You are listening to The Life Coach School Podcast with Brooke Castillo, episode number 15.
welcome to The Life Coach School Podcast, where it's all about real clients, real problems, and real coaching. And now, your host, Master Coach Instructor, Brooke Castillo.
Hi, everybody. What's up? welcome.
I am so happy that you're here. You have no idea, you guys, how amazing it is to have embarked on this podcasting adventure and have it been, it's just been amazing. I have loved hearing from all of you.
One of the cool things I think about the podcast for me so far is, I've always done a blog and I've written a blog for many, many years. And one of the things that I didn't do though on my blog was accept comments. I couldn't actually in the very beginning figure out how to handle the spam.
So I just stopped taking comments at all and I haven't taken any comments since. But now with the podcast, I am taking comments. I found a way to kind of filter out the spam.
And so it's been really cool to talk to you all in those comments and hear your questions and hear how you're applying the podcast. So if any of you are interested in chatting with me more, come on over to the blog. It's at thelifecoachschool.com.
And depending on which episode you're listening to, it's always just forward slash the number of the episode. So this is episode 15. So you would go to the lifecoachschool.com/15.
And there you can ask me anything, chat with me about anything and make any comments. And I will answer every single one of your comments. Now, one of the comments that I did get was from a listener and also a student asking me to talk about the concept of other people's opinions.
We spend so much of our life trying to control people's opinions of us. I mean, if you really take the time to think about how much time you spend thinking, what will they think of me? Will they like what I'm wearing?
Did I say that right? Should I try that? What will people think if I try that?
A lot of people, should I become a life coach? People are going to wonder what the heck that even is. What will my mother think?
What will my husband think? What will everybody think? You know, this generalized concept of everybody out there.
You know, it's usually your mother, most of us are referring to, or our friends. And, you know, I've seen people just twist themselves into a life that they don't even want because of their idea of what other people will think. And that's really, really important to remember, is that so much of what we do to control other people's opinions.
First of all, it's not controlling their opinion. You can't control other people's minds. I want you to really think about that because it's something we forget a lot.
We think we can control whether people like us or don't like us or think we're cool or think we're pretty or think we're smart or think we're successful. A lot of us spend a lot of time pretending and lying to people because we want them to have a certain opinion of us. But even if you do all that, you still can't control their opinion of you.
So that's just good to know. And not only that, when you are going through your life, twisting and turning yourself and taking action or not taking action to control someone else's opinion, you're only controlling your thoughts about their opinion. You never really know what someone's thinking.
They can tell you that they think you're awesome, but you don't really know what they're really thinking. And the truth is, it's none of your business. And that's what we're going to talk about today.
Are you excited? I'm going to tell you, it's none of your business. And it will really help you to release that because what other people think is based on other people.
Okay, I have this concept that I call the constant. You are the constant in your life. And I want you to imagine that you're walking in to a party.
And there are, let's say, 10 people at this party. And they're excited to see you, right? And you go there.
And these 10 people hear you talking and you're chatting and you're telling stories. Now, if their opinion of you was based on you and what you said and what you did, then all 10 of those people would have the exact same opinion of you because you're the constant, right? You showed up, you said the exact same thing to all the people, right?
You're telling a story to all of them. You're wearing the same thing. They all can see it.
You look the same. You act the same to every single person. Now, if you were the one controlling the opinion of how they thought about you, they would all have the same exact opinion.
But they don't, do they? They have 10 different opinions of you because their opinion of you is based on them. You may look like their third grade teacher.
They may hate you the minute you walk in the door because you look like their third grade teacher who was really mean to them and they're never going to get past it. You may remind them of their mother-in-law. Nothing you can do about that.
They may hate what you're wearing. It's just not their style. Nothing you can do about that.
They may love what you're wearing. They may remind you of their best friend. They may think you're fantastic because you have the same shoes they do.
They may like you because you're like them. You don't know why people like you and you don't know why people don't like you. And in fact, you can't possibly understand everything that's happened in their life, what's going on in their brain, their preferences, that's going to determine whether they like you or not.
And when you try and act in a way and be a certain way so someone will like you, what happens is you don't even show up as yourself. You show up as some version of yourself that's trying to please other people, that's trying to be cool, that's trying to act cool. I see this with my teenagers all the time.
Yikes. So, but the truth is we all do it, right? We want to show up friendly and happy and interested.
And whether that's really what's true for us or not is what we need to identify. Because here's the thing, if you show up as a version of yourself that you think someone will like, even if they love you, they don't really love you because they don't even know the real you because you're acting in a way that you think would be pleasing to them. Right?
