 When your life sucks or things don't work out for you, it's very easy to blame other people or to blame life for what has happened to you. But in my experience, most of the failures and the successes that I've had have actually come down to one simple principle. It's not esoteric, it's not manifesting, it's not something mystical or difficult to understand, and it's something that hits a lot closer to home. So in today's video, I thought I would share the two words that made the biggest difference in my life. What's up you guys, Alex Hine here. So before we jump in, I've put together a free journaling worksheet, which is right below this video. And what the journaling worksheet will help you do is figure out how to get your life together, how to plan goals so that you can have the best year ever of your life, and how to really come up with a daily journaling routine that can improve your life. I wanna start with this one story that will help you understand this very simple principle before we get in. My first love was this girl that when I was studying abroad in Switzerland, let's see, I was 19, was a girl from down south, and she had been studying abroad with me in Switzerland. She and the German program, I was in the French program. This girl was incredibly sweet, very confident, very playful, had a cute southern accent, and she was very smart, and we enjoyed spending time together and traveling together. And eventually it became one of those relationships where it was clear that I was just a temporary guy and was not the dream guy, was not a guy that she was very excited about going forward. But, you know, study abroad, she indulged our relationship. We were dating, it was kind of official, but not very official. And then eventually, the last day, we are leaving at the Zurich Airport in Switzerland. And she says, you know you're never gonna see me again, right? And I was blown away by this. Everything was fine and dandy, everything was great, everything was, I mean, it was the first time I really felt in love, like as in a strong emotional response to a girl I dated. And I was going to school down south, she was going to school down south, it wasn't that far away. So I hoped maybe we could continue. And she said, we're never gonna see each other again and you're never gonna see me again, right? And I don't want you to reach out. So you can imagine in the middle of this relationship that seems like the first dream girl that I've ever had, who says that to your face, is pretty crushing. And even though when we came back to the US, I tried reaching back out to her and I sent her flowers for a birthday. And she gave me a little PS before then. She said, hey, if you send me anything for my birthday, I'll never talk to you again. So I sent her flowers and she never talked to me again. Until about five years later. But anyway, talk about ego destruction, it's soul destruction and being a very grumpy kid when I went back to college. And I spent three or four months in this mood, you know, when someone that just dumps you and you're like, I hate women, I hate people, I hate dating, I don't want to be around people. After this kind of dark night of the soul, I really came home and sat down one day and I realized the problem was me. And that brought up this key realization that helped me in all parts of my life, whether it's good or bad. It's me. Those are the two words. It's me, the problem and the solution. Some years later, I was building my very first startup. It was this idea where people could do an online quiz and see where in the world they should go. And it was filled with all kinds of vulgarity that would be great for millennials. Now, we were building this project for about two months and I was doing it with a high school friend. And he seemed a little bit less committed than I was, but either way, we were executing, we were building these things and we were creating this first startup company and really hoping we could quit our jobs to go in on something that we were more passionate about. So he had been working going back and forth between Russia and the US. And one night he said, you know, hey man, someone sat on my laptop at this party and broke it and I lost the hard drive. I lost all the storage of our project. So I blew up at him for sure because we had been working on this for years and I done my half. He seemed a little bit like a get rich quick kind of guy and that is committed to actually doing the work. And I felt like I just lost three months of my life in this project. But then that same little voice popped in and said, wasn't him, it's me. I gave up control by working with him. I could have done something different. I could have backed up all those files for all of us. And in general, I found that in my life, when things work out and when they don't work out, this affirmation of it's me is almost always the most empowering because whether or not it really was you, if the philosophy is it was me, then you always find something that you can improve about yourself. And that is something that's always gonna benefit you from here until the day that you die. One thing I see a lot in other people, especially when I had been coaching hundreds and hundreds of people at once a few years back, I noticed that for so many of us, especially when there's repeated failure and people end up becoming very jaded and very bitter, there's often a hatred of successful people or anyone who's actually made it to some degree. It makes sense. I mean, I felt it too. You hate someone who has done successfully what you wanna do, right? And it's tricky because that blame, that pointing the finger at other people, it's all about them, whether they made it or they failed, is not pointing the finger at yourself, which is really the only person that matters. And so blame is the number one reason that I see for failure, whether it comes to just changing your life, whether it comes to building a business or finding love that lasts this time, I always find that blame is the biggest thing. If it's in dating, men are the problem or women are the problem. If it's in business, everyone else has advantages or money or previous experience. If it's career, everyone has these special connections that I don't have or this bureaucracy, all those things may be true to some degree, but the problem in the solution is you. It's me because that's the only thing you can work on and you can improve. So if I get dumped in a relationship, it's me. How can I improve? What do I have to do going forward? If I'm an entrepreneur and I'm building this business, something doesn't work out. It could be something so unlucky, like the pandemic. It's still me because what can I do to improve? I can be more adaptable, I can find online ways, I can find new ways of marketing, new revenue streams. It's me, the fault is on me. And whether I didn't get into that dream school I wanted, it's on me because next time maybe if I wanted to get into medical school or something very competitive, maybe I need to figure out how to be a more compelling candidate or to be more creative or to use more lateral thinking. Regardless of whether the truth of the matter is that it's really just you, many things in life are luck, circumstances, coincidence, our choices, other people's choices. If I get murdered by someone, I don't know, maybe it's me and maybe it's not me. But the point is if you choose the philosophy that it's me, you're always choosing control. And you're not choosing blame, you're choosing personal responsibility. And the biggest responsibility that you have to yourself is to always be getting better and always be growing through challenges. So the two words and the affirmation that changed my life the most is it's me. Whether it's success or whether it's failure, it's on me to figure it out and it's on me to grow and get better. I hope that helps you today. It's kind of a bitter hard pill to swallow but it's something that will guarantee you make your life better every single year. All right guys, before you go, two other related videos for you right there and I will catch you soon.