 This video is very difficult for me to do right now and I haven't done a video that I've just felt dread to record in a while. Today I was at the National Achievers Congress. It was an all-day conference with my buddy and Barbara Eugene. I've introduced you guys before and he actually got the tickets for both of us to go so that was really cool and so there was a ton of speakers talking about business, entrepreneurship, taking your life to the next level, success, wealth, all of it really. As a lot of you know Gary Vaynerchuk is one of my like all-time favorite guys who I look up to aspire to be like listen to almost every day. I watch his vlogs. He was so he was speaking about his challenge to get people to to act and to do and that when people when he gives talks like there's a great connection and people are motivated and they're all into it and about it but then when they go off into the world without fail most if not all of the people don't follow through and do what they know what they already know that they need to do and that he's realizing that's a fear of judgment, fear in general because he was saying I think people are afraid that through social media since social media exposes us people are afraid that perhaps somehow it's going to expose parts of ourselves that we want to remain hidden or secret or whatever or the parts of ourselves that we're ashamed of and at that moment I had a lightbulb and I was like whoa I should do a video where I actually talk about the things that I'm afraid of about myself that I'm afraid of being judged for or that I feel shame about and get that out and that'll help and while I'm saying that all of a sudden Garry's says I want to challenge you guys and I already knew he was going to say it and I'm writing it down and I was showing Eugene look I'm writing in my notes like a vlog idea to do that and he goes I'm going to challenge you guys to talk about and and express and admit all the things that I'm ashamed of scared of afraid of being judged for etc so that is the purpose of this video I have so much good and positive stuff to do with myself and my life that I can't let these irrational fears hold me back and to really be there for you guys too a lot of you lately especially more and more as time goes on have said to me you know when I watch your videos I feel like I'm talking to my best friend that's exactly like what I want to do that's exactly what I'm trying to do and to be is like a friend for you and with you through the screen and we're just having a conversation I know it's one sided because here I am but that's that's the tone and the the feeling that I want you guys to have is that we are friends you and I and we're talking and I'm just having a conversation with you openheartedly honestly transparently without further ado let's dive in you know I'm not perfect at all I'm not even close to being perfect I have many flaws many things about me that I think are shitty and that need improvement and that need to be worked on things that I've done in my past that I'm ashamed of dating and relationships yeah let's start there I am I'm very very insecure when it comes to relationships I'm very insecure and I get jealous and I have a lot of fear and I have a lot of trust issues so as a way to cope with that I tend to obsess and I'm not very good at respecting other people's privacy for example if I'm dating someone and I'm trying to prove to myself that they are worthy of my trust and that I can trust them I will go through their activity feed and see what kind of posts they're liking commenting people they're friends with I will I am that person who like stocks and is intrusive and goes into their you know stuff that I shouldn't be like poking around in and I'll do it obsessively and I get insane amounts of anxiety when I start to let my brain think and wonder and wonder if I don't know if they're they're possibly lying to me or not not being fully honest if they're misleading me I'm so jaded and distrustful of people because of of my past because of the instability of role models as a child because of the way I have been lied to and cheated on as an adult and sometimes it consumes me and I know that I've been instrumental in pushing people away because I'll become so overcome with fear and anxiety that like in an act to preserve myself I will do things that are disrespectful to the other person like that like going through there I mean I know Instagram's updated recently where you can't even do it now but I would like look at the person that I'm following and then I would see who they're liking and commenting on and all this stuff I've gone through phone records I've gone through I've used passwords to look through through email and messages and different accounts and look at spending history of my ex the horrible thing about it is that most of the time inevitably I would find what I was hoping I wouldn't find but what I was looking for I would find it you know that just in my head validated my need to keep doing that and I've realized as I've gotten older and wiser and better at discerning who's trustworthy and who's not that that old survival tactic is no longer serving me it's actually hurting me as a crutch I felt very very ugly as a kid growing up um I came here to the US when I was about four and a half almost five with my mom from the Netherlands and I didn't know any English at the time I didn't know any