So they like this version of you that isn't even you. So a long time ago, I decided I'm going to start showing up as myself. You know, and that's no small task for someone like me because I'm pretty loud.
I'm pretty bold. I say what's on my mind, and I have opinions. I like to dress a certain way.
I like to be a certain way. I like to embrace the things I love. I don't like to pretend that I don't love the things that I love.
Right? And so I decided if I just started showing up and telling the truth and being who I am, and I stopped trying to hide the parts of me I didn't like, and I stopped trying to pretend to be someone I wasn't, that I could just be myself and the people that were my people, that were meant to like me would. And I wouldn't have to have so much anxiety about, oh, how am I supposed to act?
Right? I would just show up, this is who I am, this is how I'm meant to be, this is how I was made, and I hope you like it. And if you don't like it, then, you know, no harm done.
I'm not for everybody. I love the Pinterest pin that says, you can be the juiciest peach in the world, but there's always going to be someone that doesn't like peaches. It's not the peaches fault, right?
It's just their preference isn't for peaches. And that has really, honestly changed my life, because what's happened is there have been people that haven't liked me, but those aren't my people. But the people that have liked me have really been my people.
They're people that I totally dig, people I love being with, people that really appreciate and love me. And the best part about all of that is I just, the only thing I have to do is show up and be myself, and people like it, my people like it. And I love being around people that can be themselves around me, and I just like it.
It's like we can all just relax. And when I'm around people that don't prefer my personality, or don't like me, or whatever, that's fine too. I give them permission not to like me in my own mind.
And I will tell you what, that has been a game changer. You know, first, understanding this concept of the constant and knowing that I really can't be the one that decides whether someone likes me or not. It's not up to me, it's up to them and their experience and their life and their preference.
That set me free. And then the second thing that really set me free was giving people permission to judge me, and giving people permission not to like me. Because the truth is, I don't like everybody, and I don't like everything everyone does.
I have my own judgments. And although I work on that because it feels better to me to like people than to not like them, the truth is that I do have preferences, just like everybody does. And that's okay.
Like if you don't like peaches, it's okay. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the peach. If you don't like me, that's okay.
It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with me. Oh, that really has set me free, because then if someone doesn't like me, or someone doesn't want to hang out with me, I don't get all needy and creepy. You know what I'm talking about?
I know you do. I've spent so much time before I really did this work on myself trying to get people who didn't like me to like me. And you act needy and creepy when you do that, let me just tell you.
And I would chase people down in my mind and like, hi, and act a crazy person, trying to get people that I didn't even really enjoy their company either, but I was just determined to bring them over. You got to like me. And what I did, of course, was have them totally turn the other way because I was acting needy and creepy, and weird.
I know you guys know what I'm talking about. It's like when you're younger, or some of us when we're older, right? And I haven't experienced this for a while because I've been married for so long.
But when I used to date and someone would break up with me, and even if I kind of wanted to break up with them too, I'd be like, oh, hell no, you're not breaking up with me. I'm the one that does the breaking up. And then I would turn into a stalker and a crazy person, and I'd be like calling them and like, you know.
So don't do that. It's ill-advised, right? If somebody isn't into you, if somebody doesn't want to be your friend, right?
That's okay. If they want to judge you for what you're wearing or for what you do for a living, it's okay. You know, I have a member of my family who thinks that life coaching is the most ridiculous thing he's ever heard of, and that's okay.
I actually now am very entertained by it because he doesn't even really understand what I do, and that's okay, and he has an opinion and a story about it. I don't even try to convince him otherwise. I just kind of enjoy his perception of me.
And wow, that, I mean, such a better place to be than, you know, caught up in trying to change everybody and what they think about me and have that match how I think about me. And here's the truth, you know, it's funny, because sometimes people don't like me and sometimes I don't like me. So I feel like we're more in agreement.
Like sometimes I'm like, I get it. I totally understand why that person, you know, doesn't like me because I have to work on liking myself a lot of the time, too. So there you go.
Okay, so give people permission to judge you. Give people permission to have their opinion of you. Give people permission not to like you.
And notice how you will bloom. The reason why we don't want people not to like us is because of what we make it mean. Now, let's talk about that for a second.
What does it mean when someone doesn't like you? What does it mean when someone judges you? What we're tempted to make it mean is that we're unlikable, right?
If this person doesn't like me, then I must be unlikable. But remember, whether someone likes you or not has nothing to do with you. Whether someone likes a peach or not has nothing to do with the peach.
It has to do with their desire and their opinion. And if you think about it, like, how are people's opinions formed? You know, have you ever had anybody that when you first met them, you didn't like them?
