18:32The Mindset Mentor Podcast · Talking Head
Act As If Everything Always Works Out
An 18-minute neuroscience case for why expecting the worst is a self-fulfilling prediction — and how to rewire your brain to see opportunity instead.
June 25thThe argument in one line.
People respect those who are consistent, honest, and make them feel safe and seen, and that character is built privately through small promises kept to yourself.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- You feel invisible or overlooked at work or in your friend group and want a practical way to earn more respect without performing.
- You are a manager, parent, or team lead who wants people to trust and follow you under pressure.
- You keep breaking small promises to yourself and want a simple system for rebuilding self-trust.
SKIP IF…
- You want negotiation scripts or status tactics for dominating a room. This is about character, not tricks.
- You already run a daily practice of accountability and presence and want research-backed depth.
The full version, fast.
Admiration is not earned by performing. It is built in private through self-respect and consistency, then shown in how you make people feel. The host gives four daily actions: keep your word even when it is inconvenient, own your mistakes without defending, stay calm when things spin out, and make people feel seen. Start with small commitments to yourself so your subconscious learns you do what you say. Communicate missed deadlines early, pause before defending, and give people full presence. These ordinary choices stack into self-trust and then trust from others.
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00:00 – 00:42
01 · Cold open and promise
Admiration comes from how you show up, so become someone worth looking up to.
00:43 – 03:24
02 · Respect is built in the shadows
Chase being admirable, not looking admirable. The Muhammad Ali quote about fights won far from witnesses.
03:25 – 05:58
03 · Self-respect comes first
You cannot be respected if you do not respect yourself. Keep promises and set boundaries.
05:58 – 08:45
04 · Action 1: Keep your word
Small commitments, communicate early, consistency makes people feel safe.
08:46 – 10:10
05 · Action 2: Own your mistakes
Catch the defensive instinct, pause, do the right thing, and trust follows.
10:11 – 11:05
06 · Action 3: Stay calm
Be the grounded center of the storm. People follow calm.
11:06 – 13:53
07 · Action 4: Make people feel seen
Names, texts, eye contact, and the Prince Harry presence story.
13:54 – 15:13
08 · Close
Respect is earned in ordinary daily choices.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- The respect you want from other people is built when no one is around to clap for you.
- People do not look up to perfect people. They look up to people who are predictable, consistent, safe, and honest.
- You cannot be respected if you secretly do not respect yourself, because people feel when you are performing.
- Make small commitments to yourself and knock them out like dominoes so your subconscious learns you do what you say.
- If a deadline will slip, say so well before it, not after.
- When you feel the urge to defend or over-explain, pause, breathe, and ask what the right thing to do is, not what you want to do.
- Owning a mistake directly makes people trust you more, because most people get defensive.
- In chaos, the person who breathes slowest and speaks slowest becomes the one others want to follow.
- Your calm becomes other people's calm, which is co-regulation.
- Remembering a barista's name or a coworker's dog is a cheap way to make someone feel seen.
- The most magnetic people are not the most powerful or best speakers. They remind you of your own power.
- Respect is earned in ordinary daily choices that stack into self-trust first, then trust from others.
Respect is built privately, then shown daily
WHAT TO LEARN
You earn admiration by becoming consistent and safe to be around, not by performing, and four small daily habits do most of that work.
02Respect is built in the shadows
- Chase being someone worth admiring rather than appearing admirable, because people sense performance and respond to who you are when nobody is watching.
03Self-respect comes first
- Self-respect is the foundation. Keep promises to yourself, speak to yourself with integrity, and hold the boundaries you set.
04Action 1: Keep your word
- Make small commitments and finish them so your subconscious learns you follow through. If a deadline will slip, say so before it passes.
- Consistency makes you predictable, and predictability makes people feel safe around you. Most people flake, so simply doing what you say sets you apart.
05Action 2: Own your mistakes
- When you mess up, name it directly: it is my fault, you were right. Notice the urge to defend, pause, breathe, and ask what the right thing is.
- Owning mistakes builds trust because most people get defensive and self-protective.
06Action 3: Stay calm
- In a crisis, breathe deeper, speak slower, and think clearly. Calm signals leadership and spreads to the people around you.
