Summary
You’ve done everything right—career, college, network, relationships—yet you still feel alone in most rooms. Joe explains why: you can’t be seen if you’re not being yourself, and you can’t receive support if you don’t trust it.
When we perform for approval, we’re “fronting”—presenting a mask. Even if people approve, we don’t feel seen because they’re only seeing the performance. And we’ve learned not to trust connection, so we push support away even when it’s there.
Key Concepts
Key Quotes
“If you want to feel seen, you have to be yourself. If you’re not yourself, you can’t be seen. Only some make-believe part of you can be seen.”
“There’s always going to be somebody who’s not going to be happy with what you’re doing. And if you’re looking at them to tell you you’re good enough, you’re always going to feel unseen.”
“Most CEOs can’t see that everybody’s trying to support them. They feel alone in it. That’s when you know you’re pushing the support away instead of actually seeing it.”
Transcript
You’ve done everything you’re supposed to do to have a great life. You’ve built the career. You’ve went to the right college. You’re dating the right people. You have the network. And yet, you still feel alone in most of the rooms that you get into. And you don’t feel the kind of support that you always hope that you’d find. And this is an incredibly common thing. And it’s becoming more and more prevalent in society. And the way through it is really not something that most people understand or see clearly. And after working with hundreds of people in a lot of our courses that have this experience, I really wanted to make a video that would show people that once they see the situation clearly, what to do to make that change become so obvious. And so that’s what we’re going to do in this video. The main thing that you’ll notice that when people feel all alone and they feel unseen in a situation is that they’re constantly concerned about what other people think. They’re trying to live a life that people say, “Yay, you’re living a good life.” And as it turns out, that’s just impossible. You can have some people say you’re living a good life some days, but there’s nobody anywhere that’s going to think that you’re living the perfect life at all times, let alone everybody thinking that you’re living a life at all times that’s perfect. Because nobody can always see you. You can’t even always see yourself, right? You can’t like understand yourself completely from one moment to a next moment. And so other people can’t do that for you either. and and having been married for 26 years, I can’t even always get the approval of my wife. And I’ve definitely never gotten all the approval of my father or my mother. And so, you’re always going to have somebody who’s criticizing you. And they criticize you for many reasons. Maybe their blood sugar’s low, maybe they haven’t had enough coffee, maybe they didn’t exercise that day. There’s always going to be somebody out there who’s not going to be happy with what you’re doing. And if that’s the case and you’re looking at them to tell you, okay, you’re good enough, then you’re always going to feel unseen in that. And so what we do typically when we are in that position of not feeling seen is that we’re not being ourselves, so we can’t be seen. We’re being somebody else to please people, which never works. And so instead of being seen for who you are and having those moments of oh goodness gracious that they see me and I can and I can feel that I’m always presenting something. I’m always fronting so that people can’t actually see what I am. They’re just seeing my front. So the the satisfaction can’t be found in some perfection that’s out there either in yourself or somebody else. It can only be found in those moments of, oh, for this moment, I am surprised by how well somebody sees me or how well I see myself. And it only happens when you’re living a life where you’re thinking, oh, is this something that I approve of? Is this something that am I acting right now in a way that feels great to me? And if I’m not, then what do I do to act in a way right now that feels great to me despite what the people who haven’t had enough coffee or the people who’ve had bad upbringings or the people who are paranoid think, right? And so if you want to feel seen, you have to be yourself. If you’re not yourself, you can’t be seen. Only some makebelieve part of you can be seen. A second way that typically we’re going to feel all alone in a room is that if we don’t trust other people’s connection. And typically this is something that we’ve learned. What we’ve learned is that people are going to let us down. That we’re not going to get the support that we truly want. We have some idea that, oh, we have to do X, Y, and Z to get love. And of course, X, Y, and Z never shows up. All the stuff that you thought you had to do to get love at 13 is different than all the stuff you think you have to do to get love today. maybe essentially it’s the same but the details keep on changing and this happens a lot with CEOs that I know that are very high achieving CEOs where there’s just all sorts of people that they like organization has like what what let’s say 2 3,000 people or 10,000 people and everybody in that organization on some level wants the CEO to feel impressed with with what they’re doing. They want the approval of the CEO. they want to do a good job that nobody wakes up and is like, “You know what? I hope that the CEO hates the work I’m doing today and I do a really shitty job.” And yet most CEOs can’t see that that’s what everybody’s trying to do. They feel alone in it. They get upset because they feel like, “Oh, I’m holding this all by myself.” Even though that they’re not. And that’s when you know you’re in this situation where you’re actually pushing the support away instead of actually seeing it. And it can be so obvious as in a whole group of people trying to support you. Or it could be less obvious like, oh yeah, your wife or husband isn’t doing the thing that you want them to do, but it doesn’t mean that they’re not supporting you. They’re trying to support you in an way that’s authentic to them. And you push that away. And when you do that, you’re never really going to be you’re never going to really feel seen. So, it’s really important to acknowledge on a day-to-day basis, oh, what is it that’s happened