Nobody needs your approval. – AUDIO NSFW
Guys, this morning, I woke up feeling free. Do you ever wake up like that? Do you ever have a day where you wake up and just like man, yeah, it might just be another regular Tuesday or Thursday or Wednesday or whatever, but there are just some days when you’re vibrating at the right level. You’re vibrating at a level of just absolute contentment and just good juju.
That’s how I woke up today, guys. I woke up today. I woke up today just feeling frickin’ free. I just felt free today. I got things to do. I got places to be. I got follow-up emails. I got all sorts of stuff to do today, but I tell you guys, when I woke up this morning, I felt absolutely free. You want to know why? It’s very simple. It’s because no one is thinking about me. That’s it! Nobody is thinking about me.
I want you to take this mind journey with me here, this mind exercise with me. I want you to consider this. I woke up today and I felt liberated. I felt unshackled. I felt free and the reason is because I woke up with the stark realization that there is no one in the world that is thinking about me.
Now, consider your regular average day a regular Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday. Think about how much time, just kind of lay back and think about this for a second and think about how much time you spend deeply thinking about another person. Think about it. How much time, let’s just say on an average Tuesday or an average Wednesday or an average Thursday, how much time do you spend deeply considering, deeply thinking, agonizing over another person?
Now, this does not apply to you if you are in love or if you are infatuated with someone else. I remember the last time that happened. I was in fuckin’ high school. If you’re above 30 years old and you ever use the words was “I’m infatuated with her” or “I’m infatuated with him”, you have not matured. You are still a child. This doesn’t apply to someone who’s in love or infatuated or is in a moment of jealousy with someone else or if you have been spurned or if you have been hurt by someone else. I highly recommend that if you are in a position of being hurt or in jealousy, you go back and check out my podcast on reprogramming pain.
But let’s be intellectually honest here, guys. Most of the day you don’t ever spend time deeply considering other people. This is what I want to talk with you about because I have met so many people who spend so much time on image control. Image control which you guys already know where I’m gonna be heading with this entire segment today. Image control can be understood as making sure that we appear as we want others to think we really are.
Let me say that again. Image control can be considered as making sure we appear as we want to others to think we really are. In another way of saying, is our exterior becomes more important than our interior. Let’s repeat that. Our exterior becomes more important than our interior values, our interior goals, our interior identity.
You see image control is one of those insidious things that infect us sometimes in life. Where we feel like image control is so important that we want to make sure that we have put our best foot forward or best face first. The problem is we are getting concerned about our image. We get consumed by it and sometimes even obsessed about things like how we look, what we wear.
Fuck! I can tell you guys and this is something that I’ve talked about before, but please as I take this segue, please, remember this. I have met so many guys who literally spend the best decisions of their day—because we only have a limited amount of good decisions that we can make until we move into decision fatigue for the day.
Let’s be honest one of the worst times to be making a tough, a really tough decision is probably about 7:00 or 8:00 at night after you’ve had a long day of work. You’re ridiculously tired. You’re mentally strained and you are just physically not ready to take it on. Your decision-making ability late in the afternoon, late at night is not as good as when you are fully fresh.
It is fascinating to me. I find it to be one of the biggest travesties that I literally know men, grown-ass men, and I could go on the tangent here even longer, but grown-ass men who spend all their best decisions thinking about what they’re gonna wear today. What Nike shoes they’re gonna wear? What dumbass Adidas pants they’re gonna wear, stupid ass watches that they’re gonna put on, and the dumb ass $150 fucking t-shirt that they’re going to wear today. What the fuck! What in the living fuck! Why are you wasting so much time, your best decisions of the day on bullshit like $150 t-shirt and if you’re gonna wear this Nike versus another Nike. Like that shit just slays me!
There are other people that are consumed by and—look at me—you can put me in this category here. People are overly concerned about and consumed about and obsessed even when it comes to image control about what they drive. Look at me! I got a Lambo. I got a race car. Ahhh! About what they drive! What school they attended? What work they do? What the house they live in? What kind of life that they have? Et cetera.
People get so consumed on these things about how we look, what we wear, what we drive, the school we attend, the work that we do, the life that we have, the house that we have, the wife that I got, and I have spent so much time and you guys know this talking about the bullshit of social media of how none of that shit’s real—the likes, the hearts, the thumbs ups. None of that is real.
Let’s get back to the genesis of this entire talk today. No is thinking about you! No one’s thinking about you. The problem with image control is it is exhausting and we are never satisfied. It is impossible to satiate and satisfy this image control. It’s the curse! The curse of image control. One of the curses of this of this all-consuming idea of image control is not only is it not satisfied, but it can often be confused as upward momentum and upward growth or levelling up.
