How teens can improve their mental health and build resilience. Lawrence Harris & Samia Bano

When algorithms give you everything to look at but nothing to feel, and AI can write your thoughts before you can, how do you discover who you are?

Today's youth face unprecedented challenges, navigating a loneliness epidemic in a hyper-connected world. We are fighting to learn how to learn and think for ourselves, racing to outpace technological dependency before we forget how to think at all.

If you're a young person or know a young person facing such challenges, listen now to this interview with Lawrence Harris, Youth Empowerment Speaker, to learn how you can #liveyourbestlife and achieve true success now by improving your #mentalhealth and #buildingresilience.

Lawrence will motivate you to stop living on autopilot with his practical insights into #emotionalhealing, #mindsettransformation, #selfawareness, and creating #lastingchange from the #insideout.

Click the link below to get a FREE BOOK of inspirational quotes that Lawrence has compiled:

https://speakerhub.com/cta/ZlPbIq

Connect with Lawrence at:

https://www.lawrencecharris.com/

https://www.instagram.com/lawrencec.empowers

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lawrence-harris-8b0177324/

https://www.tiktok.com/@lawrencecempowers

To Book your Free HAPPINESS 101 EXPLORATION CALL with Samia, click: https://my.timetrade.com/book/JX9XJ

#PersonalGrowth #MindsetShift #PurposeDrivenLife #HealingJourney #InnerHealing #SelfDiscovery #MentalWellbeing #EmotionalIntelligence #MindsetMatters #Transformation #AuthenticLiving #Resilience #ConsciousLiving #PersonalDevelopment #SpiritualGrowth #SelfLeadership #LifePurpose #PositiveMindset #InnerPeace #Empowerment #HealingTransformation #achiveyourdreams #achiveyourgoals

Here's the audio version of this episode:

Transcript Automatically Generated

SAMIA: Hello, Salaam, Shalom, Namaste, Sat Sri Akal, Aloha, Holah, Ciao, Bonjour, Buna, Privet, Mabuhay, and Dzień Dobry…
It's really, really good to be with you again, and I know you'll be so happy and glad that you have joined us today because we have a very, very cool guest with us who will be talking with us about a really, really, really, really important subject, and that is Lawrence Harris, who is a Youth Empowerment Speaker. Lawrence, welcome.

Thank you. It's wonderful to be here.

It's so great to have you, and Lawrence, please tell us more about who you are and what you do.

Well, obviously, my name is Lawrence Harris, and I'm a public speaker, but I specifically help teenagers and young adults to improve their confidence, self-worth, and improve their decision-making skills, so that they can improve not only their grades and academically, but in their life after graduation.

Yes. I think what you're doing is wonderful and it's so important. I mean, our young people are our future in so many ways.

I mean, even in the present, they are so, so important for us. And, oh my gosh, I have been thinking a lot about our young people for various reasons, but especially like in the last so many months, for two reasons. One, because I have nieces and nephews, and a few new ones have come into the world in the last few months.

And, you know, so I've been trying to get as involved as I can in their lives and help take care of them. But also, you know, with all the things I've been learning about AI and how that's been impacting young people or is likely to impact young people as we continue to have more and more AI in our lives. You know, it's been really on my mind, to be honest.

Like, just, I mean, there are other reasons as well, but those are two of the top reasons why young people have been on my mind a lot.

Youth in Digital Age

Yeah. And the interesting thing about that is, this is a time period. I'm sure every generation has said it before, but this is a time period like no other.

You know, prior to the 2000s, your life was the people within your town. That's everyone you knew. Unless you became like the president, nobody knew who you were in the next town over.

So you didn't really have to worry about the online bullying because it didn't exist. You didn't have to worry about fake AI-generated news articles that look real because it didn't exist. But now, young people are growing up in environments where not only do we have to worry about the Internet, not only do we have to worry about someone misunderstanding something we said online five years ago and it getting us expelled from college, but we also have to worry about just the social dynamics.

Everyone's on their phones, not really socializing with each other. And things like that lead to severe mental health effects because when you're scrolling on Instagram, you see the most handsome men, you see the most beautiful women, the richest people, the best of the best, and you start comparing, I'm not like them, I'm not as good at this person, and you think there's something wrong with you, but really, it's just the algorithm is designed to keep you on the app.

Evolving Communication Styles

Yes, that is so true. And, you know, talking about the impacts of social media, I think a lot of times, we take the impact that it has on us in a way that's sort of like, we actually don't even necessarily think very deeply about it. It's something that we just engage with, and we experience the impacts, but we don't necessarily even realize, oh, what exactly is it doing to me?

But also, what is it doing to our young people? Because the impacts that it has on adults, I mean, we have a bad enough, but it's like for our young people, it can be even more challenging, because they're still in many ways, for example, in the context of brain development, and in the context of just sheer life experience, they're still figuring things out, they're still making their way through the world and life, trying to figure that out. And so, it can impact them in many different ways, that as adults, we cannot appreciate or even realize, unless we pay attention to our young people and we listen to them, and also to experts who are really studying these things.

Like one example that is really coming to me in this context is just communication, the ability to communicate. In one of the podcasts that I was listening to, they were talking about how, like, if you are communicating online, how you communicate, I mean, has to be adapted to an online environment. So even what you can communicate about has to be adapted to that online environment.

You know, and so it's actually in some ways a different skill set almost, that, you know, you are learning and mastering when it comes to online communication on any social media platform. Each platform has its own culture and language also, so you also have to learn to adapt to that, you know, and things like that. And so if you have grown up in a world where that's your primary mode of communication in the sense that that's how you're communicating most of the time and most is, I mean, that's the kind of communication you would become expert in undoubtedly, but at the same time it might also mean that you are not as expert in other forms of communication, right?

An example that just came to my mind is how... So, maybe this is just... This could just be local to the areas I've been in, because I've traveled around the country a bit, but I live in Philadelphia, so I spend most of my time here.

I don't really see guys going up to women and talking to them. Now, of course, there's a certain boundary in my comfort zones and things like that, but a simple, hello, I think you're cute, my name's Lawrence, what's yours? You don't see that.

You don't see many of that. You know, it could just be that maybe they're... Because I've already graduated high school, so maybe this is happening inside of high school where it's a, you know, everyone's familiar with each other environment, but even with like adults, where I'll be walking on the street and nobody's talking to each other, there's no hello, hi, there's none of that in...

Well, I mean, I see like one guy in the gym who spoke to somebody, but that's one out of like a hundred. So think about the social implication of people not connecting with one another face to face, people not having those social skills, and people feeling like very isolated. Even for myself, when I try making friends with people my age, cause I'm 20, they kind of look at me like, what am I supposed to say?

I mean, hello, what do you enjoy doing for fun? Whereas when it's online, you have this giant database of, okay, I already know this person likes photography. I already know what you, I already know a lot about you.

Yeah.

So talking to someone through their social media page is a lot different than this random person who you think happens to look attractive or look cool or interesting in some way.

Yeah. Yeah, I...

Wow. It is very different, and it creates different expectations. Like, I remember when I first started trying to use social media, and I was like late coming into it, very late.

Like, even until I started my work as a coach and trainer, this was back in 2012, even after I started my work, I... several years I was not on social media. I think I started getting really active or trying to get really active only when I started my podcast, because I was like, well, I need a way to promote my podcast, I need to get the word out about it.

And so that's when I was like, okay, let me bite the bullet, let me just get on social media and try to figure it out. And in that context, you know, the first platform I started on was Facebook. And I just remember there were all these different aspects of communication on Facebook that I mean, I had to go through a learning curve, but also like that.

Just even little things like the length of a message. You know, like if you make a message too long, like people are just likely not to read it. Or if you're like communicating on messenger, for example, people...

I mean, I was like, wait, a lot of people seem to be sending a series of short messages rather than just one long message. And I was like, is that just something that I'm noticing? Is it a thing?

Or is it just like...

Yeah, I noticed that too. The way I text people, I've been told that I text in a very articulate way. So, one of my hobbies is, well, not a hobby, per se, it's something I do for my business, is writing books.

So when I send a message, it's kind of written like a book. Not super long, but back when I used to be trying to go on dates and whatnot, I would meet someone, we would change Instagrams, and my message would be something along the lines of, just so it is clear, my intention is to get to know each other, and if there's a good connection, take you on a date. And people just leave them unread.

And I could not figure out why. And then eventually it hit me that, oh, this kind of sounds a bit like a book. It's very, very clear, but that's the way I communicate.

So, the good thing, though, is that the people I have met and had great conversations with, I used to write down, like, my favorite thing to ever say. And I put it all into, like, this book of quotes. Like, my old boss, when I had this job doing door-to-door sales, he said, to be the one percent in life, you will not be able to relate to the 99 percent.

Because you're doing things that go so far out of the norm, and you're being someone so far out of the norm, that by default, it can make it harder to find people. And that stuck with me for so long. So, it just popped into my head.

But I actually made a book of all of these quotes. So, if you don't mind, I have a link that you can just like put in the show notes so you can get access to it.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, and you know, it's just... That is a great example.

I actually have that kind of tendency too, where I tend to write more formally also. And definitely, my messages tend to be on the more longer side and stuff. For a while, I used to worry about it, but now I don't worry about it anymore because I think I do know what, if it filters some people out in terms of, of like someone…

If that becomes a barrier to my having a relationship with someone, maybe that's a good thing in the sense that, I mean, like, you know, I want to be me and if someone finds that problematic in some way, and they want to filter themselves out, it's okay, maybe it's not such a bad thing.

I actually saw a post on Instagram yesterday that said, the right people won't require you to strengthen yourself down. So, it's sort of like the story of... Do you remember the story of Godilocks and the three bears?

Yes, yes.

No, you got the one bull where it's like, oh no, this is too cold. And you have another bull where someone is like, this is too hot. And you have one that is just right.

Yeah.

Someone that is too hot for someone else is just right for someone else. Someone who's too cold for another person is just right for another person. So if you pretend to be something you're not, and you meet somebody and they're like, no, I love this right here.

I love what you're being. They fall in love with the character, not who you really are. And that's why a lot of times, like two, three months into a relationship, it falls apart because now the real you comes out.

And they're like, I didn't sign up for this.

Yeah.

And unfortunately, because of social media, a lot of people, especially, I know this a lot with men, we kind of are like, okay, well, this is what people on social media are saying I should do and I should be. They have a relationship. So I'm going to do and I'm going to be that.

And then they go out and they get that relationship. But then they start being that real self and they're like, well, I didn't sign up for this. And a big problem too is with social media, being your authentic, just genuine, quote unquote, too much self, a lot of people will shame you for that and say how you're trying too hard, or who do you think you are?

I had a video that I posted about me just walking down the street happy, talking about how good I felt. And this guy left this, he made an entire like video about me just seeing all kind of hateful things and just going into graphic detail. And it made me think about how the internet has given so many good things, like wonderful stuff.

Before YouTube and Instagram and TikTok, if you wanted to learn anything, you had to either go to a library or college or you had to have known somebody. But now you can find a TikTok that explains how to change your tire or how to pump your own gas or how to fix a toilet or whatever you need.

Yeah.

There's information out there.

Yeah.

But the do-led side of it is now people have a way of saying things behind the screen that they would never say in person and pretending to be someone else because they don't even show their face.

Yeah. Yeah. And then there's also the problem we run into of having to learn how to actually tell apart who or what is good information versus not good information.

Navigating Online Information

Because yes, you can find videos on how to do pretty much anything online. But the specific video you're watching with a specific person or source, is it actually a reliable source? Because that's the other thing.

It's like, for example, in my field of mental health, there's so much bad advice that you hear people giving. And it's based on someone just speaking from their very limited experience, usually where, you know, they're like, they haven't had any particular education, they haven't done any particular kind of research, they haven't even necessarily given the matter any particular deep thought in any kind of, you know, systematic way. They just experience what they experience, have some thoughts about it, and they go out and put it out in the world.

And, you know, it's like, even if it's not your area of expertise, you know, you're still speaking about it. And it's just, you know, like if you're an influencer, if you have maybe established yourself as an authority in some other field, but now you're talking about a field that's not really your subject matter or expertise, but you're still talking about it. But because people have learned to trust you in a different context, they're still listening to you and still taking you seriously, you know?

And so it can get very confusing. I mean, not that I want anyone to censor their speech or not feel free to speak their mind, but a lot of times, you know, it's like I think we do need to learn to be careful both in terms of what we put out and what we choose to say and when we say it and the context within which we say it and maybe put some disclaimers about, hey, this is not really my area of expertise and I'm just airing my feelings and my opinion, and I may be wrong here, you know. But also to learn as a viewer or a consumer of that content, you know, how do we tell the difference when it's really something we should take seriously versus not.

Yeah, and an issue with, a problem with a lot of the mental health advice given on social media by people who are not qualified whatsoever to speak on it, because in my opinion, someone doesn't need a degree to be qualified to speak on it. If someone has like genuine lived experience, for example, myself, I'm not a certified therapist, counselor, none of that. And I’m abundantly clear about it.

I make it known that I'm simply a guy with my own lived experience who figured out what worked for me, other people asked what did I do, it worked for them, so it might work for you. And I let that be known. But the thing with social media is that when someone says something that's very like jarring, and they say it with very like strong conviction, people are hooked on to it.

Part of it is because our brains like certainty. If someone says anything, it could be a blatant lie, but if they say it with enough confidence, it kind of tricks our brain into believing it's true. Like, if someone looked at you and said that, I'm trying to think of a really silly example.

If someone said that chocolate milk comes from brown cows, you'd be like, how? Well, have you ever noticed that white milk comes from black and white cows? Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, so wouldn't it make sense that chocolate milk comes from brown cows? Yeah, kind of. Even though as silly as it sounds, if someone said it was like strong enough conviction, and you didn't know that, like if you told it to a 12-year-old, like if you confidently said to a 12-year-old that chocolate milk comes from brown cows, they would believe it.

Now, with mental health advice, you can have somebody say that, oh, that's not real. You just need to do X, Y, Z, and your life's going to be better. And they say, like, such strong conviction.

And then, you know, being a teenager, you go to their Instagram account and you're like, well, I mean, the guy's saying it does have a really nice car and a bunch of money, and he's traveling the world with five supermodels. So he got to be right. Like, his life looks good.

But the issue is people only show you what they decide to show you.

Right.

Like, they could be a criminal, they could be scamming people, but they're not going to say that. They're just going to say what they decide to say. And that's something you mentioned earlier.

We need to be aware of not only is this source credible, but do I have any underlying biases that would make me think this person is credible? Like, do I believe that someone with money has to know what they're talking about because they have the money to back up their point? And you mentioned how we can see someone who is an authority in one thing, and we start to trust their authority on a completely unrelated thing because they've established authority in thing A.

An example that came up for me earlier as you were saying that was trying to remember his name. Oh, have you ever heard of Olytor Mozi?

No.

So, long story short, he is a business owner who helps other businesses grow.

Okay.

And this is nothing against him personally, it's just he's a great example of it. So, he helps other businesses grow, and he made like $200 million in one day by selling books. And he's done like incredible amounts of stuff like business-wise.

But he also mentions things about like how to become successful. One of them is to spend 10 years not hanging out with people, not partying, not doing anything fun, and only work for those 10 years. And when questioned about that, he says that, I'm not saying it's the right way, I'm just saying it's what I did.

Maybe it'll work for you, maybe it won't. But, what I did worked for me. And a lot of people follow that methodology because he seems so credible.

Like, the guy makes hundreds of millions of dollars, so he must know what he's talking about. But they don't really think about, well, what are the mental health implications of that? Because if you don't have any friends and you do that, and you don't have a relationship and you do that, and you already have like an underlying condition, it will genuinely destroy your life.

Redefining Personal Success

Yeah. And not just, you know, like, I mean, exactly. And in the context of destroying your life, it's not just even about your mental health, but also the idea of, you know, the idea of being successful.

Like, first of all, even if you were to become successful, following this methodology, like, what does success even mean? Like, you know, we have to, there's so many layers of issue sometimes that we need to think about, but we are only looking at it from one very narrow perspective. So a lot of times when we think about success, we're thinking about it in terms of, I've got to make more money.

If I have more money, then I will be considered, that's how we measure whether we are successful or how successful we are. But is that really the measure of success that you really want to live your life by? Is that the most important, most wise measure of success?

You just brought up such a great point. Because, not just the average teenager, but the average person regardless of age, doesn't sit down and ask themselves these sorts of questions.

Yeah.

Like, not what's the life that people said I should live, but what's the life I want? So, maybe someone grew up in an environment where their parents said, you have to become a doctor and you have to go to Harvard and Yale and do this, this, this, this, that. And let's say the child does do that.

They do it perfectly. But at the end of it, they're like, well, what was it all for? I wanted to be a musician, but I didn't become a musician because I didn't want to disappoint my family.

And sometimes when you question what does success mean for you, it requires going against what you were told you had to be. And now you're facing things like the rejection of your parents. You're facing things like having to leave your town or having to leave your entire social group and expose yourself to new things.

And you know, because social media is like, your feed is like a little bubble. You don't see everything on the app. You only see what you interact with.

So if you interact with like money, cars, become the next Playboy, then you're going to see more of that. And this thing happens where... Have you ever heard the book of...

It's called Outwarding The Devil by Napoleon Hill?

I know Napoleon Hill, but not that particular book of his.

So the book, it's kind of hard to describe it, but the book essentially describes like a meeting where he sat down with the devil and asked him how the world is like mind-controlled. And one of the things was called hypnotic rhythm. Basically, if you do something over and over and over for long enough, it becomes your normal.

But it's so normal to you that you don't even realize you're doing it. It's like breathing. If you don't think about it, you'll always do it.

And with social media, you're under this bubble of this is what success is. This is what it is. This is what it is.

Eventually, you think this is what it is. But you don't think, where did I learn that from? You just do it.

And eventually, you know, you become like 40 years old and have a midlife crisis because you've never asked yourself, what do I want? And you never questioned, well, I'm not saying that my parents' idea of what I should do is wrong. Like, it's not to say that they're wrong.

It's just to say that that's not the life I want. And you only get one of them. So, this is why I'm so big on going to schools and teaching young adults and teens how to, not what to think, but how to think for themselves.

Yes.

Because if you don't think for yourself, you will just do what you're told, the way you're told, and you'll have this void inside of you of, this just doesn't feel right. But you don't know why it doesn't feel right. You just know it doesn't.

Yes. Yes, exactly. And the thing is that if you don't learn to think for ourselves, pretty much everyone in the world is ready to tell us what to think, what to do, because even the people who love us the most, they can have an agenda for us to do what they would like us to do.

And I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way. Like with our parents, for example, they have very good intentions. Or our friends.

Like if you are even in just a friends group, if you don't have a particularly strong thought of this is what I like, or this is what we should do, and you don't have the skill, or let's say you even have that preference, you don't have that skill of articulating that in a confident way to your friends, then what's going to happen is the people who do both know very strongly what they want and have the ability to communicate that in a very strong, confident way. Those are the ones, those are the people who get their way, and the people who are not as either clear on what they want or who are not able to articulate what they want are the ones who end up sort of not getting what they want and they end up just following along. And that happened to me a lot when I was young.

I know because it happened to me a lot. And for me, it wasn't that I didn't know what I wanted. My problem was like I didn't have the skill to be able to communicate what I was thinking and feeling and wanting.

And so I used to just be like, okay, fine. Then I just ended up sort of like following whoever else.

Yeah, it happens a lot in relationships too.

Yeah.

Like for me personally, I had that so much too, where because I didn't have like the backbone or the words to articulate what I wanted, it was kind of just, hey, you know, I'll just go along with what everyone else wants because they know what they want. And I didn't. And that's why like one of the things I tell every single group, regardless of if I'm speaking to a mental health group or I'm speaking to high schoolers about how to build good habits is journal.

Yeah.

Because when you're having a conversation with someone, you have an idea, then you have your feelings about it, and then you have the words, and then the words can get lost in translation, and you're trying to, you know it, but you don't know how to say it.

Yeah.

Journaling helps you to get all these thoughts up here onto some paper, and it does not matter how long it takes you to get to the point when you're journaling. You could scribble for 25 pages straight, and it doesn't matter. But eventually, you get to the point.

And the more you do it, the better you get at understanding, what do I want? Why do I want it? How to articulate it?

And am I willing to have some level of compromise on this thing? Because there's certain things that you can compromise on. Like, you can take turns with, today we're going to have pizza, tomorrow we're going to have what I want to eat.

But then there's other things that you don't compromise on. So you need to understand, what do I strongly, firmly stick to? And what am I willing to be more fluid with?

Yes. Tell me, first of all, I'm really glad you brought up journaling, because I don't think it would be an exaggeration for me to say that journaling is one of the things that saved my life. Because, yeah, I was, as I mentioned, a very bad communicator.

And for various reasons, my social skills in general were very poor. And journaling was one of the very few outlets that I had to express my feelings. But then also, like you said, it gives you a way to get more clear.

So first of all, I mean, just to have a way to poof out, like, you know, just take out of yourself whatever is going on inside of you. But then also, as you keep at it, it helps you to get more clear at so many levels. And to also be able to read back what you have written.

So then you can see the patterns. And I mean, I like, when I started reading back through my own journals, I started to realize, oh my god, there are certain problems I've been dealing with, like, and it's been years and I still have those same problems. And I’m still saying the same things about him.

I'm still like having the same thoughts about it. And it's just, you know, I'm stuck in a rut. How can I create some change?

But I didn't even realize what a problem I had until, or what the problem was until I read through my own, through my own journals.

Yeah, it's sort of like, we, I can't remember where exactly I first heard this explained like this, but I heard someone say that the big problems in our life are kind of like five blind men touching an elephant where one day we think that, oh, the problem in my life is a rock because you're touching the toe. The other time you think it's a sword because you're touching the tusk. The other time you think it's a snake and then you think it's a hair brush because you're touching the tail.

But really what's happening is you're experiencing a bigger problem and it's showing up in different ways in your life.

Yeah.

So somebody's big problem might be, I feel really lonely and that's the big problem. But what they're seeing is I'm scrolling with my phone for 10 hours a day or I am binge eating or on the next day, they're watching Netflix, rom-com for like three hours straight. But all of those are just ways that the big problem of I feel lonely is expressing itself because when you're scrolling, it's kind of tricking your brain into thinking that you have a social circle.

Yeah.

And then the romance movie is kind of tricking your brain into thinking, I have a relationship.

But are you wanting that kind of relationship? It's like you're lonely and you're wanting that. So you don't have it in your life.

You just try to make yourself feel better by looking at others who have it. Yeah.

The interesting thing is all of this happens without you knowing it's happening. Because to sit down and confront that is very painful. To sit down and say like, I feel very lonely.

Yeah.

I feel ashamed. I feel these things. Then you have to ask yourself, why do I feel that?

That's where it really gets painful because then you'll start thinking about like, oh, when I was growing up, my mom and dad hurt me and I got bullied, and everyone told me I wasn't going to be anything, and sort of have to like mentally go back in time and relive those emotions in order to free yourself from the big thing. But, you know, your brain wants the easiest solution, and the easiest solution right now is binge watching TV or addiction or all of these things that are like putting band-aids on the wound, but never actually healing the wound because the moment you take the band-aid off, you have to feel the pain. But once you feel the pain, that's the only way to heal it.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, and you know, the thing is, it's like it's not even that we're always unwilling to feel the pain. It's more like sometimes it's also just that we don't know what to do. Like we don't know to rip the band-aid off or that, you know, you that like for me, I know I used to like, just not know what I even needed to do or what I could do to help myself when I was having my issues, you know?

Like if, for example, I used to struggle with the issue of loneliness a lot. Like I was very, very lonely. I had literally zero friends.

And the only people I had regular communication and interaction with was my family that I lived with. And even in my family, because I had such trouble communicating, like oftentimes, even when I was literally physically surrounded by my loving family, I mean, my family loved me no doubt about it, but I still felt lonely because, you know, it's like if you can't communicate, or if you feel like you can't be your real self, I mean, that was the other issue that I was afraid to express my actual feelings. Even when I was clear, first of all, I wasn't always clear on what I was even feeling.

Like to use the word, to be able to say that I felt lonely, that's my problem. Like I didn't always realize that was the problem, like you were saying. But even when I realized that that was my problem, that I felt so lonely, I didn't know what to do about it.

I didn't know how to talk about it. I didn't know how to ask for the help that I needed, and so I was still very stuck. And then, but you know, the thing was that I was still having my coping mechanisms, right?

And so I still did what I could to try and help myself. Like, well, in my case, it wasn't TV. It was like my obsession, like my coping mechanism was losing myself and reading novels and books, like young adult stuff, you know?

And so I would just sort of escape into the book. And that was like my coping mechanism. It did solve my problem of loneliness, but it was the best solution I had at that time for how to deal with my issues.

So, I mean, if we're honest about it, all of us are coping with something somehow. And it's not that... And when people hear something like, I'm coping with something, usually their mind go to, like, negative.

Like, I'm negatively coping, such as I'm trying to, you know, addictions, escapism, doom-scrolling, binge eating. That's what people's minds often go to. But then you have, like, healthy coping skills.

Like, for me, when I feel really angry, upset about something, I go to the gym or I journal or I read a book or I ask myself, okay, well, like, why do I feel angry? Like, is it even a problem? Because a lot of times we make problems out of nothing.

And it's really ironic because for people who have, and I've seen this so much, not only in my life, but in the life of a lot of high school students, if you've grown up in environments where like chaos and problems were the norm, and then you start living a life that is calm, peaceful, and like, you know, this life is better, somehow you'll start making problems to feel normal, even though you know it's bad for you. Like people who get into healthy relationships and they start arguing with us, not because it's acts of problem, but because they're just so used to arguing. But they don't know that because they can't see that because they never like sat down and asked, well, why do I do this?

Yeah, because everyone's getting on my nerves and everyone is just, you know, always annoying me. But are they really? Well, not actually.

So why do I keep finding reasons to argue with people over small things? Because I grew up in an environment where that's what love was. Well, oh, you know, my mom and dad, my brothers and my sisters, my ex-boyfriend from sixth grade.

And you start realizing how we have to be willing to look at the parts of ourselves that we don't really enjoy and then find ways of dealing with it. While it's not shaming ourself, because just because you grew up in a certain environment or life dealt you some challenging cards, doesn't mean that it's a problem with you. It's simply the expression of something that you believe about yourself or about the world, and it's causing you to unknowingly act out in certain ways.

But I had this belief that I'm actually actively working on this. So I don't really have many in-person friends. As of right now, I have zero.

I have friends who live in different places, like different states and countries, but in terms of in my city, I have zero right now. And I was trying to figure out why is that? Because I have a hard time finding people I relate to.

But the irony is that because I believe that, it results in me not being very social. So is it that there's not many people here who I relate to, or is it that because I believe there's not, it causes me to appear off putting to people, and me to not be very social, which ultimately keeps me in a position I don't want to be in. That's a small example of it.

But it's like we believe something, we start acting it out, and we prove ourselves right. If you believe that, hey, you know, I could make some friends, then on some level, you'll start doing things that will lead to that. But if you believe that, you know, there's no good men in the world, there's no good women, the economy is terrible, it's super hard to make money, I'm going to stay here forever.

Somehow, someway, you'll prove yourself right about that.

That's very true. I mean, that whole aspect of self-fulfilling prophecies is like a very real phenomenon. And also, like, but it also like comes back to, you know, an issue of learning how to think, you know, because like, you have a certain analysis or idea of, okay, this is my situation, this isn't the problem, this is the cause of the problem.

And so depending on what you believe, the challenges, you come up with a solution, right? But if you learn to see the problem from a different perspective, so then you would see a different angle to the problem. So then maybe you come up with a different solution, or maybe you realize, oh, it's not a problem at all, do you know?

Yeah, it could be a blessing.

Yeah, it could. And so because the issue of struggle with making friends, for example, is something I have shared with you, I mean, I don't struggle with it so much anymore, thank God. But like one thing that I realized also, like for me, is like in terms of when we are seeking friends, I mean, of course we want to ideally, like we're looking for people who we share things in common with, who will understand us really well, and that we can understand.

And I know like for me, especially when I was really lonely, I really wanted somebody who would just be able to understand me, because also I had such trouble communicating. I was like, if only I could find someone who could just understand me without my having to work very hard at it, because like for me, it was really hard to even express myself. And so I was really, really wanting.

I mean, I literally prayed. Like you can open up some of my journals. And you will like see, I literally had this like thought that I literally wrote down so many times in my journals that, you know, like, God, please, just send me someone who can just understand me, who can just understand when I'm going through, what I need.

And they can just give that to me.

Yeah.

It was like, but anyway, the other thing that I really wanted to share also, when you were giving your example was, like, there's this skill, I think, also, of learning to relate to other people, you know? So it's like, even if someone is very different or seems to be very different than I am, can I nonetheless find things in common with them? Can I nonetheless learn to relate to them?

Maybe not about everything, but on some level, because, you know, there's surely something that are both humans, we're both living in the same world. So I'm sure there's things we can find in common that we can, or even if it's something that is very different about us, can I not at least learn to understand them from their perspective and just hear what I have to say and understand me from my perspective and just have some empathy for each other in that way and have some compassion for each other in that way, you know? And that can also be a really beautiful foundation for friendship.

It's like, you don't always have to be in agreement with each other about everything in order to like each other or to be able to have a meaningful relationship.

Yeah, like sometimes we have to step outside of our... Sometimes we have to step outside of ourselves and get into their world in order to realize that to have friends that understand you, you have to learn to understand someone else. Like one of my ex-girlfriends, her parents were from Vietnam.

They immigrated here. And even something as simple as the meaning of a handshake.

It's different.

Or cultural norms, the way people dress, how they talk, how they interact with one another. Music, language, fashion. Just so many things are very different.

But in a way, you two are similar because you're different. Like it's a similarity that you both have differences.

Yeah.

And weirdly enough, as you were talking, I started thinking about how sometimes having trouble with making friends is a blessing in how it teaches you to learn how to become your own friend. Because if you're always like looking for friendship and companionship and love outside of you, you might get it. But what about when that person is, because I've been through this, what about when that person is a sloop and you think that they don't love you anymore?

Yeah.

Or what about when that person's phone breaks and you don't hear from them for two or three days and you think that they're cheating on you? Or what about when they have to go to work and you don't hear from them for eight hours and you think that they must not think you're important? So in a way, you have to be a good friend to yourself in order to have healthy friendships outside of you.

Because for whatever reason, you're not always going to be around that person.

Exactly. You bring up such an important point. It doesn't matter even if you were to be always in physical proximity with someone.

First of all, that's pretty much not possible. But let's say it was. Let's say you were a conjoined twin.

You were literally stuck with your twin.

I'll get sick of each other.

You know? I mean, you could still get lonely. You could still end up in a situation where, you know, like, if you don't know how to be with yourself, you don't know how to love yourself.

You know, actually, it's not only likely, but inevitably, you are going to have problems in your relationships because someone else loving you cannot compensate for you loving for yourself. I mean, we need both. We need love from other people, but we also need to love ourselves.

And just because there's lots of other people loving you, if you don't love yourself, nothing will make up for that. And you will still end up feeling that there's something, this thing, something wrong and that loneliness because you're not giving love to yourself. And I went through that, too, you know?

So it's like, gosh, I mean, we have to, we have to learn to be with ourselves and be our own very bad friends because we do end up spending all the time with ourselves.

Even when you're with other people, you're with yourself.

Exactly, exactly. And there's no one else that you're going to be with as much as you're going to be with yourself. Even if it's your conjoined twin, because there will be times that your conjoined twin will go to sleep.

Like you're carrying that example.

Or, you know, to imagine someone like, if you're super famous, even then, you know, you have all of these people who are like clapping and cheering for you. But when you go to bed, you're the only person there. And, you know, you kind of, if you don't have that love within yourself, you kind of start getting like addicted to the, like numbers on the screen.

And when the numbers on the screen start going down, you start spiraling down. We see it with musicians who are like one hit wonders. We see it with artists.

We see it with athletes. We can even look throughout history and we see it with like the smartest people ever. Like a lot of authors who wrote about psychology books, they kind of went crazy because at a certain point, you start to, if you don't allow yourself to love other people, and you allow yourself the possibility of them hurting you, then you are just like stuck in this box.

And when you're in that box, like one of the biological requirements for humans is social interaction. You can have all the physical, you can have all the biological thing, but if you don't have consistent social interaction, you will die because your brain will start releasing panic hormones, and it will rock you from the inside, actually.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And because of not only just everything that we talked about, like social media, the way people communicate, the lack of dating, the whole male loneliness epidemic, like back in like the 1990s, only the percentage of men who had zero close in-person relationships was 3%. It was just 3%. Now it's at 15.

So that's magnitudes of order. And 3% to 15% is a 12% difference over 3 decades. So it seems like, oh, that's just a tiny increase over span of time.

But when you multiply that number by 4 billion, you're talking about very, very large numbers. And the effect of that in society is not only impacting men, but when you have people who feel really lonely and just boxed in and isolated, it gets worse and worse and worse and worse until they either hurt themselves, they hurt others, they start hurting the world. And it's all because not only are people, just men, women, everyone, not being taught the importance of loving yourself, but also, well, how do I do that?

Yes.

Because somebody knows, like, okay, I should start loving myself. But how do I do that? Like, where do I start?

Yeah.

Is there some, like, action I can do? Which, you know, the place I tell everyone to start is just start journaling. Just start writing out how you feel.

What are you thinking about? What's on your mind? What do you want?

You don't have to figure it all out in a day. You just have to figure out, okay, I feel lonely. I feel maybe you don't even want to.

What do I even feel? Because sometimes we don't even realize. We don't take the time to pause and even recognize what we are feeling.

Like, if you ask somebody, hey, how you're feeling, a lot of times people cannot actually verbalize that because like the way most people actually even answer a question of how are you feeling.

Oh, I'm right.

Yeah, exactly. And that's not a feeling. All right, it's not a feeling.

Are you happy? Are you sad? Are you angry?

Are you like actual feelings? A lot of people don't even realize how they're feeling until you know, because you don't take that pause.

Yeah, and I was just going to say that a lot of feeling that you just said, like anger, sadness, frustration, those are considered not socially acceptable. They're like shamed, like you always have to be okay.

Yeah.

And you have to just deal with it. And you know, life is, life isn't fair. I mean, yeah, technically it's not, but that doesn't mean that you invalidate your feelings because all of your feelings will come out somehow some way sooner or later.

Like it might come out in the form of you punching a hole in the wall or getting into an argument with your wife or fighting somebody or just, you know, being stressed out or it could turn into an addiction. It could turn into running from your problems. It could turn into so many things.

So even if you don't know how you feel when you're journaling, it's a free space. Like you don't have to worry about some of the opinion. You could simply say, I feel bad.

I want to feel good. What does good feel like? Well, good would be, I have friends.

I have stable income. I am not afraid. You could start that simple.

Yeah.

And then day by day, you'll start to realize that, oh, well, I want friends because I don't have friends and not having friends makes me feel bad. And I think having friends would feel good. And eventually, you get to a point where you understand that what you're trying to do is you no longer want to feel lonely and you want to have healthy friendships so that you have people to relate to, can form meaningful bonds with others, and you feel understood.

Yeah.

Because when people don't have community, they are just boxed in. And a lot of the communities that have existed for thousands of years are fading away. Like religious communities are fading away, social groups, even the even something as meaningfully small as the high school football team.

After graduation, a lot of people don't have any social groups because their only social group was the high school football team. And after they graduated, now they're no longer a part of that. And then they are trying to find their group.

But in the context of like school or a job or a religion or a career path, there's obvious labels like, oh, football player, basketball player, um, artist, band, cheerleader. There are obvious places that I know what I like. All the people who like what I like, they're over there and I'm going to go where they are.

You can see it. But out in the real world, unless you deliberately go looking, it's kind of hard to find people who are into what you're into. And people who are into what you're into, within your age range, who also you can have a meaningful conversation with about other things too.

Because you don't just want to have somebody that you only can show one side of yourself to. You want to be able to be the full picture. And that means you open yourself up to rejection in relationships, friendship rejections, workplace issues, people on the internet harassing you.

It's a lot, but once you learn to love yourself, and you learn to build a sense of friendship with yourself, you could still feel lonely. You can still feel like, I want to have people outside of me too, but it's less painful than if you didn't have that connection with yourself.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, it's sort of like sometimes, you know, it's a little bit of a chicken and egg problem, where there is, you know, there's very a lot of...

This has actually been a change in the research in psychology when it comes to the whole issue of loving yourself, where, you know, for a long time, the researchers were focusing on... Well, rather let me share the conclusion that they came to. So for many years, the conclusion that was being communicated by and that was then taken as like the agreed upon wisdom in psychology, in the field of psychology, when it comes to self-love, was that you have to learn to love.

Actually, the wisdom had been that, or rather the idea that became popular was that you have to learn to love yourself. And only when you love yourself, can you actually be loved by other people in a healthy way. Because if you don't love yourself, then even if you are receiving love from others, you end up developing unhealthy relationships.

Oh yeah. You know, with people.

So that was the common sort of conclusion that people came out with in the field of psychology. But more recently, this as if, you know, because psychology itself is a relatively new field, they keep doing more and more research. And so in the more recent years, I've been realizing through the research that actually it's a little bit of, like, yes, you need to learn to love yourself so you can be in healthy relationships with other people.

But also, in some ways, and to some extent, you cannot learn to love yourself all by yourself or on your own. Like, in some ways, you need to have some healthy relationships in your life, some experience of being loved in a healthy way for you to learn what healthy love looks like, whether it's, you know, so then you could take what you have learned about being loved, and then you can apply that to yourself, you know, like, so it's a little bit, so it's not, so now the research realizes that things are not quite as clear cut as, oh, you have to learn to love yourself first. It's just, yes, we need to learn to love ourselves, and yes, we need to learn how to love others and be loved by others.

In other words, be in a healthy relationship, but in some ways, the two things help each other out. It's like when you love yourself, then you can love other people and be loved by other people in more healthy ways, but also when you have that other love from other people, then you can love yourself more and better as well.

Yeah, it's a weird balance, because you have to know what love feels like in order to know what you're working towards, but you also have to love yourself enough to be able to have that and not let it become unhealthy. Because in my life, something that would often happen is I meet someone, everything's going great, and I start to get attached to them, because you're putting a lot of your social circle in them, you're putting a lot of your sense of this person loves me in them, you're putting a lot of your self into that person. When they are distant for whatever reason, you start to feel like a part of you has left, because they were feeling a void that you weren't even aware of was there.

And even if you are aware that void is there, it's kind of hard to figure out, well, what am I supposed to do about that? Like, how do I solve the underlying problem?

Yeah, exactly, exactly. It's like, you didn't know how to fill the void for yourself. They came into your life, and it seemed to get filled.

So you're like, oh, they're the solution. I mean, you know, so versus, it's like, oh, no, it's not that. It's like, think about, so this is why we need to learn even how to think, because it's like, if you just say, oh, they're the solution, well, you're just looking at the very surface level of what the issue is.

So you have to learn to go deeper, think more deeply and be like, oh, what is it that they're doing that's helping, that's making me feel good? And what are some other ways I can meet that need that I have? You know?

The interesting thing is we get taught to believe that the solution to our problems is outside of us.

Yeah.

Like, you'll feel better when you have this thing, or you'll feel better when you have this relationship, or this car, or this external event happens.

Yeah.

And yes, you will feel better when the external thing happens, but only for a period of time, because you're experiencing like this momentary rush, and eventually, you know, you need a new thing, like, that's why people, they get their dream car, but then they got to get another car, or they get their first house, and then they need another one. Or in relationships, a problem I used to have was, I get a great relationship, and it was wonderful, but then all of a sudden, I start feeling the urge of like, well, what if I had another? What if I'm dating someone else too?

Or what if this? I'm trying to get this new high.

Yeah, right.

In addiction, the perfect example, when we look at drug addiction, you can physically see someone going from substance A to substance B, trying to experience that feeling. But really, we've been all taught that like, the solution to your problem is outside of you. And it leads us to never looking at the deeper inner why.

Like, why do I feel this way? Oh, I feel this way because I don't have this certain job, a certain credential. And there might be like, you know, genuine factors such as if you're stressed out about money and you don't have a job, you know, the solution would actually be getting a job.

Like, that would be the solution for that. When it comes to things emotional, like, I never feel like I have enough money, even though my bills are paid, my rent is paid, and I'm not in poverty. I just feel like I never had enough.

