How to Overcome Insecurity, Gain Clarity & Conquer Self Sabotage – 200k Profits Months and Finally Feeling Happy After 50 Years | Elite Performance Podcast #5

Itamar Marani:
Hey guys, welcome to today's podcast episode today, we're going to be talking a little bit about clarity and about insecurity and how most people go about trying to achieve clarity in a roundabout manner, and they don't address the first block that's going to stop them from actually getting. So today we're going to talk about Ian, and we're going to use him as a case study is in his 50s. He's built a lot of fairly successful businesses, but he never really broke through to the next level. And the reason for that was that he wasn't clearly he wasn't really playing his own game, he wasn't playing to win. And here's what I mean. Ian had a certain insecurity that he wasn't consciously aware of, of him wanting to prove something to a certain authority figure from his past. And what that caused was that despite him being so intelligent, and so creative, his thoughts and his actions were never really geared towards what do I really want. They were mostly geared towards how can I prove this person wrong without him ever recognizing it. And that just drove his actions into ways that didn't truly serve Him. And that's what we're gonna be talking about today. It's most of the time, people think that getting clarity comes from doing more journaling exercises, or figuring out what you want in 10 years, and all that kind of jazz, from doing more things. But in reality, from what I've seen working with a lot of people is that the first step in gaining clarity is actually removing the filter of insecurity. Otherwise, insecurities will drive you. And what we're going to be talking about today is just how you can have that awareness around what insecurities might be pulling you away from what you truly want, and how to make sure that you don't get pulled in that wrong direction. You think that's what you actually want to optimize for. So with that said, I want to welcome my co host, Dr. Emil Hill, you might remember him from the old elite Foundation's podcast, he'll be joining me today for this podcast and mail, please say hi to the good people.

Dr. Emil 1:49
A good people, it's very good to be back. Good to have you back. fun, awesome stuff. So let's get this show on the road. What was the what was the results, the client results?

Itamar Marani 2:04
Okay, Client Results for in in a more tangible level, his company now broke through to its highest month, and it's this constant like Up Up, up, up up months, they're going over 200k profit a month, which was way beyond what he reached before, he was able to let go of one of the guys in his company who he was really afraid to let go of because he thought he had a lot of power and significance. But he was actually holding him back from really taking the company to the next level. And he finally gained the confidence or we let him go and fire him and be like, it's gonna be better without him. And most importantly, and this is what he said to me and testimony we recorded earlier. It was really touching. He said, like he is 50 years old. And he said that if he had never really done this work, and he kept trying to fight and prove this like voice in his shoulder wrong, you would have never felt what it was to actually be free and happy. And I think that's really the big, big thing that I would love for a lot of people to get like the tangible results in the business that happens. That's of course, but like this far, that's, that's the real money thing. That's where it really is.

Dr. Emil 3:12
Yeah, so we touched on this just before we started recording, and I suspect that a lot of people spends most, if not all of their lives, battling insecurities or trying to, you know, please an authority figure or prove to an authority figure or someone external to them, and don't end up achieving or experiencing happiness. I think that's, I think that's almost a universal, but I think it's horribly, horribly common.

Itamar Marani 3:50
Yeah, I think, like to put it a different way. I think what most people say they want, what they think they want, isn't what they truly want. It just what they hope will resolve a certain insecurity that they feel they can prove something wrong, like you said something wrong, someone wrong, whatever it may be.

Dr. Emil 4:06
And what did he think they wanted?

Itamar Marani 4:09
So it's not what he thought he wanted. And this is a big part of also what you're saying. It's like I think most people their insecurities they're not, they're not extremely tangible. They're not able to say this is a specific thing that I'm insecure about. And it actually drives my actions. Because once you're able to say that usually they can start really, it loses a lot of its power. Yeah. What Ian wanted was to have a great life, a great business, being able to travel around the world and see and bring his family to him also, because he has a lot of children. And that's what he wanted, on a conscious level on a subconscious level. He was never really playing his own game, like how he called it like the free end game. He was never able to play that because he had this authority figure and testimony didn't want to say exactly who so I'm going to keep this under wraps. But it was an authority figure from his childhood that was not very nice to him and said some things that made him feel like he had to prove that he's worthy, prove that he's intelligent, prove that he's capable. So a lot of his actions and his focus and his attention instead of focusing on what he could do to make himself really happy, he was like, How can I prove this person wrong? How can I succeed to prove them wrong. And he was working with what we call a lot of like dirty fuel, like anger is very powerful, and it can move a lot of things. But most times, it'll move you in the wrong direction. Because you're not playing your own game, you're playing to prove somebody else wrong. It's a very different outcome when you're going to cheat.