Some people would say, well Peter, you’re moving ahead in life. You just bought your first supercar. Congratulations! You’re moving ahead in life. You moved out of that apartment. Now, you’re into a real house. You’re moving ahead in life. You got that beautiful bombshell wife now. You’re moving ahead in life. You got that new watch, that new chain, those new kicks, those new Jordans. That’s the problem.
The problem is weak-minded men. Weak-minded individuals often get this thing twisted. It’s the curse of image control. They believe that these tangible items that they have achieved—a house, a car, a watch, clothes—that these can be confused with upward momentum and growth. Just because you have got a new car, just because you moved into a new house, just because you bought a brand new watch doesn’t mean that you’re successful. It doesn’t mean that you’ve achieved anything. It just means that you done purchase something. You purchased something extraordinarily expensive and you think that’s gonna give you more juju, that’s gonna make you look better. No one’s thinking about you.
You see, the difference between all this the exhaustion of image control and real growth is the difference between striving for one’s self-image versus dying to your self-image.
STRIVING FOR SELF-IMAGE VERSUS DYING TO SELF-IMAGE
Let me give you one of my greatest examples in life. When I truly—and this was in high school-realized I truly realized that the depths of my soul what it meant to die to one’s self-image. That the control of self-image issues.
Let me tell you. I think this was 10th or 11th grade in high school and I went on this mission trip down south into Florida. I know mission trips are just hokey, but I went down to this mission trip down in Florida. We ended up building these houses with some building company. Anyway, some volunteer building thing. I’m fucking up the story. None of that matters. The only point that I want to make is while I was out there in the sweating heat with all of these other high schoolers who were complaining about the heat. I’m getting sweaty and getting sticky and not having Gatorade and not having water.
I watched our Pastor Richard. I saw him do things that made me question the man’s sanity. It made me question the man’s sanity in the beginning. But at the end, I realized that this man is free. The moment I realized that this man is free after all the other things that I had seen… So this guy was sweaty. He was nasty. He was tearing shit apart, tearing down the walls, pulling stuff out, getting scratches on his arms, scratches on his legs, getting dust in his eyes. He had eye protection and he was wearing a t-shirt and he was wearing boots and all that stuff, but I mean he was going at it.
His mission and, frankly, our mission as volunteers was to help tear down these houses and then help build them up again, build up new ones. I could see that this man was consumed by something greater than self-image. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he’s a pastor. Yeah, yeah, yeah maybe he’s supposed to have that spiritual maturity, that mental maturity, that life maturity. Yeah, maybe he’s supposed to have that. That’s why he’s a pastor!
But as I saw this man work with no regard to his self-image, no regard to the scratches on his legs and scratches on his arms, the tears in his pants, the tears in his shirts, the dirt that he was getting down the back of his shirt and he was so profusely sweating, I began understanding something greater. I’ll tell you what flipped the switch as a sweat bead rolls down the back of my neck in this garage because I’m there. I’m right where Richard is now. Do you know what it was, guys? In a certain moment as we were pulling all this stuff out of this house, one of the girls screamed, she’s like ah, dead cat in here! There’s a dead fucking cat in here! She’s running around. Said I can’t touch it! I can’t do this! I can’t do this!
You know what Richard did? No hesitation. Just walked on over there, look down this dead cat, no gloves, guys! No gloves, just picked up his dead ass, maggoty-looking cat with his bare hands and you could see as he grabbed this thing, you could see someone like the nasty like bodily goo like kind of form around his fingers where he to grabbed this thing. You know he’s feeling it all—the mush, the nasty, the maggots, the fly—just like it doesn’t even matter. He picked this thing up, no hesitation, grabbed it full in his fist, held it at about waist level, just walked right out, threw it in a plastic bag, wiped his hands off, and got back to work.
In that moment, my friends, in that moment, I realized that there was a greater purpose in life, that there was a greater level of maturity in life. That there was a greater man that I could become because this man Pastor Richard, he gave zero fucks. He had zero fucks to give about life and image control. He didn’t care!
We as high schoolers were “Ahhh! that’s nasty, Richard!” We were all grossed out. But I tell you, man, he showed me. And I’ll never forget it. That’s why I’m telling you the story now! I’ll never forget the fact that this man had reached a higher level of maturity, a higher level of vibration, a higher level of spirituality in which he had forsaken the image control issues. Zero image controls from this man. He is self-assured in who he is.
When we have image control, we suffer from a lack of self-awareness, a lack of situational awareness, a lack of strength in our own image of our values, our own a lack of strength in our own image of our purpose, a lack of our own image of our goals. We forget our goals. We forget our purpose. We forget our vision for our life.