of the cultural norms of Americans I we didn't have money I was picked on a lot you know I was called gay and faggot growing up and I was also called ugly a lot and I remember distinctly one time having a crush on someone this girl and I was at a friend's house and we were all in the pool we were hanging out and playing and what have you and we were just talking about each other and like crushes and looks and stuff like that and my friend Christina turns to the girl and like asks her if she thinks I'm attractive and she said that I was attractive from the neck down and it wasn't to be a joke it wasn't to be mean it was just literally she thought like oh you know I had some like like a good I even even as a kid I had a decent looking body and um and I had abs and she that's that was her response and then I remember one time uh I was a wee below in Boy Scouts I was a wee below and we had an exercise with us boys where we partnered up and then we would put a light behind to the side of someone's head and then the shadow would be on a piece of paper and then the um the partner would draw the outline of the person's head on the piece of paper so you draw the silhouette and then it was my turn to go and the kid drew my head on the piece of paper only he drew it like way way way bigger than it actually was even with the shadow because as a kid I always got made fun of for having a really big head my forehead always have been self-conscious about my forehead because it you know it curves it's quite big and then it curves back and the hairline starts back here and it's not that my hair is receding it's just that's just where it naturally begins and um so I was always called many names for having a big head and then also my ears are pretty you know they're pretty big if you compare them to other guys especially up here this this this top part right here is really big and it sticks out a little bit as a kid it was even more pronounced it was even less proportionate and uh people would call me dumbo and I was gonna fly away with my ears yeah it just um it really got to me I really believed that I was ugly so I think a lot of times without realizing it um I have this fear that I am ugly that's that that is the truth I'm ugly but that I've just learned how to place myself in the right lighting at the right angles and to show the right sides of me so that people don't realize it or they don't get the opportunity to see and discover that in fact I am ugly I'm afraid I'm that's a fear of mine that kind of runs on autopilot in the background that if I'm not watching the lighting my angles in what direction I'm recording myself that somehow some way I'm going to capture an angle of me that's gonna be ugly and it's gonna and that that is the real and legitimate perspective of my face it's been a process and I'm still and I'm still getting there and I'm working on it but I'm learning to to see myself differently and to really interpret what I see differently and to appreciate who I am and what I look like and not based on this like tape that's been playing in my head since I was a little kid I have taken out my anger on this one before as a lot of you know he's a very like traumatized dog he's been through a lot he was found with a broken leg he's obviously been abused he's been abandoned and there are times when especially moving to this new apartment it was um it was kind of hard on him and he started to do this thing where he would he would get scared and he would pee I guess uncontrollably before I would take him for a walk and um at first I just really didn't know how to handle it and I would get really really angry and if I got angry it would make him pee more of course because he was getting scared and that made the situation for me elevate even more and it got more intense and it was like oh my god especially if he was in my room on my carpet or on my bed if he started to pee and he wouldn't get off the bed because he's like cowering down and I'm like yelling at him to get off and then he would start peeing more I I I've lost my temper and I've grabbed him by the collar and yanked him off the bed I've I've hit him I've hit him in the I've hit him in the nose and I hit him on the ass and it was and I've hit him hard and um and it made it worse and it made his trauma worse and it made the peeing worse and it made me feel horrible and it's like what's wrong with me like what's what's wrong with me that I would do that to him that I would hurt him but I'm just like what's wrong with me that I would do that and why do I have so much anger and I know I have a lot of anger because of my my past my childhood I know I have these like I know I've I've I've had like really really insanely intense anger well up before and that's been an issue that I've had to deal with for a long time too so that's something I'm working on and it's gotten way better but like this was something new something I wasn't prepared emotionally to handle and I lost it multiple times I immediately afterwards feel bad and I and I question where that comes from and so that's been a huge lesson for me in patience and in using love and support to teach rather than fear and punishment that's like a lot an ongoing lesson with Duke and like um I'm just feel really lucky that you know dogs have unconditional love and he loves the shit out of me and and is giving me that chance to grow and to be a better owner for him