Dr. Emil 5:34
Yeah, and what you what you said there, you know, successful business, travel a lot, bring his family to him, things like that he was doing those things. You know, he has what he thought was success, happiness, proving someone wrong, but that wasn't bringing, I don't know, fulfillment, happiness, whatever the outcome was. So it's interesting. You say, people don't know what they want. It's not tangible. And even when you achieve in air quotes, what you think you want, nothing changes, you just move the goalposts. So there is something more fundamental, something underlying which people are searching for don't know. Or in entrepreneur land, they just, you know, they hit their goal, oh, I want to get a million. And now I want to get 10 million now I want to get 100 million, and that's infinite. And they end up never experiencing happiness.

Itamar Marani 6:28
Yeah, I agree with that. But I also want to say that on a tangible level, he was also achieving much less than you could have 100% Yeah. And that's also a big thing to recognize. I know, some people are drawn to this more to that more. But that's also a really important thing to recognize that because he wasn't able to really bring him full self into it. Because he was distracted, there was this voice on his shoulder that he kept trying to prove wrong, instead of actually focusing on what he should be doing.

Dr. Emil 6:53
Yeah. And, yeah, him. Even if he had been able to achieve more, it wouldn't have fixed anything. And then when you, you know, when you worked with him and removed that dark source of fuel, that dark energy, everything expanded. And I know we're going to talk about that at some points, because a lot of people think that pain, anger, and whatever else is a valid fuel, and it is in certain situations for certain periods of time, but it's not necessarily. It's all people know, sometimes.

Itamar Marani 7:28
Yeah, you don't let's dive into it right now. And I think beyond them just thinking it's a powerful fuel and all that. If they're afraid to let go of it. There's a fear to say like, if I let go of my insecurities, then I won't have this chip on my shoulder. And this chip on my shoulder is what got me here. Does that sound familiar? From what you've heard?

Dr. Emil 7:49
I mean, exactly. That's, that's, I mean, often people won't describe it as a chip on their shoulder, but they'll definitely have a chip on their shoulder for anyone observing externally. And it'll be like, okay, and they'll probably know, on slightly beneath the surface level, but almost terrified to acknowledge it.

Itamar Marani 8:09
Yeah. So I like personally, for me, that was like going through my own kind of process of overcoming a lot of like, my fears, my insecurities, my doubts. That was, I think, the most terrifying thing. Because it really like I thought that all of the success I had until that point in life was because I had a certain insecurity. But I've spoken about in previous episodes about me quitting that one time, and how I became this, like ultra discipline, ultra hard person that would just push through anything. And I thought that me letting go of that insecurity, was just going to turn me into this, like soft hippie, and I wouldn't actually accomplish anything anymore in life. And I remember like, that was the one point where like, through my process, where I really put up actually a lot of resistance. And I wasn't just like, going into it with like, this is the process I trust that I'm gonna go with.

Dr. Emil 8:57
Yeah, I had a similar experience, where I was always working on dark energy, stimulants, attaching self worth to achievement. And that was the only thing which drove me but also an infinite game. And only and I'm still in the process of dismantling it. But when I started to separate those, then happiness started to seep in contentment, peace, whatever you want to call it.