You see, image control issue suffers from a lack of understanding reality and what do you say that reality is? The reality is no one’s thinking about you. Yeah, they see your highlights on Instagram. They see your highlights on Twitter and TikTok and Facebook and all the other social media apparatus out there. They see the highlights. But let’s be honest guys, just as you don’t think about and just as you don’t consider people deeply on the regular average day, ain’t nobody ever thinking about you.
You see, no one’s thinking about you. No one’s waiting on you. No one needs your approval to live and nobody cares, don’t miss this guys, nobody cares about your dreams. Nobody. That’s what I woke up with this morning. You know what I woke up with this morning? I woke up with a feeling of being free because I know that no one is fucking thinking about me. Which means I have complete autonomy. I have complete latitude to do whatever the fuck I want and to do it with excellence because I have to answer to no one. I have to worry about my image to no one. I don’t have to consider anyone except for those that I love which are my two kids and my wife.
Let’s even go more honest here. You know, I mean why do you think I shared this stuff on this show? Why do you think I do this podcast? This podcast is part of my dying to myself and allowing the world to see me for my real heart’s intent.
I’m trying to be like Pastor Richard! I’m trying to be a fully authentic human being and I say some shit. I say some deep shit. I have thoughts in my brain and you know what? I am one of the few that I know that can somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, someway, I am able to communicate my innermost thoughts and I hope that you appreciate them.
So who’s in control of your image? Well, the answer is clear. It’s you, of course! You’re in control of your image, but no one cares! That’s the thing I want you to remember. Who’s in control of your self-image? You are! You are! You are in control of your self-image, but guess what? Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! No one gives a fuck about you. Nobody cares about you. No one’s thinking about you because you don’t matter to them!
On the average Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday ,Sunday, you don’t matter to them unless you pop up on their social feed and they look at your highlight and say, oh, Petey must be doing something fun today! It’s just the highlight reel. The other 23 hours of the day we’re fucking mundane and boring.
We buy things to impress people that don’t care about us and we suffer the mental anguish of an image that doesn’t matter. Let me say that again. I wrote this down. We buy things to impress people that we don’t care about and suffer the mental anguish of an image that doesn’t fucking matter! Why do we do this? Why do we care so much about what other people think? Fuck! Go back into my other podcast, 5 reasons why not giving a fuck is the best way to live. Type it in. Search for it. Listen to that podcast. You will be convinced. I promise you.
One of the my favorite pictures that I kind of really honed in on this idea is a picture I saw years ago. It was a picture of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett together. And I think under the under this picture of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett was a caption like where’s the Gucci belt or something like that. You see, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett don’t look wealthy, but you see that’s the point. That’s exactly the point.
The goal, please don’t miss this guys. The goal is to be successful or be wealthy, not to fucking look wealthy! Not to fucking look successful! What’s the point of looking successful when you’re not actually successful? What’s the point of looking wealthy when you’re not actually wealthy? You’re struggling. You’re dying to make payments. You’re dying because nobody cares! Why are you suffering so greatly and having such great expenses for an image that no one cares about.
Let’s be honest again. No one’s thinking about you today. Let me give you a great quote from a German novelist, a German poet, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. You’ve heard of him. He said this. “Nothing is more disgusting than the majority: because it consists of a few powerful predecessors, of rogues who adapt themselves, of weak who assimilate themselves, and the masses who imitate without knowing at all what they want.”
You see, I want to be free. That’s what I want. I want to not be considered so that I don’t ever have to worry about my image. And frankly, I’ll be honest with you guys I’m damn near close to it. I am damn near close to it. Yeah do I have a lot of years to live? Let’s hope so while I continue to mature as an individual and as a man as a father as a husband. Absolutely! But am I getting closer to giving less and less and less of a fuck about image? I’m getting better guys. I’m getting much better.
Here’s the question. I hope this was encouraging to you. Just be reminded that no one’s caring about you. No one’s thinking about you and you don’t have to worry about what you look like. I am right now guys, look at this, do you see this sweat? You see all this sweat? I am sweating up a storm. I have sweat dripping down my back here. Look at this sweat dripping down because I’m in my garage and I love it. Image control? Pft! Fuck that. I smell like shit.
When in your life have you been obsessed about? What in your life have you been thinking way too much about when it comes to image control? Where do you just need to let go?
This is Peter, the Bitcoin Lambo. Feel free to share this message, this podcast. We do it on iTunes and Google Play as well. Subscribe, smash the like button, share it. Do whatever you want. Just remember, no one is thinking about you. No one’s waiting on you. Nobody needs your approval. Nobody cares as much as you do about your dreams.