07Action 4: Make people feel seen
- Make people feel seen: remember names, send no-agenda check-in texts, praise people publicly, hold eye contact, and give full attention in conversation.
- The most magnetic people are not the loudest or most powerful. They make others feel important and remind them of their own power.
Terms worth knowing.
- Co-regulation
- When one person's calm nervous system helps settle the people around them, so a steady leader makes a stressed group feel steadier.
Things they pointed at.
Lines you could clip.
02:24
“The fight is won or lost far away from the witnesses.”
04:37
“Everybody wants to be respected, but you can't be respected if you secretly don't respect yourself.”
13:53
“People don't look up to perfection. They look up to how you make them feel in their presence.”
Word for word.
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The most admired people are not the loudest people in the room. They're the ones that are doing the hard sh** quietly, when nobody's watching. And the truth is, people already know who you are based off of how you show up and how they feel around you.
So if you want to be looked up to, you need to start acting like someone that's actually worth looking up to. And so today we're going to go over how to become that person and then four daily actions that you need to focus on to become the type of person that's actually worth looking up to. The first thing is that you have to understand that the respect that you crave is built in the shadows.
What do I mean by that? We have to be honest. Everybody wants to be admired.
Everybody wants to be looked up to. Not in an ego -driven type of way, but like in a core human type of way. We all want to be admired in some sort of way.
We want to be seen. We want to be valued. We want to be trusted.
We want to be respected as a person. We just want to be somebody that is worth looking up to. The trap of all of it is this, is we often chase the performance of being admirable, trying to show up as the interesting person or the person who is supposed to get respect from somebody or the type of person that's putting on a performance so that you like me and think that I'm a great person.
But instead, what we should be focusing on is becoming somebody that is worth being admired. Not trying to act like somebody that should be admired, but trying to be someone that is worth being admired. People don't look up to someone who's trying to appear impressive.
You think about that? Like somebody's like, I'm going to dress nice so that people think that I'm oppressive. They don't think that you're impressive because of what you wear, right?
You get looked up to by becoming somebody that people feel safe around. And that when I feel safe, safer, unlike you're not, not like you can beat anybody up or like you're dangerous, uh, or that you can protect people, but like how they feel in your presence is extremely important. Here's what you have to know.
The respect that you're wanting from other people is not built when you're in front of them. It's not built by what you do when you're around them. It's usually first built when no one's around to be able to clap for you.
When I go to the gym, inside of my gym, they have three huge murals, like 30 -foot murals of Muhammad Ali. And every single time I think of him, I think of his quote where he says, the fight is won or lost far away from the witnesses, behind the lines, in the gym, and out on the road long before I dance under the lights.
That's kind of how I think of being somebody that's worth being admired, right? Like the fight is won or lost. far away from the witnesses.
It's forged in those tiny moments when you're tired and you don't want to show up. You don't want to do what you said you were going to do. And nobody is watching.
But you still choose to show up with integrity because you're watching. It's grown in the gym when nobody's there to see you work out and you're not taking a selfie or checking in at the gym. It's in doing the right thing.
even if the right thing is the hardest thing. And we will be right back. Hey, if you're ready for your next breakthrough, join me at my three -day live in -person event in Austin, Texas this December.
It will be a complete deconstruction and reconstruction of the old patterns, habits, beliefs, and fears that are holding you back from your next breakthrough and getting to your next level in your life. If you're ready for 2027 to be the best year of your life, learn more at freedomlive2026 .com right now, or scan that QR code right there.
And now back to the show. And so I want you to understand like people don't. respect you or look up to you or admire you because you're perfect.
So if you're trying to be perfect or portray somebody who is perfect, that's not what they're looking for. They respect you because you're predictable in the best way possible. You're consistent, you're safe, and you're honest.
So if you want respect, you have to start with yourself first. Everybody wants to be respected, but you can't be respected. if you secretly don't respect yourself.
Because the energy that you have never lies. You can act however you want to, but people are going to feel the way that they're supposed to feel around you. People feel when you're performing.
They can feel when you're chasing validation instead of standing in your own truth. So respect is not something that you can just say, hey, you need to respect me. It's something that people feel.
