The truth about what others really think of you

Tell me if this scenario rings a bell:

You come across a YouTube video or read a book, and it really resonates with you. Suddenly, you're filled with motivation to start that new side hustle, create content, or build that healthy habit that you were postponing—perhaps quit drinking or hit the gym, change your life.

Then, the dreaded question pops into your mind:

"What will they think?"

In an instant, anxiety and fear hit you like a brick wall. You worry about how people will perceive your new venture, and this discouragement stops you from taking action.

You have an addiction to approval. And maybe you are not even aware of it.

Or even worse, you are, but it has control over you.

It’s a full circle paradox:

You have no motivation, a spark ignites, you consider taking action, then you convince yourself you can't do it for whatever reason, and end up back with no motivation.

Rinse and repeat.

That's action for your mind. You feel alive.

Now, if you just had a thought saying, "I don't care what people think about me," hold on!

You’re coping.

It's uncomfortable, but I need you to be honest with yourself because we all do this. At some point, you've wanted to try something new, something different, but fear of others' opinions held you back.

You feared how they'd see you after you tried this new thing. This fear is deeply embedded in our psyche, dating back to tribal times when making a mistake could lead to being banished from the tribe, often meaning death.

Your fear is your brain's way of trying to keep you alive, but many don't realize how much it can hold them back, leading to a life of regret and untapped potential.

Today I'm going to show you how to break free. .

The concept that change my life- Sonder

You are the main character—the protagonist—the star at the center of your own unfolding story. You're surrounded by your supporting cast: friends and family hanging in your immediate orbit.

Scattered a little further out, a network of acquaintances who drift in and out of contact over the years.

But there in the background, faint and out of focus, are the extras. The random passersby. Each living a life as vivid and as complex as your own.

They carry on invisibly around you, bearing the accumulated weight of their own ambitions, friends, routines, mistakes, worries, triumphs and inherited craziness.

When your life moves on to the next scene, theirs flickers in place, wrapped in a cloud of backstory and inside jokes and characters strung together with countless other stories you'll never be able to see. That you'll never know exist.

In which you might appear only once.

As an extra sipping coffee in the background.

As a blur of traffic passing on the highway.

As a lighted window at dusk.

SONDER: the realization that every random passerby is living a reality as vivid and as complex as our own, it's a humbling thought isn't it?

See, we're all connected in this vast web of individual stories with our own set of concerns and plot lines and dreams but we seem to forget that our perception of the world is not the only one.

This is the crucial first step to overcoming your addiction to approval and this is the first harsh truth that I need you to get through your head:

THEY’RE NOT THINKING ABOUT YOU.

And I know how damn obvious that sounds but we seem to forget it for some reason.

The truth is each one of us is so wrapped up in our own lives, our own concerns, our own insecurities, that that we don't have the time or energy or even capacity to think about others for too long.

I wrote this to myself when I was trying to figure out how to start making content:

People might notice what you're doing. They might see you posting about your new life and be like “hmm” or they might watch your Instagram stories of you promoting your new business, but trust me when I tell you this: they're not spending nearly as much time thinking about you as you fear.

We seem to forget that all these NPCs in our lives, from the barista who served you coffee to the construction worker working on the side of the road, to them we're the NPCs.

Everyone is the hero in their own story and in their story you're just a fucking side character.

And no, this isn't to say that you're not important or that people don't care about you.

Realizing this should liberate you. It should make you feel free. It's a reminder to stop stifling yourself out of your fear of judgment, to stop needing people's approval.

Truth is is people are too wrapped up in their own problems, in their own stories, in their own insecurities. They're not thinking about you. To them, you’re the NPC.

How this helped me

Let me give you a personal example:

Right now I’m in Portugal with my girlfriend. We’ve been travelling together for the past 3 months. Both of us are living the life we’ve been dreaming about. We start the day together, go for a workout on the beach, change locations whenever we feel like it, work from our laptops, meet new people and have amazing experiences.

She is the exact person I have been dreaming about when I would fantasize about having a girlfriend.

Our relationship started because I saw her and I went up to her and introduced myself.

If I hadn’t overcome the fear of what people think of me (at least in that particular moment) this whole amazing relationship would have not existed. I would have been another NPC for her.

Opening up a random conversation with a random girl on the street is the definition of the fear of what people think. At least for a lot of men.

Before meeting her, I’ve opened conversation with over 200 girls. Around 70% of those interactions never made it past the first conversations. I did feel judged and not accepted. Maybe the interaction was awkward and weird, but in reality, no one thought of me after a few moments past our interaction. I was just another NPC.

For years I had been trying to overcome this debilitating fear. The funny part is that moment of complete fear when you open the conversation. After that everything goes away. And the memory of that moment goes away too. And this applies to everything.

The wisdom is in the practice.

Leila Hormozi proved the point in this tweet:

And to go full circle, here’s a tweet from Alex Hormozi: