 I just generally think people becoming rich is such a fluke that I don't that doesn't mean they didn't work for it, but it's so much luck involved in it. So to act like somewhat self important or about it, it just I don't know. I feel weird about it. So I was watching one of the newer PewDiePie videos and I could relate to what he was talking about about not really, you know, feeling that we've done much work and we're kind of lucky to be in the position that we're in. And where he's absolutely correct, I think a lot of us struggle with giving ourselves credit where credits do and that's what we're going to be talking about today. What is up, everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And if you're new to my channel, my channel is all about mental health. So if you're someone like me who is actively trying to improve your mental and emotional well-being, you like to learn from other stuff going on in the world, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And if you haven't yet, check out the video I did yesterday. I reacted to TikToks involving kind of drug culture and I had a lot of fun making it. I want to make more, but anyways, go check it out in case you missed it. So, yeah, this morning I woke up, got myself a cup of coffee and how I came across this PewDiePie video. I haven't watched them in a couple of weeks, but anyways, a video got recommended to me from Graham Steven. So those of you who don't know who he is, he's like this millionaire. He's on YouTube. He's super young. I think he just celebrated his 30th birthday and it said that he was responding to PewDiePie. And I'm like, huh, what's this about? And yeah, PewDiePie made a video about, you know, like, do all millionaires think the same? He was reacting to a video that Graham Steven was in, right? And PewDiePie throughout his video, he talked a lot about, you know, all the luck that's involved and, you know, kind of, you know, minimizing, you know, his own success and the luck that he had. And everything like that. And I think that's something that we should definitely talk about because so many of us do get lucky in life, right? With different opportunities. I think a very good book that a lot of you should check out, two books actually. The first one is Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. It's really interesting, right? Like, he takes all these different successful people, like for example, Bill Gates. You know what I mean? And Bill Gates was so much of it was right place, right time. Like Malcolm Gladwell can like show how people's birthdays, like the year that they were born, even the month that they were born contributed to their success. Like Bill Gates was in an opportunity where he got to sit and program, you know, computers for like hours and hours and hours a day where like 99% of people in the United States couldn't do it during that time. So it gave him the leg up, right? So Outliers is about that, like these very weird, like nuanced things to give people a leg up. But then Malcolm Gladwell's other book, David and Goliath talks about being this kind of underdog and then taking, you know, your different situations and using them to your advantage, right? So I think those two books work very well in conjunction with each other because like I was saying in the intro, I can relate to PewDiePie a lot with my own sobriety, right? Like, you know, I'm lucky, you know, tens of thousands of people every single year are dying from addiction. Hell, I almost died from my addiction. I had a 10% chance of living. They said that even if I got sober, I was probably only going to live another year because of my congestive heart failure, right? So like, why am I here? Why am I here today? You know what I mean? And it's one of the reasons why I'm so passionate about making videos and discussing different topics about improving our mental and emotional well-being, like, because I'm so fortunate, I feel like I have a responsibility to share things that I've done, things that I've learned to give other people hope, right? So when we're looking at PewDiePie's situation and how he became successful, I think an excellent video. And if you haven't checked it out yet, you need to go check it out immediately right after this video. It's the new video from Psyche IRL, Donna from Psyche IRL. She actually did a collaboration with Roberto Blake, another awesome YouTuber. He makes a lot of, you know, creative entrepreneur videos for anybody who's trying to become like a YouTuber or a freelance artist or whatever it is, right? And they made a video about Gary Vaynerchuk and they had a very interesting conversation about, you know, luck versus, you know, hard work. And hustle, right? Donna's video is more about hustle culture. But anyways, one of the reasons I absolutely love Donna is because I'm a huge psychology nerd and she discussed the psychology of locus of control, all right? So there's two types of control, okay? There's an internal locus of control and an external locus of control. Donna explains it magnificently. You know what? I'll just use her clip right here. Now, accountability isn't just some self-help buzzword. In personality psychology, it's measured on something called the locus of control. Locus of control is how you perceive how much control you have over any given situation. On one side of the spectrum is internal and on the other side is external. If you lie more on the internal side, you see situations happening as more your fault, more in your control. If you lie more towards the external side of the spectrum, you see situations happening due to external factors, luck, chance, karma. The most common example, if you fail a test in school, if you lie towards more the internal, you would say something like, I failed that test because I didn't study hard enough. If you lie more towards the external part, you would say something like, I failed that test because the teacher is just so bad at teaching. Now, individuals that lie more towards the internal locus of control have better academic success, do better dealing with stress, and are more satisfied with their jobs. It does make sense if you think about it. If you see things as more in your control, if you are put in a bad situation, you feel like you have the power to get out of that situation. So yeah, I'm currently rereading one of my favorite books