you know it just uh yeah so that's something I'm working on but it's something that I have like shame for like like why do I have an issue with that like what's wrong with me that's that's that's the feeling that I get you know but I have noticed that now that I do um support him with affection and love and if he does pee like it comes with the territory he's abused so I clean it we move on and not to make him feel bad about it because he already knows he already knows it's not good when he does it and to just make it a non-issue it's like he pees oh okay let me grab the swiffer watch out Duke watch out I'm gonna I'm gonna wipe it up now I'm and then we continue about our business let's go for a walk and he gets excited and wags his tail and we both forget about it and move on and that was it and then I've noticed slowly over time it happens less and less well yeah can you forgive me baby I'm sorry it's like why are you crying I'm playing with my toy you stupid fool who cares so the next thing I don't know why I've decided to talk about it here in on the bathroom floor but I guess it kind of feels like a safe space to just be down here but and this is something that I haven't really I don't know that I've told many people at all certainly never talked about it publicly like this but when I was getting ready to try to go to a private Christian university shortly after having graduated high school I was very much into church at the time and this was shortly after having come out I was being groomed for their theater department and I was in their show Brigadoon I was doing other shows with them and I had befriended I'd gotten really close to another guy in the theater department he was also gay but like not come to terms with it at all and we just really bonded and I would I would stay over in his bunk and I would sleep over with him and his roommate and but I would sleep in his bunk with him and we'd like you know cuddle and watch movies and all that stuff and then at some point you know it just kind of like there was this sexual tension that had built up over time and at one point and we and we were both like very Christian so like we both were virgins and we both wanted to wait until marriage and that was like extremely important to me and like sorry I'm gonna disclaimer this this one's a little graphic so for those of you who are have people around that shouldn't be watching this or listening or you don't want them to this is my disclaimer and one night you know things had just escalated to the point where we were being very intimate and um so um he was trying to have sex with me and I was curled up facing away saying no pushing a little bit like no I don't want to I don't want to but I wasn't like it's not like I was getting up out of bed or like going away or pushing him completely off me because at the same time like I had never had sex before I was a virgin but I like I so desperately craved that I wanted that intimacy and that closeness with someone else I just didn't want it to be exactly in this situation in the scenario and necessarily with this person but hormones and all of that like I part of me like wanted it yeah of course you know I'm sure he felt that complex mix of emotions and he was into it too so he kept trying and push and push push and it got to the point where it suddenly hurt physically me a lot and I stopped him I pushed him off me I said like like I yelled something like I said stop I said get off and I got up out of bed and then I collapsed in the middle of the bedroom in a heap crying sobbing he was in bed crying sobbing and I felt like I felt like I had let myself down and I felt like it was over and I had lost my virginity because of that and I felt such a overwhelming feeling of just disappointment and shame and I felt like I remember having to google like rape what is rape is that rape I don't know so I looked it up and the descriptions on the internet were definitely like yes that is rape and I was like oh my god and then suddenly you know I was the victim in this situation and I put that on myself I'm the victim I'm the victim I'm the victim and so then I went to the police station with my mom and I sat there and I filed a police report saying that I had been raped and they took that information and they questioned him and it went to the DA and the DA deemed that it wasn't a prosecutable case and dropped it and I was ashamed and he and I had destroyed whatever friendship we had and he was completely distraught about it I just have so much shame around that whole situation and like looking back I think you know we were two completely utterly confused kids growing up in a society and in a culture where we were told that we were innately bad for being gay and that our desires were bad evil sinful it was just all so effed up and there was no like there's no like right happy simple way to look at that situation or or to like explain it or to to move forward from it it was just such a messy complicated unfair situation for both of us and I feel so bad that like I had to add insult to injury by going to the police and and filing a police report that I'd been raped and it just like I think at some point I reached out and apologized but you know he never responded and I think at that point he had a girlfriend and had moved on and moved to another state or something so and then I just I just put like that burden on myself too that like