September 6, 2023 • 11 mins
In this podcast episode, I address a common question that often comes my way: how did I, a former heroin addict, manage to regain an impressive level of confidence in just five years through self-work? My answer may surprise you. I firmly believe that confidence is not about chasing a fleeting feeling but rather about grounding yourself in a life of integrity. Join me as I explore the profound connection between confidence and living authentically, sharing insights that have transformed my life and can inspire positive change in yours.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Right.
All right.
Welcome everybody to the Empire Self podcast.
This is episode number three and I am your host,
Mark a turnip seed.
I would like to talk today a little bit about a topic that is one of my most common questions that I get from people who,
you know,
come about my profile through Instagram or Twitter or whatever you may have it.
(00:29):
And they,
they usually say something along the lines of,
wow,
what a transformation.
How did you get confident?
And I do believe that the initial thought that most people think is that I see this guy,
I see this before and after I see this picture of him,
like,
you know,
long hair kind of scraggly kind of this mess of a character.
(00:52):
And then I see this other picture of him chiseled,
you know,
it looks like he's got his life together,
things going well.
That must be confidence.
Now he's got confidence.
Now,
look at all these posts that he's doing,
he's,
he's doing stuff in public.
He's like he seems like a confident individual and they may initially think like I used to think is that well,
(01:15):
if I get this.
If I get that body,
if I,
if I become,
you know,
this,
you know,
self assured in my,
in my,
in my skin that I'm also going to feel that way inside.
And I have some,
uh,
some very sad news for everybody.
It just doesn't work like that.
(01:37):
It doesn't work like that and it didn't work like that for me.
At least it may very well work like that for you.
So go try to get your chiseled abs to make you happy.
But for me,
what ended up happening is not such luckily at the same time that I was like,
working on my health and fitness and body,
I was also working on some other stuff inside of myself so that I could basically get out of my depression basically so that I could survive.
(02:05):
And one thing that I recognized inside of my life that I had not really ever applied to the aspect of confidence was integrity.
So I was driving a lawn mower at the time,
I was,
I was working as a landscape lead on this,
uh,
on a landscape crew up in Montana.
(02:25):
And I was driving,
I was driving this lawn mower and then all of a sudden I hit a rock and I go,
oh,
crap.
I'm gonna have to go change this blade.
It's gonna throw me off schedule for the next,
um,
two days.
And I go,
I go and I look at this rock I go look at this culprit that's ruining my day and on the rock is painted,
the words integrity.
(02:47):
And I sit there y'all.
This was about six years ago.
I sit there and I go,
I know what this word is.
I kind of know what it means.
But I know for a fact that this is not something that I've ever tried to apply to my life and tears started to flow out of my eyes.
(03:08):
They just started to fall,
they just started to drop and I go,
how can I put integrity in my life?
The only person that I could really think of at the time that had integrity was my father.
So I started to go,
what,
what does my father do?
What,
what are ways that I can,
that I can be that I can have more integrity in my life.
(03:28):
So I started to do basically a study of integrity and I looked at people who I thought had integrity,
these people,
they didn't necessarily have great confidence,
but they did have integrity.
They always did what was right when nobody was looking,
they did what was right?
And it almost seemed like inside of them.
(03:48):
That's just,
that's just the makeup,
you know,
it was like,
well,
I just,
I just don't do what's wrong.
I just always do what's right.
I've always been a person of almost the exact opposite.
Right.
Whenever I see something I go,
well,
maybe we should just do it a little bit different.
Maybe we should just,
just do it a little bit wrong.
So it makes it a little bit more fun.
(04:09):
Right.
It could be the most innocent thing and then I'm going to turn it into.
Well,
let's just,
let's just change it just a little bit and maybe the most perfect thing,
let's just change it just a little bit.
So,
here's the thing about integrity though,
integrity is,
is continuity,
integrity is consistency.
(04:29):
Integrity is always doing the right thing even when nobody else is looking.
So here's what happens with integrity as you start to as you start to boost integrity.
So there's a lot of these things,
right?
There's a lot of these things that are going to boost you,
boost your emotional and uh value and character.
(04:50):
Her energy and profile much like working out is going to do,
right?
For as it pertains to our muscle of integrity and our muscle of confidence,
we are going to have to do things that's going to strengthen that.
So what are just a whole bunch of,
I mean,
you can list out a whole bunch of little things in,
(05:11):
in life where integrity may be slacking.