of all time, and I haven't read it in years, but I'm rereading it right now. I'm almost done with it. It's called The Happiness Advantage by Sean Aker. Like if you read one book this year, read this book. I am going to try to read it at least once every quarter or so, just so many tools and strategies. And that's where I first learned out about locus of control. So when it came to my sobriety or my mental health, my depression, my anxiety, my childhood trauma, and all that, I had to switch from this external locus of control to this internal locus of control. I had to switch from like, oh, the world is screwing me over. I had this messed up childhood. I had to switch from focusing all the things that were completely out of my control to the things that were in my control. Like what was in my control? What was in my control was how much effort I put into my sobriety, how many meetings I went to, whether or not I got a sponsor. Whether or not I worked the steps, whether or not I picked up the phone and talked to a support group, all these other things. Like, there was so much in my control, but I was focused so much on the external things that I couldn't control, that I was sitting in this perpetual state of misery and not moving forward in life, right? But going back to Pewdiepie, I think one of the best points that Graham Stephen made was this right here. I have a feeling Pewdiepie might be referring to himself as he says this if he feels like his success has been due in part to Locke. Part of this might be that he's one of the largest channels ever on YouTube, and there has to be some aspect of him that wonders why me. And who knows, he may have had a lot of luck working his favor. He was at the right place and the right time with the right content that people wanted to see. But he also had the persistence to keep going. He had the knowledge to leverage his channel. He didn't spend his money on stupid crap. He seized opportunities as they came up. He constantly adapted his content. And I bet a lot of people could have been given the exact same opportunities as him and then just screwed it up within a few months. Bingo, right there, okay? So like when it comes to Pewdiepie, like absolutely, like the fact that he had internet, you know what I mean? And was able to, you know, make YouTube videos, or the fact that he had a webcam to make YouTube videos, all these things, right? But like Graham Stephen said, there were plenty of people who had the exact same opportunity as Pewdiepie but didn't work as hard. Like you guys, I think about this all the time. Like even though I don't watch Pewdiepie daily, like I have so much respect for that dude because he works his butt off, right? Like there are so many YouTubers, like think about your favorite YouTubers, the best YouTubers or the biggest YouTubers on the platform. Think about their upload schedule, right? Once a week, sometimes they take weeks off, sometimes they disappear for months, right? And Pewdiepie is consistent. Like that is nuts. A lot of people, the higher they get up on the ladder, the less they kind of produce because they don't need to. You know what I mean? So like I think it's so important for us to give ourselves credit. Like I hope Felix knows like, man, I worked my butt off to be here, you know? And this is the same thing with my sobriety. Like I have, you know, some survivors guilt. I've had friends die. I've had, you know, people who came through the rehab I worked at die. Like so many people, so many people. I've had over 70 people die in the last five years and I sit there. I'm like, God, you know, I'm so lucky and I am. I'm lucky to have the people in my life. I'm lucky that I had a mom in sobriety who was able to help me get sober. I'm lucky that she was able to direct me towards the meetings. I'm lucky for the people that I met in those meetings. I'm lucky for the people I met in my, you know, sober living house. But, but I also have to give myself credit for what I did, right? Like I've been sober for coming up on eight years in a couple months. If I stay sober until June 23rd, all have been sober for eight years. I have met thousands and thousands of other drug addicts and alcoholics. And I see who succeeds and who doesn't, right? When I first got sober, I saw who was staying sober and who wasn't. I'm like, oh, these people staying sober, they are taking certain steps. If I want to stay sober, I need to do that. And that's what I've done, you know? So all of us, like, if you're sitting here, like, I know it's difficult to, you know, like think about your own hard work and perseverance when there's so many people who don't have those same opportunities. But we can't, we can't totally neglect the effort that we've put in, right? To where we're at in life to, you know, the hard work that we've put in, you know? Because here's the thing, here's the thing, here's what I want to end on. When you recognize the effort and the work that you've put in, you give hope to others. You give hope to other people who feel hopeless. Like when I got sober, I felt absolutely hopeless. I felt there was nothing I can do to save my own life. But other people said, no Chris, if you take these certain steps, you are increasing your chances to overcome your addiction, to overcome your depression, to overcome your anxiety, to improve your relationships, and to live a better life. They let me know that if I put in a certain amount of work, I could improve my life. And I knew I could because I saw them do it. So we need to use our experience. We need to use the hard work that we've done to give hope to others, right? And trust me, there's a balance. There's a balance between having this kind of like, you know, giving yourself credit and being overly cocky. There is definitely a balance there, right? So we need to be grateful for the opportunities that we've been given, but we also need to respect the fact that we put in some hard work and some effort. All right? But anyways, that's all I got for this video. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And a huge, huge thank you to everybody who supports the channel over on Patreon, as well as everybody who supports the channel by buying my mental health books at therewiretoll.com, as well as the merch from the merch store. You're all awesome. All right? Thanks again for watching. I'll see you next time.