 One of the best things that we can all do for our mental health is to have self-awareness. And part of that self-awareness is realizing that our ego is our worst enemy. 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. And what I like to do is pull different topics from the YouTube community to try to teach you how to improve your mental and emotional well-being. If you're new to any of that stuff, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And real quick, today, today is the final day to submit your questions over on Patreon for this month's Patreon Q&A. So if you're a patron, go over there, ask your questions, I will be filming it either tomorrow or the next day. Alright and I just put up a new Patreon exclusive video, make sure you go check that out. Alright, but anyways, yeah, let's jump into this topic. So I really wanted to make this video because I just finished this book called Ego is the Enemy. I highly, highly, highly recommend this book. It's written by a guy named Ryan Holiday and I just went through his other book called The Obstacle is the Way. I wish I could get everybody to read these two books. I'm looking forward to reading more of his books. But anyways, something that I realized when starting my mental health journey is that my ego is my worst enemy. So what is our ego? Our ego is that voice in our head that tells us who we are, right? Is this thing creating our own narrative and all these other things and our ego can just destroy us. It can destroy our relationships, it can destroy our job, it can destroy the things that we hold the most precious in our lives, right? So that is why we need to manage it and one of the reasons I picked up this book is because as my channel is growing, like whenever I get success, whether it's in my recovery, my YouTube channel, my job or whatever, I'm like, okay Chris, you're doing really good right now. Now is a good time to check your ego. So in this video, I want to focus on one of the parts in the book where he talks about the MMA fighter, Frank Shamrock, right? And he is one of the best coaches when it comes to MMA. And if you're not into MMA, don't worry, don't leave. This video is for you, okay? But anyways, in order to help combat the ego within fighters, he has a coaching strategy called plus minus equal, all right? And this is a way to tame the ego. So for the plus, he has fighters trained against people better than them, okay? This helps humble themselves so they're always working against or fighting against somebody who is better than them so they can learn. Because none of us, none of us, no matter who you think you are, none of us knows everything, all right? Then the minus, they have the fighters trained against somebody worse than them because it is important to humble yourself and pass along the knowledge that you have gained. Then they have equal. You fight against fighters who are just as good as you. So you're constantly pushing each other to be better. Well, as a way of managing my own ego, this is actually something that I'm doing with my YouTube career, all right? So I have to talk to YouTubers who are bigger than me, who have been through what I'm currently going through, right? They have already gone through all this stuff so they can give me advice. The second I start thinking that I know everything about this YouTube thing, I am going to crash and burn. So I turn to people as mentors like Roberto Blake. Roberto Blake is one of the first people who really kind of took me under his wing. I'm part of the Awesome Creator Academy, those of you who don't know. He has a channel that is about creative entrepreneurs. Not only does he teach you how to improve your YouTube channel, but also how to be fully self-supporting. So if you're somebody who doesn't like having a boss, go check out Roberto Blake. But as my channel has grown and I actually got the opportunity to meet him at Vid Summit, we've had a lot of conversations and he tries to steer me in the right direction, letting me know when I'm doing something wrong, what I can improve on, and all those other things, right? Another great person who I have in my corner is none other than Peter Mann. And I absolutely love it. Like Peter Mann is such a good guy. Not only has he been on YouTube for a while and has grown his channel and has a bigger channel than me, but he's also a man who is in recovery. So he gets my addiction mined, all right? And Peter has spent a lot of time just talking to me on the phone or through text messages, just letting me vent and giving me suggestions and advice and just being there for me, okay? Then there is like my new buddy, Illymation. So Illymation, like you saw the collab that I did with her, where, you know, she was able to talk to me about her experience, dealing with negative comments and everything like that. Like I have to learn from her because she is somebody who also exploded rather quickly and she's dealing with some of the things that I'm dealing with, but she's dealing with it on a much bigger scale so I can learn from her. Then we have my other buddy, Carly Steele. So when I was in Los Angeles, I also did some collabs with Carly Steele. They will be released soon, so calm down. And I actually get to see Illy and Carly at Playlist Live in what, about a week. Anyways, Carly and I, like we actually got to hang out and everything. And she got to teach me and tell me about things that she's gone through and, you know, befriending other creators and I was able to talk to her about some of my struggles and some of my fears and my issues with making new friends and, you know, my trust issues and all of that. So I'm very grateful that I can learn from Carly because she's been through this process, all right? Then we have Equals, all right? And when I say Equals, these are fellow creators who are good friends of mine. And by the way, for all of you, like, I really apologize if I didn't include you in this video. The list goes on and on and on and on and on. But anyways, I have Repzilla. So he actually made that thumbnail. So shout out to you, Repzilla, for doing that. I wanted to kind of bait some people in about this video. But anyways, Repzilla, he's a really good guy. We've been friends for the last, I don't know, two, three months or whatever. And his channel is about the same size as mine. And, like, he's somebody that I can turn and talk to. And we can learn from each other. Like, we talk about the algorithm. We talk about what's going on in the community. We give each other video ideas and all sorts of stuff. Then my boy Todd. Todd from the channel This Offends Me TV. I found his channel maybe two or three months ago as well. And, like, I don't usually watch reaction channels, but I fell in love with his channel. He cracks me up. And then we actually became friends. And we talk through Twitter DMs and stuff like that. But he's a dude who I can vent to. And, like, he's funny. And, like, we don't take things too seriously. But we can have serious conversations. So Todd, if you're watching this, I love you, man. And Todd and I, we're doing a collab soon, too, once Todd gets off his butt. But anyways, also, my good, good, good buddy, Kay. Kay from the channel BipolarPug, she has been around, you