturday. Happy fucking Valentine, my baby. I'll make you, that's my gift to you because I love you so bad. I'll post this on Valentine's. Okay, that's all. I'm going to go to Houston and go take a couple of my girlfriends to dinner tomorrow for Valentine's day but that's it everybody be safe take care of yourself and i'll talk to you guys next sunday for real this time i know i skipped last week but i'm gonna be back next sunday promise i'm out of my funk okay thank you promise