Stop Caring What Others Think — Their Opinion Is None of Your Business

Well, hello there, my friend.

It is Jonathan Doyle with you.

Ready?

You and I are gonna take a little journey.

We're gonna take a little journey together on a path that I pray will bring you some

encouragement, some tools, some ways to build this one ridiculously precious life

that you have because you're not getting another one, and every single day counts.

There is only one of you in the entire entirety of all cosmic history.

There will never be another human person anything like you.

You are precious and unique, and you have been given this remarkable potential,

and my life is just about s- trying to serve that potential and help you to grow.

That was a huge opening, but I believe every word of it.

And today, I wanna share with you something that's just so powerful and

so important, and it's, I want you to understand the truly corrosive power of

remotely caring what anybody else thinks.

That may sound preposterous to you.

That may sound offensive.

You'd be like, "Oh, is this gonna be one of those messages where you just

tell us that we just, is not to care about what anybody thinks and says?"

Look, yes, pretty much that's it.

I, I am going to say that one of the most corrosive ways of moving through this one

precious life you have is to let it get hijacked by a preponderance of concern

around what other people think about you.

Here is the first and most important thing.

Most of the time, most people are not even thinking about you at all.

Like, honestly.

That's one of the first things I do is we all have a very ex- sometimes

occasionally of an inflated sense of our own grandiosity and importance.

I do not want you walking around just wasting mental energy and causing yourself

anxiety and depression by thinking that all these people are thinking about you.

They're probably not.

They're probably thinking about breakfast or tax returns or where

they're supposed to be next Tuesday or whether they left the stove on.

That's what that is what is going through most human minds most of the time.

All right?

So, so first, I want you to get that piece.

It just, just to do this, take this, take this gently, but most of the

time We are not occupying too much real estate in everybody else's mind.

Now, that's different in close relationships and family, I get it,

but in general, let's just all take a breath and realize that, uh, that,

that, that whatever we're thinking, people aren't always thinking about us.

So that's the first part.

The second piece is to go through life so concerned about what people

might think about you if you do X.

Now, let's balance this.

Let's make this very clear.

I am not talking about being obnoxious.

I'm not talking about a callous disregard for the feelings of others.

I do not mean that.

Uh, we are a social species.

Along with our opposable thumbs and large prefrontal cortex, we are a

species that is utterly adapted for social cohesion and belonging, so our

relationships really, really matter.

Uh, you know, I've done this so many times, but, but the reason we've

evolved that way is because in the past, we massively depended on each

other for survival through cooperation.

So in terms of evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology, we had-

we evolved as a species to not want to ostracize other members of the

group, because if we did, we got kicked out and we starved and died.

So there's a very s- very clear and strong anthropological basis to this.

But that has changed in modern life, right?

We If people are not nice to you, you're not going to die of a random disease.

If people are not nice to you, you're not gonna freeze to death with no food

because they kicked you out of the tribe.

So the stakes are a little lower now for possibly upsetting people.

Now, again, here's the qualifier, I'm not encouraging you to upset anybody.

I'm just offering you this insight If you want an uncommon life, you

have to develop not so much a thick skin, but just a general disregard

for other people's thinking about you.

Let me qualify this further.

The only concern you should have with other people's opinion of you is

that you live and act in such a way that you have integrity and decency,

so that you know that in general, we're human, we're fallible, we're

sinners, we are gonna make mistakes and occasionally get things wrong.

Then all we do is seek forgiveness and make amends, and that's, that's

good natural justice to do that.

But do not go about your day worrying about decision after decision,

going, "I wonder what people think.

I wonder what people will think." You know, for me, as I sort of did

more and more of this work, you know, there was a season where I wondered,

I'm like, "I wonder what, you know, what my family think of this, and,

and what if people hear me and they go, 'I, I remember you when you were

at school, and now you're doing this.

Who do you think you are?'" And then I, I kind of… I don't know

it ever really bothered me, but I was like, "No, I gotta be authentic.

I want to do this.

I want to serve people, and I don't care remotely what anyone thinks.

I really don't." It's like I just have this, this, this sort

of force field as I get older.

I'm like, I, I wanna help as many people as possible.

I know my heart.

I'll get things wrong.

I, I'll, I'll make mistakes, but my heart is to help and serve people.

And so I don't really think about anybody's judgment of me.

I just think about, like, my family's and God's judgment of me, and God's

judgment of me is related to my potential.

God looks at me and goes, "Jonathan, I've given you these gifts and abilities.