here was this kid like coming to terms with being gay and he even told me after the fact he said that you know he for the first time in his life had considered for the first time in his life he had considered accepting himself as being gay because he felt that he loved me and that it made sense and that he was happy and that you know as a result of that like he just went like way way way way way back into the closet like you know and and then what really got me is years after that incident of course I never went to that school and then nothing ever panned out from it but um there was another kid in that theater department his names land in such a sweet kid such a sweet kid like so devout and so big hearted such a good guy such a good guy and everybody loved him and he was so talented and had such a strong work ethic just such a good guy and um I don't know how long after it was that this happened but one day I got a message from a family member of his asking if I if I knew where Landon was and saying that you know they had heard that I'm gay and in my experience at this university and said that that Landon had gone missing and that nobody knew where he was and that maybe I knew you know he had been struggling with homosexuality himself and I believe you know he had two two moms so it's not like he was a stranger to it or that his parents weren't accepting of it but he couldn't he just couldn't accept himself as being gay I guess I guess they found his car next to a dam you know a dam those big walls that holds back water on the windshield was a no I believe to his parents to his moms apologizing presumably he um jumped and killed himself because he couldn't deal with being gay and the reason why the family member had reached out to me was because they were hoping and praying that he didn't actually go through with it that he just staged it to look like he killed himself and that he had actually like run away to go like live somewhere underground or just be in hiding and it made me think like and he was so like you know like encapsulated in the Christian community was was the experience that I had with that other guy at the university and our tightly knit theater department there was that was that the only experience he had and seeing the way that that fell apart with the rape accusation and then me wanting to go to that school and then being rejected from the university and from all my Christian friends because I was willfully living in sin as an out gay guy and did I have impact on his outlook on his own life as being a gay man in a negative way that he felt like he didn't want to live anymore and I've always felt the weight of that I'm like why was I so stupid the last thing that I want to talk about that I am always hyper sensitive about and why I think also contributes to me having fear of judgment when I'm in in public and why I feel like I need to be like well groomed well manicured you know looking good feeling good etc is because as a kid I didn't look good feel good and I wasn't well groomed and I wasn't well manicured and um and I was made fun of a lot and then looking back I realized oh my god like people must have been talking about me all the time including the parents of people who knew better but I just it never even occurred to me until I became an adult like whoa like I was so oblivious and you have no idea what I'm talking about yet so as a kid I'm I've reasoned looking back I had a very traumatic childhood and I didn't have the best stable strong parenting as a kid so I didn't I wasn't regular it's hard for me to say but I wasn't regularly like bathing myself um I was dirty a lot I had I would have dirt caked behind my ears around my ankles under my nails all the time my nails were always grown out um I would smell my hair was gross my clothes oftentimes would be dirty and I think because I wasn't taught and I didn't value cleanliness and looking after myself taking care of myself I also didn't for some reason go to the bathroom when I needed to I was always holding it in I just I was just always holding it until the very very last second I would hold having to go to the bathroom after class I would always be sprinting to the bathroom to go pee because I don't know why exactly I used to after class in middle school go to my best friend's house at the time and um I would always wait to go to the bathroom until then and we would walk to his house and one day I had to go so bad I was always like jumping up and down and like holding myself so that I wouldn't go and one day I had to go so bad and he was putting the the code in to his garage door to open it and I was standing there waiting and I was jumping and skipping and I just lost control and I just this is in middle school probably like sixth or seventh grade I just lost control and I just peed myself right there on the sidewalk on the residential street and out of nowhere I hear oh my god and I turn around and I look on the other side of the street and of course it's the the guy who bullies me the most at school happens to be standing right there and sees me and I'm just like I pee running down my legs and there's a puddle in the floor and my best friend is staring at me completely disgusted and tells me that we can't be friends anymore and so I run home and I we had a little like screened in back room at the house and my parents were home I didn't say anything to them and I was just crying