 You ever had that? Ever? Or you want to talk to this girl and you find some reason, some excuse? Well, that's what happens. You retract. You already rejected yourself. And that's what happens when you don't have good self-esteem. You won't take stupid chances like Jackass to make yourself something that you're not, but you're not going to do the real gambles in life, the calculated risks, like finding your own business, taking on a project that you think, well, I can't be done. It's too big for me. Whenever you have that, whenever you're feeling depressed or down to yourself or powerless or any of that, that's what we call the pathological inner critic at work. And that's a very, very powerful thing to cut you down. In the workshops that I do, I spend about 12 hours on just that one subject. Ever had the inner critic at work? You know what that is? A psychologist or a sociologist named Eugene Sagan coined that term, and he called it the pathological inner critic. And that inner critic is that inner incessant voice that always nags and cuts you down and always says, you can't do it. You'll hate you. You're a bore. Or, I'm better than this guy, but I'm less than the other nine guys there. Ever had competitiveness in your life or comparing yourself or struggling for perfectionism? These are forms of self-medication. But they're also forms of meeting needs, deficiency needs. And the inner critic is so like you're in a little Nazi, you're in a Hitler. You can't do it. She'll hate you. Yeah, lazy. Ever had those voices? They come from your parents. They come from church and state. They come from the media. They want to sell you something. And all the powers that be are very interested in you not having good self-esteem because if you have good self-esteem, then nobody can sell you nothing. You don't need it. You can't be manipulated if you have good self-esteem. Hmm. That inner critic is incessant and he'll always tell you what to do and he serves certain needs. It's very hard to shut him up, but the first step is to start listening. If I give you a couple of miniature exercises to kind of take with you, then look for the inner critic. Listen to the inner critic. That inner voice, your inner, I don't know, the nagging voice that you might have heard from your parents or somebody else. That's your boss constantly telling you you'll never amount to nothing or that was stupid or I'm going to get yelled at or she'll reject me. That's all your inner critic. And if you do nothing else but listen to that voice every day, you might want to make a little list. In the workshop, I send out a podcast, two and a half hour podcast before the workshop and a 25-page worksheet. And there I have people watch for a week preceding the workshop for that inner voice, writing down with date, time and what it said. And typically people come up with about 10 or 20 of those a day for about a week. Just do it for a day. Just find 10 of those things in a single day. That was real stupid of me. Oh yeah, great housekeeping. Look at this mess, stuff like that. Whenever you're saying shit like that to yourself, write it down. Start listening for it and write it down and it's a real, real powerful thing. It's the first step in catching this inner parasite, that inner alien, whatever it is. Get that and then when you have a list like that after like a day or maybe two or three of 10 points, just do 10 points a day, nasty shit you said to yourself. Write it down and then figure out what need it serves because it serves a need. I can't go into all the psychology behind it. It'll take us hours just to do that. Operating conditioning, variable ratio, reinforcement schedule. Do the psychology behind it. It's very fascinating why you listen to that damn critic. Why would you listen to somebody who constantly cuts you down? Well, here's one good reason. Let's say you think, oh, she's going to reject me or people are going to reject me or I shouldn't go out and apply to these companies because they're going to reject me. It's like saying, look, you know, I hit my, you know, took a hammer, tried to put a nail in the wall and I hit my left thumb and then people say, well, hit your right thumb then it'll hurt less. That's a real cynical way of looking at things, but that's how people operate it. The inner critic will do one up on it. He'll say, look, you know, you're probably going to, you're a dumbass. You're going to hit yourself on the left thumb. So why don't you preemptively hit yourself on the right thumb? And then when you inadvertently hit yourself on the left thumb, it won't hurt so much. In other words, I'm going to be rejected. So I reject myself first now. So when I will inadvertently get rejected, it won't hurt so much. Have you ever done that to yourself? I have. Everyone I've worked with has. That's one way. That's one need that this damn critic serves. And if you're aware of this, just that little awareness helped me a great deal. I mean, there's 100 times more to it, 1,000 times more to it than I can give you in 45 minutes, but it's a start. Or it does this. It drives you. Ever had perfectionism in your life? It's not good enough. Ever had that? Well, that's a motivational thing. You think, oh, I need to motivate myself to have this state that's unattainable. It's like the perfect 10, you know, it's asymptotical. Can't be reached. Only so close. And then people think, well, you know, if I motivate myself, if I didn't have that critic, I would be a lush, I would be a lazy fuck. I would never do anything. Well, yeah, that's one way to meet that need. There's a healthier need, a healthier way to meet that need. But if you're doing it, most people using the critic to compare themselves to others on the off chance that they'll be that one time out of 100 when they're winning. It's like putting the slot machine, feeding the slot machine. Yeah, but the next, next time I could win. And that's reinforcing. It's creating an obsession, variable ratio reinforcement schedule. Look it up in operant conditioning. Very powerful. Very freaking powerful. Write that down. And whenever I have that list of 10 points a day, what you said to yourself, nasty shit, self-rejection, comparing perfectionism, I should, I should try harder. It's probably a critic at work trying to kick you in the bum. But that's not the best way to meet that need.