You're like, ew. I mean, I had one of my best friends I felt that way about when I first met her. I was like, really?
And, you know, and then I ended up like really loving her. But it was my opinion based on my history and based on my preferences and based on my story about my first impression that determined whether I liked her or not. You need to remember that about other people, right?
Whether they like you or not has an opinion that that's based on so many things you have no idea about that you can't control and you will exhaust yourself trying to. Right? So remember that.
Oh, you know, whether they like peaches or not, is not something I can really control. Whether they like me or not, is not something I can really control. So I can just relax and be the best peach I can be, show up the best way I can, and know that some people aren't going to like it.
And that's okay. It doesn't mean that I'm not amazing. That's amazing to do for yourself.
Now, one of the things, you know, that is the most frightening, I would say, for many of us, is criticism. Like, I'll do this work with students and they'll say, okay, you know, I can let people not like me. I can let people, you know, prefer someone else, but I don't want them criticizing me.
You know, I don't want to put myself in a position where they're going to quote unquote hurt me. And here's the truth, man. When you become an entrepreneur, when you're a life coach, when you're a weight loss coach, when you're putting yourself out there and creating content and putting out your ideas and writing books and creating programs and creating products, you are putting out material and yourself to be criticized.
That's just the way it is. It's like open ground. If any of you have sold anything on Amazon, it's like a free for all.
Hey, if you hate me, if you hate my book, if you hate my material, feel free to write about it publicly for millions of people to read. That's what we're signing up for, right? You put out a YouTube video, you put out a podcast.
I mean, you put out anything people are able to, and as they should be able to, not like you, not like what you're doing, not like your material, right? And they're welcome to verbalize that. And I have way too many students, way too many coaches that I work with that are unwilling to put themselves in the quote unquote line of fire for criticism because they're terrified of it.
So let's talk about that for a minute. What is it about criticism that is so devastating for some of us? I mean, what is criticism?
It's basically somebody having an opinion of you. You know, I've had people write reviews on my book that clearly haven't even read my book, right? I had someone, when I first wrote my book, If I'm So Smart, Why Can I Lose Weight?
When I first wrote that book many years ago, somebody made a comment that they were very frustrated that I didn't talk about diabetes in that book because that was their issue. Their issue was diabetes and they wanted to learn more about it. Well, clearly, my book was on emotional overeating, and I'm not a doctor and I have no expertise in diabetes.
That would not be something that I would talk about in my book, but it still bothered me that they criticized me and gave me low stars because I didn't include diabetes, bugged me. And I had to really do some work on it. I had to really think about, wow, like how could I have made this better for this person?
Now, that stuff will make you nuts, right? It will make you absolutely nuts because you cannot please everybody. People are going to not like stuff you do.
Now, they may not say it, and you may not put yourself in a position where they can say it publicly. But if you can handle it privately, if you can handle it in your own mind, then you can handle it anywhere. And if you can handle criticism, if you can handle people not liking you, your life will explode.
What you'll be willing to do, the chances you'll be willing to take will explode in your life. Your options will become so much more if you're willing to be criticized. So, that's really what I'm encouraging you to do here.
And I know that it sounds amazingly stupid. Hey, let's get up and get criticized today. But really, that's what I am encouraging you to do.
Be willing to put yourself out there enough so people do have an opinion of you. So people can either like you or not like you. I mean, you look at the people that are the most successful.
There are a lot of haters. A lot. It doesn't matter how amazing the person is.
It doesn't matter what they've done in the world. There's haters. The more people that know about you, the more you stand for something, the more haters you're going to have.
And if you can allow space for that in your life, then what happens is the people... It's kind of like the work that I did on myself when I started showing up. More people had opinions, stronger opinions about who I was, but also, you know, and some of them are negative, but also, so many more of them were positive.
I was able to really find my people because I was showing up. It's a beautiful thing. It's a really beautiful thing.
So let's talk just a little bit about criticism. If someone is to write something about you, or someone is to say something to someone else, like, oh, you know, did you know that Sally said that you, you know, are rude to your husband? Or did you know that Janet said that your book had a lot of typos in it, and it was very unprofessional?
You know, these kind of things, they happen all the time, right? And they can devastate us, right? And because we make them mean something.
And that's the key. Criticism in and of itself is not painful. It's when somebody criticizes us, and we take it on, and we believe it, and we make it mean something about ourselves.
Now, I use this example, and I know I've used it in this podcast before, but if someone's to say to you, I hate your blue hair, you don't really get devastated by it because you know you don't have blue hair. Most of us don't have blue hair. If you have blue hair, then change the color to blonde or something.