Itamar Marani 9:24
Yeah. I think it's a big thing. And I do want to dive into this a little bit more. And actually, you know, like, maybe we do circle back to it. But let's talk about something else with get back to the end. So rain really was again, like he was the business was already doing well, but it wasn't going through the moon. And he wasn't very happy. And the thing is, like you said, like he wasn't actually able to define his own goalpost because trying to prove this voice on his shoulder this kind of like this figure that he had created out of that authority figure like his representation of it, and it his own head, you could never prove him wrong. You could never gain the respect that he wanted as a child from this person, you could never gain the you know, the level of kinds of say nurturing, or whatever he wanted to get the quiet this voice in his head. And because of that, like you said, he was never able to enjoy it. And I think that's a big thing. It's like, when we want to prove somebody else wrong, especially when it's this, it's not a specific thing, that there's a real life person selling us, but it's in our head, we think, Oh, this is how we defeat this person who's wronged us in some way. It's just it's not achievable. Because this voice in our head is not going to be defeated. And it's really important to recognize.

Dr. Emil 10:40
Yeah, it's an infinite game. And there's, there's lots of infinite games in life, which people chase and never defeat and end up, you know, back what we said earlier on, will never experience happiness, they'll always experience scarcity, fear, scrambling to try and fill a hole, which is which is infinite.

Itamar Marani 11:05
And I think that's the way you're saying here. So it's so powerful, because that, that fear, it causes people to operate in ways that they don't actually enjoy operating it causes like a lot of their their values or their wants to shift. All of a sudden, like from somebody like Ian, who like, you know, as well person. And for everybody listening, you can also work with a meal and got some amazing results back in the day ends, it got a heart of gold. But even when you take somebody like that, and you put this anger inside of them, they're not going to be able to bring themselves out in the best manner. Because they're always operating from this anger, and they can't really, you know, they can't really be who they can, they can potentially be because of that. And it came out everywhere, for example, like one of the big parts in the processing. And its interest because in and it barely worked on his business, it was mostly about himself. But he said in the business, everybody's just so much happier, like everybody else who just enjoys him as a boss so much more because of it. It's because he's not driving them from his anger, but it's actually just like, you know, pulling them from something a bit higher.

Dr. Emil 12:13
Yeah, an interesting point there as well as you know, Ian had awareness at some points about this. And that allowed him to, to work on it or to work on the fact that he wasn't happy. Something I see a lot of is entrepreneurs especially but but wider than that is people aren't aware and they think that they do like this hustle, this this anger this, this winning whatever it is, and you know what, like revenue increasing or or crushing things. You know, in business, it is invigorating, it is intoxicating, it does feel good in air quotes, it's not true happiness. And then when maybe there's a drop in, in revenue or something else comes in, you suddenly realize the fragility of the situation and things like stimulants, you know, excessive use of caffeine can almost dampen the fact that you are not happy and continue to feed this confidence, ego, essentially euphoria, from you know, building things. And actually what you're doing is you're distracting from the core, which is filling a hole which is infinite and ultimately unhappiness.

Itamar Marani 13:22
It's interesting so because I know you work with a lot of people and also a lot of people that in the take a lot of these uppers turn to you. Do you think this is a commonality this is kind of like a warning sign that if somebody's taking a lot of uppers, caffeine pills, whatever it may be, when things are actually not going well, it's because you're trying to overcompensate for for that feeling like if they see a fluctuation where they take more of these things, when things aren't going well externally. That's like a big warning sign.

Dr. Emil 13:45
I mean, excessive use of uppers, including excessive use of caffeine, like days, weeks, months on ends, is a sign that you are you're living off them, you're using powerful drugs, caffeine included, to force yourself to do things which aren't necessarily aligned to achieve a goal, which isn't the real goal. So I think and this is me, I'm talking about me, anyone who is using a shitload of stimulants, including caffeine, caffeine is a powerful, powerful drug. If you go off caffeine for two months and then drink a large Starbucks, you'll be shaking on the floor. So it's powerful. We just normalize it. If you are using a lot of coffee having more than you know three things whatever a day, energy drinks, coffees, whatever other more potent uppers then you are probably distracting from something now.

Itamar Marani 14:46
It's interesting cuz I want to give my perspective on it. I wouldn't say it's distracting, but it's the way I look at it. It's probably from compensating one of the most exhausting Things You can have in your life is emotion of anger, and holding it in and trying to act through it, it's exhausting. And I wonder what the correlation is there, that people that work a lot a lot through, like anger or insecurity and like, you know, being very protective of themselves, because they're insecure, or whatever it may be, it's like, that's just exhausting. And that's why they also need a lot of uppers to help them go through it.

