Do you suck?

Want to know the truth?

I suck.

There, I said it.

I’m not talking about myself as a human. We’ve talked a lot about identity in this weekly letter.

“Chris, your self-talk is sooo ick right now… omgaaawd.” (valley girl voice)

I’m talking about the skills to pay some bills.

To grow in business and work requires learning new skills.

• Leadership

• Marketing

• Sales

• Strategy

• Decision making

• Asset allocation

• Content

• Writing

• Ads

• etc

The problem in learning new skills is we’re faced with our weaknesses.

We don’t like to be seen as weak or sucky at something.

The #1 Reason we don’t “succeed”…

Our fragile Egos.

The thing separating us from where we are to where we want to be...

FAILURE.

Here’s why:

• We must acquire new skills.

• Developing new skills requires doing what we don’t know how to do.

• Doing what we don’t know how to do requires FAILURE.

The more we can embrace our suckiness, the better chance we’ll win.

One of my favorite Mindset books of all time is the OG of Mindset books: Mindset by Carol Dweck.

In the book, she explains we have one of two mindsets,

1. Fixed Mindset - everything about me is fixed. I'm capped. I'm limited. Operate from Fear.

This leads me to:
- Avoid effort
- Avoid failure
- Avoid learning
- Give up
- Shame/Guilt in failure
- Seeing failure as a waste
- Not trying
- Threatened by others' success

2. Growth Mindest - nothing about me is fixed. It's a beautiful world of possibilities. I grow through effort (i.e., failure). Operate from Courage.

This leads me to:
- Lean into failure
- Feel good about failure
- Be persistent in setbacks
- Know effort is the path to mastery
- Not avoid anything that I can learn from

I quickly develop a fixed mindset when operating out of fear or not wanting people to see my suckiness.

The only thing that accomplishes for me is protecting my ego.

So here's the frame that's beneficial from this standpoint.

Embrace my suckiness.

How do we embrace our suckiness and grow?

Realize everybody sucks.

You only see the best of everybody. You see the perfect mask. It’s b.s. We all have fear, struggle, don’t want to be seen, etc.

The sooner we know that the sooner we’ll be free.

Your desire must outweigh your ego.

What you want to achieve needs to be greater than the ego you want to protect.

I’ve been in this game a looong time. I’ve built 8 figure businesses. I’ve run millions in ads. I’ve helped people with their offers.

Someone is helping me with my offer (hey, Glenn!).
Someone is helping me with my ads (yo, Wes!).
Someone is helping me with my content (Lorian…).

I don’t care who you are. If you have beneficial experience, perspective, knowledge, or wisdom, I’m freakin coming for it.

I don’t care what I’ve “accomplished.”

My desire for growth outweighs the ego to know it all. Cause that’s just silly.

Be aware of the emotional cycle.

The emotional cycle is what we experience in the process of change:

• Uniformed optimism

• Informed pessimism

• Valley of despair

• Informed optimism

• Success & fulfillment

This is a visual representation of the growth process.

If we’re growing, we’ll be sucky at something. If we don’t suck, then we’re not growing and probably comfortable. Been there.

Once we realize, “Ugh, I suck at this,” our brains freak out, and we look for a way to soothe ourselves. This is when we distract ourselves with whatever our vice is:
- social media
- youtube
- more information gathering
- a bowl of ice cream (just me?)

These are stages 2 and 3.

So to not suck, we slip into a fixed mindset and start to avoid it, and then we continue the learning cycle bouncing back between stages 1-3.

Questions to consider this week:

• What are you avoiding?

• Are you operating from fear or courage?

• Do you have a growth mindset or a fixed mindset?

• Have you slipped into the comfort trap?

• What parts are you afraid of people seeing?

That’s it this week, folks. Be sure to hit that poll. That helps me to know I’m going in the right direction.

Next week, I’m announcing some changes moving forward. ;)

In your corner,

Chris

Here is a quick summary of today’s letter for you:

1. Acknowledging and embracing our weaknesses is crucial for personal and professional growth.

2. Ego is often the main obstacle to success, as it hinders us from trying new things and learning from failures.

3. Adopting a growth mindset, where failure is seen as a path to mastery, is essential for progress.

4. Recognize that everyone, even those who seem perfect, has their own fears and struggles.

5. The desire for growth should outweigh the desire to protect one's ego.

6. The emotional cycle of change involves stages of optimism, pessimism, the valley of despair, informed optimism, and success.

7. To avoid staying in a fixed mindset, it's important to acknowledge areas where you feel you "suck" and continue to learn and grow.

This mindset shift can lead to personal and professional development and help overcome fear and ego-based obstacles.