know, since the beginning. Since I first started on YouTube. And, like, I can talk to her all the time. And, you know, we can talk about our mental health and all these other things. All right, then there's my buddy Ryan from the channel Crimson Studios. Like, some of you have seen, like, we just did a collab about Eugenia Cooney and everything. But he and I, we talk a lot as well. And we try to help each other grow. And, you know, we vent and we strategize and all that. And then, also, my co-host of the podcast, Unsolicited Advice, Matt. Matt is another man who was in recovery and met him a while back, and we immediately just clicked. So, I actually just called Matt to talk about the show that we have tonight. By the way, go subscribe to Unsolicited Advice every single Tuesday, 4 p.m. Pacific, 7 p.m. Eastern, right? But anyways, I just called him up. And since he's a guy, like, who I could talk to about either, you know, being a YouTube creator or just recovery in general, I call him up. He's like, all right, Chris, which hat do I need to put on right now? The recovery hat or the creator hat? But anyways, Matt is a good, good, good friend of mine too. And I get to hang out with him at Playlist Live as well because he's from that area. But anyways, these are people who I have in my support group. Then, on the minus side, you guys, I have to give back. I have to give back. And one of the reasons why I get so many smaller creators to do guest videos on my channel is because I have to take the knowledge that I've gained through growing my channel and I have to give back. And all of the smaller creators that I feature on my channel, like, I am there for them if they need to talk, if they need to talk about their struggles because it was just last year, just a year ago, all right? I had about 1,000 subscribers, okay? So I remember, I remember the struggle that a lot of them are going through. So I'm here to talk with them as well. So there's my plus, minus, and equal for YouTube. But let's expand this. How can this help you? How can this help you and your mental health? Well, for one thing, for all of my fellow recovering addicts, like, this is what 12-step programs are all about. Plus, minus, and equal, right? Like, you find yourself a sponsor. You find yourself people with more clean time who you can learn from. Like, I just went to a meeting this morning. I can sit there and like, I was listening to a guy with 28 years sober and he was just dropping truth in that meeting, right? And I can learn from him. I can also learn from, you know, other people who are struggling, who have more clean time than me. But also, my equals. Like, something that was important to me in my early recovery was finding people with the same amount of clean time. I was just telling my beautiful girlfriend, Tristan, a story about when I first got sober and sober living and some of my best friends who I still have to this day, we all got sober together, so they were my equals. Then, as I developed more clean time, and this is one of the reasons I have my channel, my sponsor, he used to spend hours upon hours upon hours with me. And I was asking him, like, why are you doing this? Like, what do you want from me? I'm not even paying you. Like, you're buying me coffee, you're picking me up, and you're spending hours trying to teach me, right? I'm like, what can I do to repay you? And here's what he said to me. He said, the best way to repay me is once you finally get this thing and your life gets better, give it back, pay it back. So not only do I do that with other recovering alcoholics and addicts, but that's one of the reasons I have this channel. It would be selfish of me to have my life improve so much and not share that knowledge with all of you. So part of every single video that I'm doing is repaying a debt to that man who helped save my life, which is absolutely priceless, all right? But let's talk about mental health recovery in general, depression, anxiety, trauma, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, eating disorders, all of those things and what you can do. Find people who are doing better than you. Find people who are learning how to manage their anxiety, who are managing their depression, who are managing their trauma, who are managing their symptoms of mental illness. Find those people and learn from them. Humble yourself and know that you don't know everything. Turn to them and ask them for advice when you are struggling, because when somebody is about to, for example, relapse on their eating disorder, right? What they can do is turn to somebody who is in recovery from an eating disorder and talk to them. The other thing is find equals, find other people who are trying to recover right now in the same way as you are. So you guys are on the same page and you can talk about your struggles. When you get this thing, start helping out other people. Start helping out other people who are struggling with this as well and teach them what you learned. And a great place to do all of these things is in the Rewired Soul Facebook group as well as the Discord server. These are always linked down in the description below. This is a way for you to learn, for you to help each other, as well as for you to help the new people who come in, all right? But lastly, let's talk about jobs. Let's talk about work, okay? Always humble yourself at work. Like when we go to work, like something I have to do. Like when I go to work, I have to find people who have been at that job longer than me or who are hiring the company than me or whatever it is. I have to learn from them. I have to learn from the good things they've done, the lessons they've learned. I have to soak in that knowledge. But also at work, we also need our support group of people who are on that same tier as us and talk to them and support them and they support us, right? And then when the new hires come in, it is our duty to give back to those new people and teach them the ropes. Tell them about the struggles. Tell them about the successes. Tell them, like take the knowledge that you've gained during your time at that place and help the other person. So, if you are like me and your ego is your worst enemy, how about you try using the plus minus equal strategy? All right? But anyways, let me know down in the comments below any aspect of your life. Tell me about how there's someone that you try to learn from, someone who's on the same tier as you that you're trying to help and they help you. And then also tell me how you're giving back to help out other people, all right? But anyways, that's all I got for this video. Don't forget, the unsolicited podcast is tonight. The link will be down in the description and the pinned comment. Make sure you go subscribe. Come on down because we're doing a live Q and A as well. There's gonna be a new segment on our show. So make sure you come hang out. We'll answer your questions, okay? But 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 supporting the channel around Patreon. You are all amazing. And don't forget, ask your questions for the Patreon Q and A and go check out the brand new Patreon exclusive video, all right? Thanks again so, so much for watching. I'll see you next time.