today that people are trying to do to support me? And when you do it, you’ll realize there is really no day that goes by where there isn’t somebody trying to support you, somebody trying to get you like a great cup of coffee or somebody trying to make a great YouTube video with you or somebody trying to help you build your business. It’s always around you and it’s just something that you have a hard time seeing if you’re used to, oh, I have to achieve for love. I have to achieve for feeling worthy. And so, typically, one of the things that you’ll notice of the people feel all alone in the world is because they are feeling like, oh, I have to achieve to be worthy. They think that that’s the case. The third thing that makes people feel all alone is that they’re not actually facing the aloneeness. they’re not actually facing that part of themselves that feels like, oh, I’m not good enough. And if they don’t face that part of themselves, then they’re constantly being run by it. So, typically what happens when somebody has this feeling like being alone in a great relationship with themselves is something that’s really scary. So, they keep themselves incredibly busy, constantly occupied. And because it’s constantly occupied, they don’t actually get to see what that feeling is. And so typically what I see in my clients is when they turn towards it and say, “Oh, I’m going to go and spend three days alone and really feel that aloneeness is that that feeling is actually the quickest way to their freedom.” It’s a bit like, you know, the classic tale of Luke Skywalker going into the dark cave and facing the thing and coming out with it with the knowledge of how to handle it. It’s the same thing. That place that we consider to be a void is often the most direct route to our freedom. Because what we find out is that part of ourselves that is feels like they’re not enough is actually our longing to be loved. And the only thing that longs to be loved is love. So if you actually spend time with that thing, if you spend time and just be in presence with that part of you that is, oh my gosh, I’m I’m not good enough. But what you do, what you’re actually doing is spending time with that young part of you that always wanted just that attention and validation that you weren’t given as a kid, that you weren’t given as an adult because you’ve been running around thinking that you have to earn something. And you stop and you lean into that and you, oh, look at that. Like, how could a three-year-old be enough or a 5-year-old be enough or a 25-year-old be enough or a or how could they be not enough? How can you say like a 25-year-old is not enough or a 5-year-old is not enough? It’s really just running from this emotional state that keeps us in the habit. And if we lean towards it, man, it’s just so obvious that it’s just this thing looking for love. And eventually, if you spend enough time with it, you go, “Oh, well then I’ll give you the love. I’ll show up for you. I don’t have to reject this part of myself. I remember that when this became like deeply apparent to me is that I had a friend who had a what he thought was a great relationship with a great woman and the woman broke up with him. And before the breakup, he was drinking pretty heavily. He was partying a lot. His business was not doing so well. He was out of shape. And he called me up and said, “You know, Joe, what do I do?” And I said, “Man, you’ve got to mourn that thing. you’ve got to face into that experience and just allow whatever grief comes up. And so he had this commute. He went to uh from like Flagstaff to Yuma, Arizona once a week for his work. And he said he called me up and you know I don’t know like two weeks in. He said, “I’m howling like I I’ve never heard these sounds come out of me. I’m facing this breakup.” And then a couple months later he’s like, “I’m still doing it, but now I’m not mourning the breakup anymore. I’m mourning all the parts of the things that got me into the breakup. All the things that I learned in my life that allowed for this pattern to happen. And so he just mourned. And 6 months later, he’s in shape. He’s not drinking. His business is doing great. And that’s what it is when you actually face that abyss. What you’re doing is you’re facing the thing that’s been driving you your whole life because you’re not taking a look at it. And if you take a look at it, yeah, it’s uncomfortable at first, but it really quickly becomes a direct path to freedom. It’s amazing how short of a period of time because I know it sounds really unappealing. Like, what do you mean? I got to look at the thing that I’ve been using my entire life not to look at, right? Like, what? That doesn’t sound smart, Joe. And and and all I can say is if you do it two or three times for two or three hours, you’ll notice it gets easier right away. And it’s a whole lot easier than avoiding it because that takes an entire life of energy to avoid it. There’s obviously a lot of things that you can do, practical stuff that you can do. You can not avoid that emotional experience and you can feel it. You can uh see that there’s a whole bunch of people who are trying to support you. You can give yourself the love and acknowledgement that you’re looking for outside. You can constantly be saying to yourself, “Oh, is this the thing that I want to be doing right now that I’m proud of?” Instead of looking for somebody else to verify you, but the thing that’s going to get you the most bang for the buck right away is every day sit down and think of three to five people who have helped you out. Doesn’t matter if they helped you out in the past or they helped you out that day. Doesn’t matter if it’s a little help out like got you a cup of coffee or a big help out like gave you business advice made a video for you. It doesn’t really matter. Just something that somebody has done to support you and write them a thank you note. Just like a hey, I really appreciate that. And what that does is it allows you to acknowledge what’s being done for you so that you can see that you’re actually not alone. So you can see the support that you have. And that support when you start to see it builds a base that makes it easier to face into that abyss that you’ve been avoiding your whole life. So it’s the thing that’s going to get you the most bang for the buck. And it’s super easy and it feels really good to do.