Dr. Emil 15:23
I mean, I'm sure that is a facet of it. And even, you know, at a lower level, they are working many, many hours per day doing shit that they don't really want to be doing to achieve an outcome, which, ultimately, they don't really want. So they're just using it to drive the train. Dark energy, as you say, but yeah, that's an interesting point about emotions being draining and suppression of self being draining because it is every time you you know, you have a decision as to whether to be your true self or to to put on this front, this this, whatever it is aggressive suppressed. Friends, that's that's draining that takes a unit of energy. So if you can top it up with caffeine, or whatever else, then I agree.

Itamar Marani 16:13
So here's a big part of like, the whole process is about removing. So trying to go back to in what we did, and how he was able to really get to the root of because like you said, he came because he was unhappy. And he realized something was wrong. And he was like, Okay, I need to address this. So the first thing we did is kind of figure out, okay, like, you know, what do you want, and he was kind of stumped. He was there, I don't know. And it's really, really weird and made him nervous to be able to say, like, you know, I'm 50, I'm a very thoughtful individual. And I can't say exactly what I want. He had a lot of things that he didn't want. He was like, I don't want this, I don't want that. I don't want to have to do that. And he was stumped. And what was interesting is that we weren't really able to establish what he wants. And we've kind of moved forward with the process. And we started going through his subconscious flushing it out. And we're trying to figure out what are certain fears that he has that are driven by certain beliefs that cause certain insecurities or discomfort in his life. And that's when we really got to this kind of authority figure from his past. And it was only when we really were able to flush these things out and falsify them, that he was able to start thinking about what he wants. And I remember, he felt like he was like, dude, like, what the hell like I'm drawing a blank here. It's like, now I don't even know what I don't want. And I recognize some of it is irrelevant. But I'm just, I'm drawing a complete blank here, which I thought was very, very interesting. And it's the recognition that we don't spend time thinking about what we want. We spend so much time focusing on how to resolve certain security and what we hope will resolve them. And it's such a big thing. And like if we don't first attack the insecurities if they're a big thing, we'll never actually be able to get clear on what we want. They're gonna block that.

Dr. Emil 18:01
They This is savagely common. I spoke to someone yesterday. Again, mutually we know them. Exactly the same thing. Yeah, what do you want? I don't know. And I think this is this is this is a this is common. This is endemic, this is with a lot of people. But what what happens is people say, What do I want? Oh, I want $100 million business and 50 employees, blah, blah, blah, it's distraction. It's bullshit. It's it?

Itamar Marani 18:29
It's so I'm gonna challenge you there. I don't think it takes traction. I think if you ask him why, why? Why do you keep like going down that why route to sell? Well, because that'll make me feel like oh, my success. And a lot of times, it's so many times, there's so many, especially male entrepreneurs. Why? Because I'll prove my father wrong. Because that will prove those people wrong, because it'll prove this or that.

Dr. Emil 18:49
I agree. And I think it's semantics here. I think I mean, it's distracting from the main issue, so that what they think they want is this, whereas actually what they want is here, but then keep focusing on this and it's hiding this bit here, and then people just don't know where to begin. And then awareness is the first step to then be able to take action. And then people are like, okay, so I don't know what I want. How can I? Where do I even begin? And then what you described was just start taking steps start identifying the little what what did you What words did you use little negatives little?

Itamar Marani 19:27
The what are the fears that you have? Yeah, what are you trying to prove? Like honestly, like a great and this isn't like saying, but we're now great way to kind of put it together to say like, what am I trying to prove? Why do I feel the need to prove something? Who do I need to prove something to and take what you said there I just think it's spot on. Like most people they say they want something but they're actually more connected to something else. They say they want this goal or whatever and we but honestly more more often than not, they're connected to trying to avoid a certain feeling that they don't want to feel a certain insecurity a certain fear a certain sense Let's not failure or abandonment or not being worthy, or whatever it may be, and they do all these actions to try to disprove that. And they never actually focus on what they truly want. And it's such a shame.