And that starts in the mirror. Think about this, for instance. How would somebody ever really respect you if you don't respect yourself?
Like, do you keep promises to yourself? Do you speak to yourself with integrity or do you talk trash to yourself? Think about that for a second.
Do you stand up for your own needs or do you abandon your own needs in order to make other people feel better or in order to keep the peace? Because self -respect is something that's quietly done when you are with you.
It's how you carry yourself when no one's really watching. It's how you treat yourself when you fail. It's the boundaries that you set and you actually decide to keep.
Want people to look up to you? Start by becoming somebody you look up to. That's where it all begins.
Now, let's go into the four daily actions that I think are some of the most important actions in order to be the type of person that is worth looking up to. Okay.
The first thing is you need to get really good at keeping your word, even when it's inconvenient for you. There's so many people that say they're going to do something in this world. And I feel like it's getting worse and worse by the year.
They say they're going to do something and then they don't do it over and over and over again. And you start to realize that person's not reliable. And so what does it actually look like in your life?
Like if you say, I will be there at six, you're actually there at six o 'clock. If you keep showing up late and showing up late and showing up late, you're saying to people, I'm not reliable.
People are not going to look up to that. If you tell yourself, yourself, I'm waking up at seven, you wake up. You don't hit the snooze three times.
If you commit to your workout, to your journaling, to calling your mom, then you actually do it. It's the craziest thing that I even have to say this if you really think about it, right? Like you just, like, shouldn't we all be following through with what we say we're going to do?
Isn't that the most integrity that we can have? Like, why are we even having this conversation? Why are we not all doing the things that we're supposed to be doing?
That's what it should be. And so you've got to start by following through on the promises that you keep to yourself because you are always watching yourself. What do I recommend to make this easier?
Make smaller commitments to yourself and then just knock them out like dominoes so that your subconscious can see, oh, I'm doing what I say I'm going to do. I'm doing what I say I'm going to do. I'm doing what I say I'm going to do.
If something changes and you're not able to hit a deadline that you promised somebody that you would hit, then you communicate that well ahead of the deadline, not after the deadline. Once again, it's not about being perfect. It's about being the right type of person to do and say what you're supposed to be doing.
The reason why this matters is because people look up to people who do what they say they're going to do. Why? Because most people don't do what they say they're going to do.
If you just do what you say you're going to do and you're consistent, you're going to set yourself out from the crowd because most people are not consistent. Real respect starts with keeping your word when it is uncomfortable. And people want to be around someone who is predictable and consistent.
It makes them feel safe because you're predictable and you're consistent. And that's where most people end up flaking. But that's where like real leaders are actually built.
So that's the first thing. Second thing, get really good at owning your mistakes. You will not be perfect, but it's not about being perfect.
It's about how you respond and how people see you responding. And so what it looks like is owning up to when you mess up. Hey, I dropped the ball on that.
It's my fault. That's it. Own up to it.
Say to somebody, you were right. I didn't listen to you and I should have. That is my fault.
No hiding, no making excuses. Just direct ownership is what it looks like. And so you've got to practice catching the instinct because we all have it too.
defend or to explain. Because when something goes wrong and somebody starts to talk to us about it, a lot of times what we'll do is our walls will go up, our defenses will go up. So you've got to practice yourself noticing the instinct of like wanting to defend yourself or over explain.
So you just pause for a second and just breathe. Take a couple deep breaths and just ask yourself, what is the right thing to do here? Not what do I want to do?
What should I do? What is the right thing to do here? People look up to people who do the right thing.
And then what you do is the thing that you come up with. Because the reason why this matters is because most people get defensive. Most people want to self -protect.
If you want to be admired, do the opposite of what everybody else is doing. When people see that you don't have to be right and that you can own up to your own mistakes, guess what? They trust you more.
So it's not about being perfect. It's about actually being somebody who is reliable. So that's the second thing.
The third thing is to practice staying calm when everything else is spinning out. But what it looks like, when chaos hits, you want to be the most grounded person. You want to be the calm in the center of the storm.
You don't shrink. You don't avoid. You don't run away.
