THE KEY TO LIFE AND BUSINESS OPTIMIZATION

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3 Key Points:

Find out how all the other tools or strategies for optimization won’t work without implementing this one step first.
Find out how to raise your income level and understand why so many entrepreneurs hit an income ceiling.
Learn how to take part in the community to help you stay on track and continue to make progress.

Show Notes:

Skip to: 01:19
What we’re talking about today is to own, truly own, your dark side.

Skip to: 02:05 Your nature lives on your dark side. Your wildness, your spontaneity, your boldness, your loudness, your life force, your ruthlessness, your relentlessness, your persistence, your power, and your love lives in your dark side.

Skip to: 03:50 Listen, everything that’s part of your dark side, you’re hiding, you were taught to hide. You were taught it was bad…

Skip to: 04:51 Now, the problem here is you’ve learned to shut that down, to minimize your nature. You’ve learned to tippy-toe, to apologize, so that people will like you, approve of you and feel comfortable around you…

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FULL TRANSCRIPT:

What’s up my friends, Satori Mateu here and welcome to a brand new episode of Halfass to Badass. Today, we are going to talk about one of the most challenging, most questioned, and most provocative topics I see clients and their families, and business owners struggle with and I believe it’s the one thing that runs everything you do.

Today’s topic controls your beliefs, your perspectives, your focus and therefore, how you run your business, how you care for your family and whether you’re rich or broke. It literally filters everything you do and controls the impact you have.

Your health, and your fulfillment hinges on you of you taking command of this area. Have I kept you in enough suspense? Good!

What we’re talking about today is to own, truly own, your dark side.

The question then becomes, of course, what is the dark side? So let’s talk about first, what it’s not.

It’s not bad. It’s not ugly. It’s not wrong. It’s not all those things you’ve been taught it may be. It’s not something to move away from, but rather, something you want to move towards. Something you want to embrace.

Because, this is where your true desires, your true dreams, your wants… live.

Your secrets live here and so does your inspiration. More about that in a moment. Your instincts live here. Your imagination lives on the dark side.

Your nature lives on your dark side. Your wildness, your spontaneity, your boldness, your loudness, your life force, your ruthlessness, your relentlessness, your persistence, your power, and your love lives in your dark side.Click To Tweet

Let me clarify what I mean when I say your love lives there.

Your genuine care for other human beings lives there. This is not the manipulative you trying to get attention. This is not the pretend stuff. Not the fake friendliness. Not that politeness, and fakeness which is not you, anyway.

Think about that. When you’re being polite, you’re not being you. You’re trying to be something other than yourself. You’re trying to be something others want you to be. You’re trying to placate and appease others. You’re trying to do something so people will like you, respect you, appreciate you.

It’s a buying of love and affection, of respect or whatever you want to call it, but it’s not you when you’re being polite.

That’s a mask. It’s prostitution. And we’ve all done it. Do you know what I’m saying?

I hope you do because this is a critical understanding if you want to build a successful and fulfilling life, business, marriage or be an influential leader of any kind.

I remember being a kid tippy-toeing. I remember being an adult tippy-toeing. I remember that feeling of talking to a client and being care-ful, rather than care-ing, working really hard to not say the wrong thing, to not make them annoyed, or disappointed.

Listen, everything that’s part of your dark side, you’re hiding, you were taught to hide. You were taught it was bad, which is why you’re hiding it, to begin with. Are you following?

I think if you stop for a moment and become aware you can feel when you’ve said yes to something just to appease someone. It’s so nauseating and crippling because it’s not you. Are you with me? It’s some contrived version of you.

It’s just inauthentic. And you’ll never feel in alignment with yourself and your highest values when you do.

Again, I’m not talking about genuinely wanting to do something for someone. Wanting to care. That’s different.

Your genuine love, your genuine caring, your authentic love lives in the dark side. The real you, not what you’ve been taught and conditioned by society or maybe your parents, live there. The unpostured and unmasked you. Yeah, is this cool stuff?

Now, the problem here is you’ve learned to shut that down, to minimize your nature. You’ve learned to tippy-toe, to apologize, so that people will like you, approve of you and feel comfortable around you. It’s been indoctrinated and conditioned into your very core since you were a kid.

“Be nice. Be good. Say thank you. Be polite. Be respectful. Smile. Be happy. You’re such a good boy. You’re such a good girl. You make mommy and daddy so happy.” Or just reverse it…

“Don’t say that. Don’t do that. Don’t ask so many questions. Just do what I tell you to do boy. Don’t question mommy or daddy because they always know best.” Don’t question authority.

That’s how we are trained.

You and I were trained to fit in. We were trained to please others and to live into their values and not make them uncomfortable. So I know it can be hard to strip away the mask and be you. How do you be you without it?

I will have to dedicate an episode just for that. Today we’ll open up the eyes to it and give you something actionable to start making the shift.

How do you do fit in? You do that by playing small, by not standing out, by trying to fit in. This is what you’ve learned your whole life. It’s been like a requirement in order to receive love, to receive appreciation, and to receive the respect of your peers; of your family, your friends, and your clients. It’s the place where you’ve been going for your survival.

That’s not the place to live or thrive.

If you’re thinking, “I don’t do that.” Stop and ask yourself, “Where do I do that?” Because we all do to some degree, and I just want you to notice where and when you do so can free yourself from it.

If you feel uncomfortable even hearing me talk about this, I get it. If you feel any resistance to what I’m saying I get it.

Because your whole life you’ve been trained to not go against the grain. It’s natural. It’s normal. It’s what you know. But it’s also what makes you empty, unfulfilled, stressed out, overwhelmed and stuck.

It’s what fuels perfectionism. I’m not talking about growth. I’m talking about the addiction of perfectionism. The constant futile chase for praise and acceptance, which just makes the gap bigger and bigger the more you try to fill the emptiness.

I remember doing that with the people I admired. I did it most of my life; I would put them on a pedestal. Teachers, coaches, business icons, certain clients. I did it with my wife when I first met her. Most of us have done it so repeatedly, that it’s automatic and we pay no attention to it.

This is not the place where we’re sharing and expressing our true gifts. Now, of course, we’re smart, we don’t do things that don’t bring us some sort of benefit, some kind of pleasure, right?

So what happens when you don’t own your dark side? You get the illusion of people liking you. At least, it looks like it on the surface. They’re not liking you. They don’t even know you. All they know is your facade,

your mask! You know what else? They’re liking that you’re doing and fulfilling their wants and desires, but for many people, if you didn’t do that, they may not like you and they may not be so nice to you.

Disowning your dark side is actually not a service to them. It’s a disservice, because they don’t even get to know you, and they’re stuck living in their fake little bubble. Not good. Not good at all.

So you’ll have less enemies. You’ll push fewer buttons. You’re keeping homeostasis, so to speak, but nothing changes. You have no real impact on the world. You won’t make any real money by doing that, because you won’t stand out. You’ll be part of the mediocre, the average person, so you won’t be remembered. And if we’re talking about having an intimate relationship, it will be shallow at best, and parenting? Hmm fueled by disappointments on both sides. This is the consequence of not embracing all of you.

People will guilt and shame you for not behaving the way you should behave.

This is what humans have learned to do to control and manipulate other humans since the beginning of time. And it’s still happening. Why does this matter? Because you want to be a free human being. You want to be able to be fully and boldly you and never try to be anything else or anyone else. And not have to apologize for it.

Just recently at the Golden Globes Award in Beverly Hills, they were promoting flu shots. So they walked around all the celebrities and campaigned for people to get their flu shot. It was a very awkward moment and many celebrities looked very uncomfortable.

Why am I sharing this? Because this is an example of shaming and pointing people out who are different or acting different than what is being promoted. They said, “Hey if you’re anti vaccines just put a yellow napkin on your head and we’ll know who you are.

Companies, Government, society, the news use it all the time to control our behavior, control our focus.

It’s time you own you.

All of you. If you don’t you’ll just minimize your true nature which means you will never get paid your worth. Your business won’t grow at the level you want and how are you ever going to have an edge? People are not going to pay you for something that is not special, that doesn’t stand out. And the people who care about you, like I do, we want to experience your real genius.

Even when I say that you probably thinking, “Well, I’m not a genius”. Well, how do you know that? Who told you that? You can’t really help and serve your clients or your family if you don’t own your work if you don’t own your dark side, because they won’t get to the real you, the best of you.

All they get is a muted version of you, a crippled version of you. Which means, they’re not being served at a level they could be served. Which also means, you’re not going to be known as the authority in your industry, because you’ll keep minimizing your worth. You’ll keep minimizing yourself, because you’re disowning your dark side. You’re disowning you.

I don’t really have a name for the other side. Of course, we could call it the light side, but it sounds almost like something to aspire. It’s not. You’ve been taught that, but you were taught wrong.

I know I may be pushing some buttons when I say this, but hey I want you to be free to be you and awaken from your good boy, good girl trance.

I would call it the fake side, the apologetic side, the side that is inauthentic. It’s not you.

So the question is, how do we own our dark side? How do we break free from the hypnosis of the masses? I hope I painted the picture clear enough for you to start seeing the danger and the drawbacks of not owning your dark side.

We can go deeper with that, for sure, but just for the sake of keeping this focused right now and keeping this to an understanding that your dark side is the real you. There’s nothing to be ashamed of here. There’s nothing to hide, really. But it is a thing that you are hiding. It is a thing that you are minimizing. It is the thing that you are apologizing for. It’s the one thing that is controlling and dominating your pulse, every single day of your life.

It’s controlling your income right now. Your key relationships. It’s controlling everything. It’s actually controlling the level of energy you have right this very moment. Because the more you’re suppressing, the less you’re being you, and that’s draining.

It’s controlling your emotions, your mental capacity, It’s controlling your immune system. It’s controlling everything. It’s controlling your marriage, it’s controlling your parenting, it’s controlling the efficiency in your business, your stress levels, how well you manage your team.

So if you want to be free, truly free as a human being, this is worth owning. This is worth mastering, for sure.

So how do we do it? Let’s start by understanding a few simple things. I’m going to give you some practical things you can do right away.

There’s only one way to not have it be your dark side anymore and that’s to bring it into the light. And by the way, if you didn’t know the definition of my name, “Satori” it means enlightenment. It’s a moment of clarity.

So let’s illuminate your dark side, shall we? Let’s make you unshakeable.

How do we shed some light here? Right now. Not years from now.

First, the moment you see where and when and with whom you’re being inauthentic, just by observing it (with no judgment) things start shifting.

You’re literally starting the pruning, and cutting away process of your inefficient neuro connection. You’re literally re-molding your brain. You can just start by acknowledging it.

You can see, you can have clarity of where and when and with whom you’re apologizing, where you’re being fake, where you’re not being bold, expressive, where you’re minimizing yourself, where you’re tippy-toeing, where you’re trying to have people like you.

Let’s just make it clear, this is not about being offensive. It’s not about being disrespectful. It’s not about attacking people. Attacking and judging comes from a place of protection. Attacking is a protecting mechanism. I don’t need to get my point across by attacking.

A lot of times, when people feel a need to defend themselves, to protect themselves, (when they perceive a threat) they feel like they need to attack.

I was having a conversation with a new client a few years back. I started working with. She’s a doctor, and she works with all these famous people. I said something to her, and I said, “Really?” I just used the word, “Really?” Immediately, she jumped into, “You don’t have to shame me.” I’m like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, relax. I’m not even in the slightest bit trying to shame you.”

I said, “If you feel triggered and you feel shamed, it has nothing to do with this moment. I have zero desire or intention to shame you. Shame lives in the past. You’re being triggered from the past because nothing that I ever say or ever do is designed to shame anybody.”

I don’t have any judgment if what you’re doing is good, bad, right, or wrong. I’m looking at how is it working for you? How is it serving you? Is it expanding you, or is it minimizing you? That’s what I’m attacking if I’m attacking anything.

It’s easy to get, hooked into something. Directness can have that impact on people, because they feel, “Ooh, I’m going to be exposed”.

The first step to owning your dark side is to have the clarity and awareness of where and with whom and specifically when you’re doing it.

When you’re apologizing. When you’re being fake. When you’re protecting yourself. When you’re doing all those things, that’s number one.

Number two: We must tell the truth about it to someone who can (who actually has the ability) and wants to see and understand you. Someone who cares about you. Meaning, someone who’s able to see you with all those things that you’ve been trying to hide, all the things you’ve been trying to change about yourself, to not lose respect, love, and appreciation.

I actually had a conversation with one of our podcast listeners this week where this became very apparent. She is an entrepreneur and mom and her mother in law was shaming her for being enthusiastic about building her company. She didn’t think that’s how a mom should be.

Not a very uncommon scenario. This listener, of course, felt frustrated and judged because she was sure she wouldn’t blame her son for working and building his business.

So she had a choice to be apologetic and tippy-toeing, shrink herself to appease her mother in law, or to continue to be inspired and know she could build an amazing business and be an amazing mom. And actually an even more present mom because she was fulfilling her highest values; being a mompreneur.

So we’ve got to first acknowledge and see, be aware of, when and where and with whom I am minimizing, apologizing, being fake in any way, shape, or form, trying to change who I am. Tippy-toeing. Number one.

Number two, acknowledge it. Own it. Tell the truth about it to someone who can see you. This is the place of courage, being vulnerable enough to share your flaws.

I don’t see them as flaws, but to be able to communicate it here, the things that you’ve been trying to hide, the secrets that you’ve been taught are flaws is key here.

A great way to know what those things are is to ask yourself, “What are the things I don’t want anyone to know, Don’t want to tell anybody? What are the secrets I don’t want anybody to know about me?” Those will be the things to talk about with the people who can see you.

I was talking to a guy the other day that wanted some help with his thinking around his business, and he was not getting enough traction and making the money he wanted. He had spent a lot of money to be in this entrepreneurial mastermind but felt stuck because he wasn’t getting the help he needed.

So I asked him, what’s something you’ve been hiding or trying to keep a secret? I said it’s dominating you right now, and it’s controlling your income because it’s lowering your worth. Anything in your nervous system that is minimizing you will control how much money you’re making”.

He’s like, “It’s weird, the moment you asked me, this feeling popped up and I know exactly what it is. My sister has a severe handicap, I’ve judged her for it. I haven’t felt I could love her fully because of it, and I’ve felt ashamed and ashamed of her”.

The moment you’re exposing the guilt and shame, they’re no longer in the dark, meaning we are seeing it, and you’re able to own it. When someone can see you and appreciate your vulnerability you’re making it possible to dissolve things you’ve been carrying around for decades.

It’s easy to identify it and be honest with yourself about it, which is obviously the first step when you’re seeing it, right? But to dissolve the guilt or shame, what’s powerful and what you want to do is share it with someone who can see you with it. This is your practice.

I’m talking about this because most people are not getting how these things (thoughts and emotional charges) are weighing them down and holding them back from the business growth they want, the family they want, and fulfillment they want. Most are not deliberately stepping forward and practicing this. Mostly because they didn’t know, but also because it’s scary and counterintuitive. It’s the complete opposite of what most people have been taught.

Most entrepreneurs I know pretend to be better than they are further along than they are; more successful, making more income, more everything. When I say pretending to be better than you are, I’m not saying that you’re not amazing. You are. You’ve been pretending because you’ve been hiding the other side, thinking that is a “bad” side, a wrong side, a flawed side, a weak side.

So you want to come across “better than”. It’s completely normal based on the conditioning you’ve had.

That’s not owning your dark side. That’s apologizing for it by pretending, disowning it and putting up a facade, right?

An example of that would be. “Hey, how are you doing?” “Oh, everything is great. I’m doing this, and I’m doing that, and life is amazing. That’s being polite because you’re not being real.

It’s not that something can’t be going great in your life. Of course, things can be amazing in your life. That’s not the point.

This is when the truth has to be there, it’s a different level of truth. I’m not talking about being a victim and always complaining and bitching about your life.

I want you to understand. I’ve been a part of so many groups; masterminds where people pay a lot of money to be in them, and so many of them hang in the Facebook groups fishing for praise, they share their wins but still feel empty because it’s empty calories. I’m not interested in building more fakeness or inauthenticity in people. Or supporting the growing addiction.

Hey I want you to be focused. I don’t want you to get distracted.

You need to have space; mental space, emotional space a community space where you can be fully, brutally honest and real. That does not mean that everything is going to be super cool and everything’s going to be great all the time.

You need to be able to own those things, without coming from a victim mentality but from curiosity, from exploration and desire to grow. Not from complaining. Not from a feeling sorry for yourself place. And I know you don’t like that place anyway so I don’t need to explain that.

So I’m not after that. I’m after a place where you can be seen, fully seen. To be understood It’s hard for people to do that on social media. Which is why we’ve built our community. By the way, if you want to know more about our community you can go to halfasstobadass.com and join our VIP list for when we open the doors. Cool?

I’ve got to tell you it frustrates me when I see so many entrepreneurs not having the tools, or the community to deal with this. Of course, we want to encourage people, but we also want to understand on a deep level that when you’re aligned with your core values, you’re inspired from within, you don’t need some outside motivation to take action.

You may need to remove friction and overwhelm and have efficient strategies for optimization. But when you’re aligned with your highest values, your core, you don’t need me to motivate you. You’re getting that, right?

I don’t need to remind my boys to play Minecraft or push them to draw the things they love to create. They are compelled and inspired. They come to me and share their latest creations. “Look, dad, look what I did. Hey dad, I created this new cool character today”.

Believe me, I know people want to be nice, but we need to start recognizing our own inner drive of why and how we do it. Because if we don’t it’s like we’re walking around literally with a fake mask of a smile and nobody gets to know anybody. There’s a separation and lonely feeling, rather than connection and intimacy. That’s the price of being inauthentic. And it’s not your fault when you are because we can all be a bit inauthentic if we’re honest.

We’re trained to be this way, and most often it has the opposite effect of what we want.

We just need to recognize when it happens so we can let it go. The moment you own your dark side you’re free my friend. And I want that for you.

In this conversation, well me talking to you, I can’t interact with you as much as I like to, which is another reason why we created our community so I can get to know you and support your entrepreneurial journey.

So until you join us you’ve got to practice to be brutally honest and own your dark side. Stop trying to look good, stop trying to impress others for the sake of gaining love, respect or appreciation. It’s exhausting and won’t get you very far. It will just leave you empty. It’s an addiction you want to break.

And I know a lot of people have a hard time admitting when they have an addiction. But let’s be clear, anything you and I do that we keep doing and seem to have a hard time stopping is an addiction. Let’s just tell the truth about it. No more hiding. No more pretending things are “so amazing” when they’re not. Are you with me?

Yes, you want to deliberately grow and uplevel your business, uplevel your relationships, right? You want to deliberately grow your well-being. Be intentional, right? I’m all for it. That’s how we Badasses do things. We don’t want to halfass anything. But you’ve got to recognize what’s driving it.

If you want life optimization, business optimization, this is not the place to look good my friend. I need to have that level of brutal honesty with you because otherwise, I can’t help you. And I know if you’re still listening to my rant today, you have some skin on your nose and you have the courage to be honest with yourself, right?

So number one, we have to know and see when we’re doing these things. And two, tell the truth to someone who truly cares about you.

I promise you one thing, it’s amazing what happens when you liberate yourself. When you free yourself from the chains of your past. You have access to parts of you that has been shut down for years.

I was speaking to one of my pro-athlete clients. She’s a Tennis pro.

When we integrated her dark side. She became unapologetic and completely dominated the court. She stopped tippy-toeing. Stopped minimizing herself. And stopped putting her competitors on a pedestal. And as a result, she made it to the finals in one of her tournaments which was the first time in over a year.

Listen, my friend, owning your dark side means owning you. All of you. If you’re going to own what you think is positive, you need to also own the things you believe are not so great. But remember the so-called “bad” stuff that others may have shamed you into believing was just negative, has its equal polar opposite positive. It has just as many benefits as drawbacks, and that’s the truth.

But you have to make a shift in perspective. You can’t hold on to old lies about yourself. This is where the power lives. This is where your freedom lives.

Hope this has been a powerful listening session for you, and I hope you will share this with someone you love. Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, OWN. YOUR. DARK. SIDE. Bye for now.