Why? Because I want to have, you know, more. Why?

Because I want to look cool. And you have to learn to not shame yourself for what you want. Because sometimes the reason why we want what we want is they're socially unacceptable sometimes, like the desire for status, for people to think you're really cool, to be really attractive to other people.

Those are things like, if you say it out loud, or socially unacceptable, but you have to be honest with yourself about it and find healthy ways to get the feeling that you want without having to over rely on something outside of you.

Yeah. Oh my gosh. You know, this point that you brought up to like, if you take the example of like the fact that, let's say you want to have status, you want to have fame, but if you say that out loud, there is this whole part of society that says that's not acceptable.

But the irony are rather the really...

One of the big problems with this is that society itself has taught us to desire status. It has taught us to that kind of…

Let's just stick to status. And then on the one hand, it tells us only when you have that status, or it teaches us in various ways, sometimes very direct and explicit, and sometimes indirectly, that when you have status, then you will have friends, you will be able to make more money, so you can meet this need and that need, et cetera, et cetera. So on the one hand, it teaches us that, but then on the other hand, it says, oh no, no, you better not want status, or at least you better not say it out loud, because when you do, you'll be judged and perceived to be self-absorbed or focusing on the wrong thing in life or whatever.

But it's like, that's the crazy part about, you know, so it's sort of like society or the culture, it's basically giving us conflicting messages. So teaching us two very different contradictory things, and then expecting us to resolve the contradiction or always be walking on the tightrope of, you know, like, trying to navigate that contradiction that, you know, society itself has created and put us in. So I mean, that's why it's like such a, like, you don't always just want to be blindly following the dominant culture or the dominant way of doing things, because it's sort of like, most people are like, you know, if we are all just kind of following what everyone else is doing or what we think everyone else is doing, because that is what we can see everyone else doing.

But we're not seeing the whole picture, you know? You're not seeing the whole picture. We are, like, you were saying, Lawrence, like, especially like when you're on social media, for example, you're only showing a certain side of, of yourself.

And maybe it's not even your real self. Maybe you're just what you're showing on your profile is just all fake, or mostly fake, or, you know?

Yeah, nowadays it's shockingly easy for someone to take a lifestyle. Like, a while back, I did a post about how if you had $1500, you could convince people that you're a millionaire because you could go run a car, you could go run a mansion, you could hire a... Well, you wouldn't even need to hire a photographer or anything.

You could have your friend take pictures on their phone. You could take a ton of pictures and just post them over a long span of time. And now everyone thinks you're a millionaire.

But no, you didn't. You just rented a house and a car for a day. And that leaves very unrealistic expectations of what life is.

Like, yes, there are indeed some kids who are like 15 years old making a million dollars a month. It does exist. However, it's nowhere near as common as social media would make you believe because it's showing you what you interact with and because it's so easy for someone to lie on the internet, most people are lying.

Even the people who look like they're not are like people who.

And the issue too, it's like it's promoted, especially when we're talking about people who don't know how to think for themselves. They just want to follow what everyone else is doing because on a core level, humans, that's how we've not getting eaten by lions. By following what the entire tribe did, it allowed us to be accepted.

And by being accepted by the tribe, we didn't have to fight the lion by ourselves. So we evolved to follow each other. And it's not that that's a bad thing.

It's just that's how we're wired. If someone's parents were a certain religion, there's like a 99% chance that the child will be that religion purely because their parents were taught. Because their parents taught them that.

Or if you speak a certain language, it's almost guaranteed that your parents speak that same language. Or if you dress a certain way, or if you eat certain foods, or anything in your life, it's almost always the result of you saw that growing up.

Yeah.

And until we step back and ask ourselves, well, what do I want? We'll always unknowingly do what we're told and be what we're told. And part of us will be afraid to leave the box because what if everyone that I know and love stops accepting me and I don't have any friends and my family cuts me off and my wife or husband divorces me?

You know, they might not think this out loud, but their brain is thinking all of that.

Yeah.

And the only way to start being your real unfiltered authentic self is to take that risk.

Live Life Fully

Take that risk and to bring back what you were saying. It's like we have to stop blaming ourselves, we have to stop shaming ourselves and other people, to be honest. Like again, you need both, you need to be good to yourself, in terms of being kind to yourself, being compassionate to yourself, and then also do the same for others.

So it's like if we can stop blaming, shaming and judging ourselves and other people, then we can all be ourselves more, we can explore our lives and like really go go about this whole quest of figuring out what is it that I really want and be able to feel more safe and free to do that.

Well, Lawrence, I've been having so much fun talking with you. I didn't want to stop, and I lost track of time.

I've been 12.30.

I know, right? I've kept you way past what I had asked you for, but do you have any last words? And we will wrap up for today.

I will say my last words are going to be two things. The first one is always remember that you have one life, and there will come a day when it ends, and right before it ends, you're going to sit back and go, did I enjoy it? Like, did I play it?

It's like a little kid going to an amusement park. You can look at them and you can see the kids who are, like they're looking back and they're like, man, I should have wrote that. I should have did that.

I should have went to the arcade and they're walking out with a list of, I could have, should have, would have. Then you have the kids who are like, their parents have to drag them out. They wrote everything three times, they went to the arcade, they spent all their tickets, and they loved every moment of it, all the hard parts and all the good.

So remember, you have one life. Figure out what you want to do with it, and at the minimum, try. And the last thing I was saying is if anyone is looking for my speaking, my YouTube videos, or anything related to what I do, such as offer 101 coaching calls, is my social medias are Lawrence C.

Empowers. You can find all of it there.

Excellent. Thank you so much for that, Lawrence. And my last reminder to our audience is to please make sure you check the show notes because we will drop Lawrence's links in there, as well as the resource to his book that he mentioned earlier.

So make sure you check the show notes, get in touch with Lawrence, and get the help and support you need whenever you're ready for it. And until we connect next time, I just wish you lots and lots of peace and joy.