So here is,
here is,
here's one way that integrity was slacking for me.
Like I've always,
I always get so upset when I see a grocery cart sitting in my,
in my,
in my lane when I'm trying to pull into it.
So what I started doing is every single time that I brought my cart back,
(05:34):
no matter where I was,
I would always take it back.
I also started making my bed no matter what,
I always make my bed,
even if it's in the hotel room,
these little itty bitty things.
So those were the first kind of like two things that I started doing and then there were some others that kept coming up,
right?
And as I started to do those things,
(05:54):
I started to feel this sense of,
of um self assuredness.
Just knowing,
knowing that I was in the right place.
I felt like I was beyond reproach,
right?
At least in that one little area of life.
And that felt so good.
Everybody,
it felt so good to be beyond reproach,
(06:15):
to be leaving a parking lot knowing I left it better than when I came that I started to gain momentum inside and go.
I want that in every area of my life.
So I started looking at other areas that I can add that at this point.
I'm very,
I,
I have no,
I still have no confidence.
(06:36):
I walk into a room,
I walk into a grocery store.
I have no idea who I am.
I feel like everybody's out to get me and I feel like everybody's gonna find out what I do that's wrong.
I feel like everybody's gonna find out why I'm some sort of fraud,
right.
So I have so much fear inside that I'll barely even go up and talk to somebody because I just am horrified of what they are going to see when they get close to me.
(07:08):
After a few months of applying the same principle of integrity into my life and stringing it into various different categories of my life.
I started to recognize that I had more confidence when I would be in a place where I was using integrity.
(07:28):
So when I first started like getting sober,
right.
I'm in Alcoholics Anonymous.
The only place that I felt like I was confident was when I went to the programs of Alcoholics Anonymous.
And I go wait,
I feel so confident in here.
But then when I'm out in public,
when I'm out with other people,
I'm all anxious.
(07:49):
I'm all nervous.
I have no confidence in actual life.
The only place that I feel self confident is in a a so I recognize what was I doing in a a that was leading me to a state of confidence inside of this program and not outside.
(08:09):
And I started to recognize I had not been applying integrity,
the consistency that I was inside of the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous with my lifestyle outside.
So then I started to make it all congruent,
all congruent based off integrity.
And then I started to feel confidence in showing up because not only was I beyond reproach,
(08:36):
but I knew what the next step was going to be,
I knew every single,
every single decision was going to have a clear focal point.
I knew every single thing that would come up.
I would be able to judge what I needed to do about it.
(08:57):
And I was going to be self assured,
I was finally confident because now I had a lens to see my life that was aligned with nature,
that was aligned with truth,
that was aligned with the rhythm.
It was actually tapping into life.
(09:18):
That's all it is.
That's all it is.
When,
when you tap into integrity,
when you tap into doing the right for the sole purpose of the right or doing the good for the sole purpose of the good or shar sharing love with somebody or,
or being kind or,
or helping somebody across the street.
When you do these types of things,
(09:40):
you are tapping into life and when you fully tapped into life,
no fear can pull you out of it because life and love,
it's eternal and it fights off all fear.
And if you're doing things out of light and love,
there will be no fear.
(10:01):
And I promise you if you walk with your eyes fixed on integrity,
that you will have no fear.
If you fix your eyes on love and on life and on giving kindness to other people,
you will grow in confidence,
you will grow in fearlessness and you will grow in productivity and you will grow in all the things that bring fulfillment into your life and you will start to see other people prosper around you.
(10:35):
You will also start to see other people acting with more integrity around you.
It'll start feeding back your life.
Your life will become a mirror of kindness,
of integrity,
of blessings of love.
Try that,
try to find a couple little simple things in your life that you can tweak just a hair to have a little bit more integrity and see if that doesn't change your levels of confidence.
(11:06):
All right.
Thank you again for episode number three of Empire Self podcast.
I am your host,
Mark a turnip seed.
Have a beautiful day.
Right.
All right.
Welcome everybody to the Empire Self podcast.
This is episode number three and I am your host,
Mark a turnip seed.
I would like to talk today a little bit about a topic that is one of my most common questions that I get from people who,
you know,
come about my profile through Instagram or Twitter or whatever you may have it.
(00:29):
And they,
they usually say something along the lines of,
wow,
what a transformation.
How did you get confident?