You're just present. And you breathe deeper and you speak slower and you think more clearly. Because in those moments, people are looking for somebody to lead them in those moments.
And they're going to be attracted to the person who is the most calm, who breathes the slowest, who speaks the slowest, who thinks clearly. Because those things unconsciously tell somebody that is in that situation, this person needs to lead me. And like I've read a statistic one time, it was like 9 out of 10 people just want to be led by somebody.
And so why this matters is because people follow calm. Your calm becomes their calm. It's kind of like co -regulation more than anything else.
The one who can regulate their emotions, especially under pressure, instantly becomes somebody who others trust, who they turn to, and who they admire. Okay, and then the fourth thing, and this is a really important one for being somebody that people look up to, and especially for those of you that are leaders in some sort of way, is to make people feel seen consistently.
I wish I could explain With me being in a situation I'm in, a lot of people come to me for advice and for different things. I wish I could explain to you how many people in this world just want to feel seen and heard and understood.
Like people are just dying to be seen and heard and understood. And so what does that look like in your everyday life? Remember your barista's name that you see every single morning.
Talk to them about their day. Remember their dog's name. whatever's going on.
Compliment somebody in front of other people. Send the, hey, I'm just thinking about you text. How are you doing?
Even when you're busy, you're not trying to get anything out of them. You're just literally just sending the text. When somebody's talking to you, look people in the eyes.
Slow down enough so that they can feel that they actually matter to you. Oddly enough, I was at a surf ranch that's out in California. And part of the surf ranch, when you sign up and you get free massages and all this stuff.
And I was talking to the masseuse and she's seen all kinds of celebrities come through and tons of people come through. Like some of the most famous people who have gone through this surf ranch, right? I was like, who's the coolest person you've ever met?
And she's like, oh my God, I've met so many cool people. And she goes, I can tell you who I feel, who makes me feel the most seen. And I was like, okay, tell me who it is.
And she's like, Prince Harry. made me feel the most seen. She goes, he has this weird way of making you feel like nobody else in the world exists except for you and him when you're in the conversation.
She's like, I've never felt somebody who has like full presence in a conversation with me. I was like, that's pretty wild considering he's like royalty or whatever. And she's like, yeah, he treated me like I was royalty.
And so like that moment stood out in her life. And that just shows you. And the reason why is because all of his attention was going into her.
How can you be more like that when you're around people? Think about it. Like how can you start to give people compliments?
How can you think of something kind to say no matter what? How can you practice active presence with another person? When someone's talking, like listen to them with your whole being.
And the reason why this matters is because everybody wants to feel important. If you can make somebody feel important, you will be someone that they want to be around and they'll look up to. People don't look up to perfection.
They look up to how you make them feel when you're in their presence. The most magnetic people aren't the most powerful people or the ones that speak the best or any of that type of stuff. They're the ones that remind you of your power and make you feel great when you're in their presence.
And so when you start thinking about being somebody that people look up to. Like you don't earn respect by putting on a show and by being somebody else or by putting on a performance of how great you are and being so interested.
You earn it in the ordinary things that you do every single day. The small choices that you make every single day that stack into first off self -trust and then trust from other people as well. That's what you need to work on.
And then work on those four character traits and being the type of person that is worth being respected. And you'll start realizing that people will start looking up to you and respecting you more. Hey, thanks so much for watching this video.
Based off of what you've been watching recently on YouTube, YouTube thinks you should watch this one next. This is perfectly crafted for you. And if you want to make sure you don't miss any more videos, click this one right here.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
The most admired people are not the loudest in the room. They do the hard things quietly when nobody is watching, and the host builds a four-part daily practice around that idea.
Named ideas worth stealing.
05:58list
Four daily actions to be worth looking up to
- Keep your word when it is inconvenient
- Own your mistakes
- Stay calm when things spin out
- Make people feel seen
Four habits that build self-trust and make others see you as predictable, safe, and worth following.
Steal forpersonal accountability or leadership habits
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
03:24product
“Join me at my three-day live in-person event in Austin, Texas this December.”
Mid-roll ad dropped mid-sentence with a QR code, then a clean return to the show.
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Visual structure at a glance.