and I just went into that room and there was a table in there and I went under the table and bowled my hands around my knees and just sobbed and and and I had to explain to my parents what happened and I was like there's no way I can go back to school again after that and that wasn't the worst of it not only did I not go pee but I didn't go poo either I would hold it and hold it and hold it and invariably invariably some would come out and I wouldn't take care of it and so it would be like caked in my underwear I would have shit caked in my underwear and over time it would it would fall out eventually you know walking around and being mobile and mobile and active and and I remember my neighbor's mom across the street finding little balls of poo in the carpet and they had rabbits and so they assumed it was the rabbits I think at first and they eventually I'm sure put it together and realized that it was from me and that I smelled and that I was dirty and um I don't know I think I think all of that experience did something to my psyche and my self-worth and I think that plays a role in my fear of judgment and what I do and I've worked very hard I've worked really hard on overcoming that and to not give a fuck and to just let what I'm passionate about and what I care about override the things that I'm afraid of but sometimes it's very very strong and um you know those are the types of things that have all contributed it um this isn't this is by no means an exhaustive list of things but these are the things that have stood out the most in my mind since I was thinking about doing this video and so I wanted to get it out there and I can go into more detail into any one of these and I probably will at some point that is the gist of it oh and there is one more I don't I don't know if I said that the last one was the last one but this is the last one um when I was about 16 years old I was extremely depressed and and desperate and at a loss and I didn't I I was like just becoming more and more numb every day because I had so many horrible feelings inside and anxiety and negative thoughts and I didn't know how to express them I didn't know how to get them out I didn't know how to feel better and I didn't feel like anyone heard me and I just I wanted help so bad that one night I ended up overdosing on like 16 Tylenol and 16 allergy pills it was treated as an attempted suicide and I thought that that's what I was doing at the time but looking back I realized that it was a cry for help like if I really wanted to take the full bottle of pills I could have and would have if I really wanted to die but the truth is what I really wanted was to come so close to dying that it would wake up the people around me that I needed help and that I and that I didn't know what to do and that that was a cry for like please help me because I'm at my wits end like I'm ready to kill myself I need help and I was subsequently taken to the hospital and given you know some charcoal drink to to absorb the toxins and then I was placed into an inpatient hospital for adolescents who tried to hurt themselves aka a mental hospital for a week it was literally like the girl the movie girl interrupted and it was insane in there but anyway my point is that that's something that's like you know I don't know a very big part of my adolescence that you know is something that I'm not proud of either that I struggled with that and dealt with that and then I went to went to the place of like almost committing suicide myself so that's something I can do a whole video onto at some point but anyway I wanted to get this out and I wanted to show you guys like I'm flawed and I've and I'm I'm nowhere near being perfect and there are things about my past that I'm ashamed of and there are things that I'm insecure about and then I have fears you know I have fears like every day and I like doubt myself almost every day too what am I doing where am I going am I gonna succeed am I gonna like is what I'm doing worthwhile am I gonna be able to make a living for myself um but the thing is over time that fear is less and less powerful and the amount of fear and the the frequency of the self-doubt becomes less and less the positive wiring of my brain is overtaking more and more and I'm I'm honestly the happiest I've ever been but I just want you guys to know that it's not it's not like like I'm not always like bubbly and optimistic all the time that's not the case and then I am very much human and three-dimensional and flawed and I have jealousy and insecurities and I feel like I'm ugly and um you know things that I'm ashamed of and that I've hurt other people um and then I've you know done things selfishly and I just think it's so important to be honest about that not just for the purpose of this video but for myself so that I can really own it and take responsibility and accountability and then really from that place grow into someone really strong so yeah that's that I feel like I've gone on too long so I'm just gonna like wrap it at that I'm sure I'll get a bunch of comments from you guys and I'd love to hear from you honestly and um yeah this was my challenge Gary Vee I did it it's done let's fucking beat that fear of judgment and that fear of failure so that I can get out there and really really become and do all the things that I have ambition for and care about and and and stop all the shit that's holding me back this is