I don't want you to hide them. I want you to bless as many people as possible

with them." So I'm answerable for that.

So I do, I do worry about God's opinion of me, and I do wanna live in such

a way that my wife and my children and my close friends know that I'm

a person of decency and integrity.

So those opinions matter to some degree.

But the opinions of everybody else do not register for me.

They simply don't.

And friends, it is a wonderful, magical kingdom to live in because once you do

that, oh, a couple of things happen.

First, you get free, and you become really authentic, and you start to

really just bring your energy and life into the world and go, "You know what?

This is it.

This is who I am.

Th- these quirks, these are features, not bugs." And it

frees other people up around you.

It really does.

So it's a simple message, but I, I want you to understand the corrosive power of

giving any kind of life or energy to what other people might be thinking about you.

What have we discovered together today?

Firstly, they're probably not thinking about you at all.

And what's that other great line?

Other people's opinion of me is what?

None of my business.

It's a wonderful discipline to develop where you just simply don't-- you

doesn't, you don't think about it.

You're just like, "Oh, I've just gotta be authentic.

I, I've gotta be real and genuine and kind and use my gifts and abilities,

and if that doesn't fly for some people, well, that's nothing to do with me.

I'm not living their life.

I'm not responsible for their life." All right, summary.

We balance this properly.

It is not a license to be that guy.

It is not a li- And, oh, but have you noticed how many of the greatest

men and women in history achieved their extraordinary results because

they were just really authentic?

They're just like, "I'm doing this.

This is who I am.

I wanna bring this to the world and bless and serve people, and this is who I am.

I'm not hiding it, and I'm not changing it for anybody." So wouldn't

that be a better way to live?

So can I do this for you for the rest of your life?

Because I, I want you to understand this one's powerful, and it is possible to

live your entire life under this burden.

These stakes are very high, my friend, 'cause you can be in your 20s, 30s,

40s, 50s, 60s, and beyond still worried about what X person thinks.

You know, it's like the old school reunion, right?

People get really anxious 'cause they're like, "What do, what did everyone think of

me? Uh, am I gonna be impressive enough?"

You, you don't, you don't have to impress them.

You just have to impress yourself.

Just impress yourself.

Just, like, do stuff.

Like, I went for a run the other morning.

It was, like, 5:00 AM, it was freezing, and I've been training

so hard, and I was moving.

I was, like, feeling really good, and I'm like, "Damn," I'm like, "this is good.

I'm feeling good here." And I, I came back and I finished it off and I'm

like, "Yeah, nice work, Jonathan." I'm like, "Thank you, Jonathan."

That's not arrogance or ego.

That's just like, I did the right thing.

I've worked hard at something.

I got a good self-regard, and you need to have that, and

you're allowed to have that.

Trying to teach this to my kids at the moment.

I'm like, especially when you-- when they're teenagers, right?

'Cause they're so susceptible to it, and it's just, no, don't

let your spirit get crushed.

Don't shrink.

Don't shrink.

You know, don't be obnoxious, but don't shrink.

Don't hide.

Don't worry about what everybody else thinks.

Bring your own unique, beautiful magic into the world.

Do you not remember when we were all little that you could put a Spider-Man

costume on, and did you care?

Did you care, like, if strangers came to your house and you're in a Superman

costume, you got your underwear on the outside of your pants, and you're

running around the house and you're just like, "Feel my power, people.

Feel my power"? You're just like, you don't care 'cause you

don't th- th-- Does it occur to a five-year-old, "Oh no, we've got guests.

I wonder what they think of me"? No. They're just like, "As long as

those guests don't have kryptonite in their pockets, we're good.

I'm doing this," and then you jump off the sofa.

So where does that go?

You know, like, we get older, we get serious.

I don't wanna be that.

I don't wanna be-- Like, I don't wanna be wearing my underwear on

the outside of my pants in my 60s, but I don't wanna let that thing get

killed off, that authenticity, okay?

Oh boy, what a message.

Do you understand, my friend, the truly corrosive power of remotely

caring what anybody else thinks?

You go do you.

Go and make manifest the unique glory of God that has been imbued into your

spirit from before all eternity, and you are meant to make it manifest in

the world by being truly who you are and letting the world deal with it.

All right?

Now, if that didn't get you going, come back tomorrow

'cause I'm gonna do it again.

Well, not exactly the same message.

I'm gonna do something different.

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God bless you, my friend.

You and I are gonna talk again tomorrow.