But someone makes a criticism towards you, and it's something that you know is not true for yourself, then it just washes over you. It's when someone criticizes you and there's part of you that believes it that it gets to you. And if someone criticizes you and you make it mean, you make their opinion mean something about you, that's when you get into trouble.
That's when you start really hiding and getting away from that criticism because you don't want to expose yourself to that. And the reason you don't want to expose yourself to it is because of what you are making it mean. That's really good to know.
You're the one causing all your pain, not the people that are criticizing you, but you believing it, taking it on and making it mean something. So, if you can allow people to criticize you and allow them to have opinions of you and allow them to judge you and not make it mean something about you and not make it mean stop and don't do anymore and not make it mean that you're unworthy or incapable or not good enough, then it can actually have the opposite effect. People are paying attention.
People are taking the time to write something about me. People, this is really an indicator that I'm standing for something. I've said something that's a little bit controversial.
That means that I'm showing up. I'm not just being vanilla bland. I am being myself, and not everyone's going to like me, and that's okay.
Okay? So I really want to encourage you to gather up some criticisms and see how you react to them. And the other way that a lot of us deal with criticism is, first of all, we hide, and then we don't show up as much because we feel like we can't handle the criticism, when really, we just can't handle our interpretation of the criticism.
And the other thing we do is we lash back. We say, oh, if you're going to criticize me, then I'm going to criticize you, right? Now I'm going to attack you.
And then you've created this resisting situation where you're judging someone, and you're looking for the bad in them, and it's like you're trying to annihilate the source, which is completely unnecessary. It's okay for someone to have an opinion of you based on their life, based on their experience, based on what they know about you. A lot of people that criticize you don't even know you, right?
They just know a piece of you, and that's okay. But when you come back at them and then you start criticizing them, then we've just brought a lot more tension into the world that's completely unnecessary, right? All we need is that freedom to allow people to be who they are.
And sometimes people are critical. And can you hold the space for someone to be critical? Can you allow for that?
That's a really important question to ask yourself. Now, let's talk a little bit about approval versus aversion. So many of us are approval addicts.
We just are locked in to the patterns of our childhood, where we are literally trained to perform for approval, right? So we get good grades, and then we're approved of. We act politely for mommy, and we get approval.
We say please, we say thank you, we clean our plate, we clean our room, we get approval. And we get locked into that pattern of taking action for approval. And then as adults, we don't even realize that that's what we're doing.
And let me just add, it's not always a negative thing to be motivated by approval. When it becomes a negative thing is when you don't get the approval. Right?
And so often we don't, because people aren't paying attention enough to approve of us. People are busy. They don't take the time out.
Often they're not paying close enough attention to us to give us approval. And so we become devastated by the lack of it. And then on the other hand, we have people who have aversion to what we're doing.
And that's what I think is kind of the opposite of approval. And that is completely devastating. Right?
The lack of approval is devastating. But then if someone is paying attention and they don't like what we've done, you know, we get the F on the paper, then, and that's in our grown up adult life, then we're devastated. And are you willing to live your life in a way where you're not seeking that approval anymore, where you're not in that state of emotional childhood, where you're constantly looking for the A paper or the pat on the head?
And can you also make room in your life for the aversion, for the people who don't like what you do? It's really something to consider, because that patterning can keep you hidden in your life, because you don't want to show up, because you don't want to get any kind of, you know, if you're not getting applause, if you're not getting approval, you don't want to show up. You need that to keep going.
And the only approval that you're really gonna want and get is your own. And that's the next step in kind of our evolution into emotional adulthood, is to figure out what will it take to get my own approval, right? What will it take for me to get to that space where I can really feel approved by myself, approving, and then work towards that, because that you can always provide for yourself.
Now, the bottom line is, we want people to like us because we want to feel like we're good, right? That's why we're seeking that approval. We were trained as children to believe that we're good girls or good boys when we do it right, when we get the approval.
So it's really important to me that you don't beat yourself up over this stuff, that you don't, you know, give yourself a hard time for wanting that approval from outside of yourself because it's a pattern that has been developed and has actually served you in many ways. But it is important to recognize it because when you don't get the approval, I see so many people when they don't get the approval, they just stop taking action. And that is going to keep you from showing up as the best version of yourself because if you're only going to do stuff where you can get approval, you're going to end up doing a lot of stuff you don't even want to do only to get approval from somebody else.
And if you really think about what would it take to get my own approval, what would I be so proud of myself for doing? What do I approve of in my own life? That can get your juices flowing.