Dr. Emil 20:12
I mean, it's it's Savage, it's literally, they will struggle to experience happiness because they're not fulfilling this core desire, because they're not even aware of it slash they are distracted by something else. And the problem compounds because that distraction, more money bigger business is heavily validated by society, who more often than not, is made up of lots of other people who were also feeding a distraction, whatever words you want to use. So it's this, like, forgive the phrase circle jerk of people, like validating for this distraction with each other. So yeah, that's amazing. That's so good, when actually everyone is missing the real, the real deal.

Itamar Marani 20:54
It's a great point, I do want to want to say something a bit different here as well. Because paradoxically, what I've seen is that letting go of these things, also, like if you if you let go them, and most people still want to achieve like that, like ends, like his company is growing by a lot since he did this. Paradoxically to what you may think it's not going to make you lazy and a hippie. And like that guy that you said, you spoke to yesterday, that was one of his main fears. That was a Lily's word. That's why they gave up to my give up. But it's like, it's exactly that. And just, it doesn't happen. It's like that was my fear that it would happen to me, I've seen it. So often, it's just not going to happen. If you're a naturally ambitious person, and you're trying to do big things like this, some people when they have that feeling, they want to get rid of it. But honestly, like just just drinking it away, even, or just falling into procrastination, you know, watch YouTube drugs, whatever it may be. Some people want to disprove it through ambition. So here's the reality, if that's been your natural tendency, you're not going to stop being an ambitious person all of a sudden, but you'll be able to channel that ambition in a much more productive way. Because like we said, anger is exhausting. So if you're channeling angry, angry ambition, like yes, it will take you to a certain level. Absolutely, it absolutely will. But you can get to a whole different level faster. And like Emil, keep saying to enjoy the ride a whole lot more, if you're able to not optimize for that, but optimize what you actually want by overcoming this stuff.

Dr. Emil 22:23
Yeah, it's swapping energy sources from this dark energy to clean energy. And this is where we but let it use it as an analogy, use it as a thought experiment.

Itamar Marani 22:35
Yeah. And it's like, I can share one example of one person that I worked with that we cleared his fears, and then his ambition dropped. But the reality is like in his name, I'm not gonna say his name, actually. But he works for one of my clients, companies. And I work with him as well. He was the CMO. And it was weird, because the reason I started working with him, because he had a lot of ups and downs, he would perform really well. And then he would just kind of like, disappear, and just do a terrible job and several things, it was causing a lot of mess up. So I started to work with him. And what we realized was that he kept saying, yeah, these really big, audacious goals 10s of millions, he was a very young individual, I think it was 23. And we recognize that he had this belief that he had to make a ton of money to retire his parents right now, if he doesn't do that, that means he's not a good son. And we falsified it, because once we first off, we brought it to the surface, we flushed it out, he wasn't aware that what was driving, but we brought that out, we first brought awareness to it. And then we actually stress tested it, he had conversations with some parents, he had some conversations with himself. And he realized that's not what he wanted to do. And all of a sudden, when he really realized that that's not something he has to do, and it shouldn't push him. It's not that his ambition dropped, it's that he was able to actually do what he wanted in life. And now he's not the CMO of the company anymore, he but he's still in the company, but he's in a different space, where he's super happy. He doesn't have these ups and downs and crashes because he tries to over push himself. But it doesn't really last somebody who really wanted any crashes. And it's like, even if that is the case, which is very rare, honestly, from what I've seen, because most of the people that I interact with are very ambitious, naturally, like he's in a better place. I guarantee you, he's in a better place. And it's also going to be better for him in the long run, to keep going at his own pace, and I'm just trying to push for the moon when he doesn't really want it. But he's just pulled by that insecurity that unless he does this, he's going to be a bad son to his parents.