And if you have your own approval and you can also make room in your life for other people not to like you and recognize that the reason you want them to like you is because you make that mean something about yourself and that you can make that mean something about yourself even without them liking you, right? So for example, if somebody likes you and you think, oh gosh, I must be great, or someone approves of you, I must be doing this right. Right?
If that's what you're depending on when you're doing your work in the world, you're going to first of all, like I said, be acting all crazy because you're going to want to be doing a dog and pony show to try and get everyone's attention first of all, and then to get their approval. But if you decide for yourself like, I'm going to like me, I'm going to figure out what I approve of, and then I'm going to go out and do that, and I'm going to keep doing that. Even when I don't get someone's approval, that's when the magic can happen.
And that's in your family life, that's in your relationships, that's in your professional life. That's how you evolve into the best version of yourself by actually owning that you are the only one that needs to give yourself approval. That is not someone else's job.
It's not someone else's job to like you. And in fact, if someone doesn't like you, that's okay. That's their prerogative.
You don't need to negotiate with them over what they like or don't like, okay? And I will tell you when you decide that that's how you're going to go into the world, one of the questions that I get a lot is, well, if I don't care if people like me, I'm just going to be such a jerk all the time, right? I've seen these people, they just don't care about other people, right?
And they just go around and they just act obnoxious all the time. And I say, well, if that's who you are really, then maybe you're right. But is that who you are really?
Are you really obnoxious? Are you really mean? Are you really a jerk?
What I have found is that people are like that when they're afraid of other people's opinions. And so they just resist them and push them away and say they don't care. But when you're not afraid of other people's opinions, and you make room for them to like certain parts of you or all of you or not all of you, that's not how you act.
You act in a more relaxed and welcoming and unconditional way. You don't show up and be obnoxious. Most of us are not obnoxious and bitchy and horrible in our natural state.
Right? If you think about who you are in your natural state, that's not who you are. You start acting like that when you're trying to manipulate people and control their opinion of you.
And when you get frustrated when they don't act the way you want them to. Right? When you're showing up as yourself, really it's like the best version of yourself is usually very loving, very kind, very creative, and very dynamic.
So I want to say that I think that the most important quality when it comes to allowing other people to judge you and allowing other people not to like you and to being unconditionally accepting of other people's opinions is courage to continue to be yourself, to continue to show up with confidence when it comes to being who you are. And it's not, I don't care what you think of me. It's not like that.
It's, I get it. And here's the last piece of this that will kind of blow your mind a little bit. Maybe when people don't like you, it has nothing to do with you.
But also when they do like you, when they do approve of you, when they do think you're amazing, it also has nothing to do with you. It has to do with them. Right?
And that's where you can keep that even confidence with yourself. And I get an email from someone that says, you've changed my life. You're the most amazing thing.
I've read your books. I've listened to your podcasts. I've read your blogs.
You are the most amazing thing. You're so great. And I do get emails like that.
I know that it's not about me. I really do know that. I know that they saw something or heard something that ignited something in them.
And their opinion of me isn't about me. It's about them. And I can still celebrate it and think it's wonderful for them.
But I know that it's not about me. And when I get an email where someone doesn't like what I do, and they don't like what I've said, and they're mad about it, and they have a different opinion, I also know that that has nothing to do with me, right? It has to do with them.
And I can still have compassion and understanding and see where they're coming from. And hear their criticism and maybe take some of it on and apply it as really good constructive feedback. And I can use that to improve me.
But I also know that other people's opinions have nothing to do with me, good or bad. And that's when you find the freedom. Because when you don't need their approval or you don't take it on as something that you need and want to continue, you're free from it.
And when you don't take on their criticism as something that you need, you know, something that you don't want or that you have an aversion to, then you can set yourself free. And all you have to do in order to do that is show up, be yourself, and repeat. Let other people be who they are.
Let other people change their mind about you. Let them have their opinion about you. Set them free to do as they will in their minds with you.
And notice how your life will change. I would love to hear how you can apply this to your life and any struggles that you're having with doing this in the comments at thelifecoachschool.com/15. I also want to tell you about a new product that I have released.
It's called How to Solve Any Problem. And it really does work on any problem. And I spent a lot of time creating it for you.
It's a wonderful product. I would love for you to check it out. You can go to the life coach school.com how to solve any problem and check that out as well.
Let me know what you think. I hope you all have a wonderful week and I'll talk to you next week.
Bye bye. It would be incredibly awesome if you would take a moment to write a quick review on iTunes. For any questions, comments, or coaching issues you would like to hear on the show, please visit us at www.thelifecoachschool.com.