Dr. Emil 24:34
Yeah. And to add to that, to be honest, if you look at ambition in the narrow spectrum of money, then yes, you could say he lost ambition. But you could also argue that that was never that was never ambition. That was fear. And now Yes, ambition is something else and I'm sure he has other interests in life, which he's ambitious about. The other thing to come Sit here is he's burned out by this lifetime of chasing bullshit, basically. So what might happen and what I treasure, the pressure, Daniel, it's exhausting. And I'm sure he was smashing stimulants as well, because that's the entrepreneur way. And with the cycles of crashing and crashing is exhausting as well. But once you lose that, you're you know, you're burnt out for a period, it can take one year, two years, five years to have ambitions in different areas, and then eventually come back to the initial money, ambition, whatever, maybe, maybe not, and then push that. Yeah, so there's just a rest period, it's a reset period, it's a refractory period. And these are the seasons of life, I don't think, you know, I can see where you're kind of trying not to scare people that they're going to lose their ambition. But point the ambition in the right direction realize that things are cyclical. You can't you can't hammer it all the time forever.

Itamar Marani 25:59
Yeah, it's interesting that I've been thinking about it a different way. I think what you're saying is true. I just have always thought about it a different way. I think people there's people, I'm told naturally different levels of ambition. Like we've all met, there's some people that are more satisfied with level X, some people want x 20. And even when you do remove, let's call it all the insecurities, all the doubts, it's just what they want. This is what they think is fun. Like, that's the game that's really fun to them to build something really, really huge. Like, Scott, that's what Scott's a person like that. The more you remove him, the more he's able to just enjoy that. And I play really, really big. And I think that's a big thing that that doesn't go away. And it's the opposite. Like how you're saying about this affects other things. If you are being driven by ambition, but sorry, by anger, that's going to affect how you are and your relationships outside of business and your relationship with yourself everything and anything. And like that employee, he was also starting to really have a hard time he was engaged with his fiancee, because he was trying, he was being driven by fears and doing what you didn't actually want to do. But what he felt pressured that he needed to do in order to be a good son. And this created bad ripples everywhere. And I think it's so important to understand, are you actually working from a place of this is what I truly want? Or are you feeling this kind of pressure, to avoid a certain feeling that you don't want to feel this insecurity, this fear, and you're optimizing for that without knowing it. Because if you're doing the latter, it is going to be very difficult for you to succeed. And I mean that on an internal level, you might be able to get to a certain level externally with certain amount of money or whatever it may be. But if that's what's going on internally, it's going to be extremely difficult for you to ever be happy, instead achieve a sense of calm and like what you really, really want freedom or whatever it may be to you.

Dr. Emil 27:47
Yeah, and emit and a misalignment in one area a running on anger in business 100% carries into other areas, and manifests ultimately, as not experiencing happiness, even though you feel you should, because you're hitting arbitrary goals, which you've set.

Itamar Marani 28:03
Now. So I'm gonna kind of wrap this up the main process that I want to share that work within and that could work for you first, if you find you're having a hard time, getting clarity on what you really want, stop trying to journal about it, stop trying to use more tools to get clear on what you want, and doing all these like five year tenure exercises. Stop that work from subtraction and say, Okay, first off, let me remove what could be blocking? Let me address that first. So first off, address and really think what could be the primary 123 insecurities that are pulling me away from what I could possibly want? Because I'm truly trying to optimize for that. Is there something I'm trying to prove? Is there someone I'm trying to prove to? What's going on there? What am I afraid of that? If I don't do this, I'll have a consequence that will be very terrible for me that I won't like how I feel there. And if you can figure out those 123 things that Camille said that's the first step, I think it's beyond the first step because just that awareness is half the battle. It's a lot of times like in the horror movies where they don't show you the monster until almost the very end because once you actually see it, it has so much less power and so much less impact on you. It's the exact same thing here. So if you can really put aside the all the journaling tactics about clarity, and just figure this stuff out first, and get clear on what are your top 123 insecurities that compel you and pull you to behave in ways they don't actually serve. You can go so far so much quicker. Yeah, microphone, dad. Beautiful. All right. So I hope this helped. And again, big thanks to Ian for also doing a really great testimony the other day and sharing all these details in his process, and for just being an awesome person. Alright guys, we will see you on the next episode. Thank you. Thanks, guys.