And I do believe that the initial thought that most people think is that I see this guy,
I see this before and after I see this picture of him,
like,
you know,
long hair kind of scraggly kind of this mess of a character.
(00:52):
And then I see this other picture of him chiseled,
you know,
it looks like he's got his life together,
things going well.
That must be confidence.
Now he's got confidence.
Now,
look at all these posts that he's doing,
he's,
he's doing stuff in public.
He's like he seems like a confident individual and they may initially think like I used to think is that well,
(01:15):
if I get this.
If I get that body,
if I,
if I become,
you know,
this,
you know,
self assured in my,
in my,
in my skin that I'm also going to feel that way inside.
And I have some,
uh,
some very sad news for everybody.
It just doesn't work like that.
(01:37):
It doesn't work like that and it didn't work like that for me.
At least it may very well work like that for you.
So go try to get your chiseled abs to make you happy.
But for me,
what ended up happening is not such luckily at the same time that I was like,
working on my health and fitness and body,
I was also working on some other stuff inside of myself so that I could basically get out of my depression basically so that I could survive.
(02:05):
And one thing that I recognized inside of my life that I had not really ever applied to the aspect of confidence was integrity.
So I was driving a lawn mower at the time,
I was,
I was working as a landscape lead on this,
uh,
on a landscape crew up in Montana.
(02:25):
And I was driving,
I was driving this lawn mower and then all of a sudden I hit a rock and I go,
oh,
crap.
I'm gonna have to go change this blade.
It's gonna throw me off schedule for the next,
um,
two days.
And I go,
I go and I look at this rock I go look at this culprit that's ruining my day and on the rock is painted,
the words integrity.
(02:47):
And I sit there y'all.
This was about six years ago.
I sit there and I go,
I know what this word is.
I kind of know what it means.
But I know for a fact that this is not something that I've ever tried to apply to my life and tears started to flow out of my eyes.
(03:08):
They just started to fall,
they just started to drop and I go,
how can I put integrity in my life?
The only person that I could really think of at the time that had integrity was my father.
So I started to go,
what,
what does my father do?
What,
what are ways that I can,
that I can be that I can have more integrity in my life.
(03:28):
So I started to do basically a study of integrity and I looked at people who I thought had integrity,
these people,
they didn't necessarily have great confidence,
but they did have integrity.
They always did what was right when nobody was looking,
they did what was right?
And it almost seemed like inside of them.
(03:48):
That's just,
that's just the makeup,
you know,
it was like,
well,
I just,
I just don't do what's wrong.
I just always do what's right.
I've always been a person of almost the exact opposite.
Right.
Whenever I see something I go,
well,
maybe we should just do it a little bit different.
Maybe we should just,
just do it a little bit wrong.
So it makes it a little bit more fun.
(04:09):
Right.
It could be the most innocent thing and then I'm going to turn it into.
Well,
let's just,
let's just change it just a little bit and maybe the most perfect thing,
let's just change it just a little bit.
So,
here's the thing about integrity though,
integrity is,
is continuity,
integrity is consistency.
(04:29):
Integrity is always doing the right thing even when nobody else is looking.
So here's what happens with integrity as you start to as you start to boost integrity.
So there's a lot of these things,
right?
There's a lot of these things that are going to boost you,
boost your emotional and uh value and character.
(04:50):
Her energy and profile much like working out is going to do,
right?
For as it pertains to our muscle of integrity and our muscle of confidence,
we are going to have to do things that's going to strengthen that.
So what are just a whole bunch of,
I mean,
you can list out a whole bunch of little things in,
(05:11):
in life where integrity may be slacking.
So here is,
here is,
here's one way that integrity was slacking for me.
Like I've always,
I always get so upset when I see a grocery cart sitting in my,
in my,
in my lane when I'm trying to pull into it.
So what I started doing is every single time that I brought my cart back,
(05:34):
no matter where I was,
I would always take it back.
I also started making my bed no matter what,
I always make my bed,
even if it's in the hotel room,
these little itty bitty things.
So those were the first kind of like two things that I started doing and then there were some others that kept coming up,
right?
And as I started to do those things,
(05:54):
I started to feel this sense of,
of um self assuredness.
Just knowing,
knowing that I was in the right place.
I felt like I was beyond reproach,
right?
At least in that one little area of life.
And that felt so good.
Everybody,
it felt so good to be beyond reproach,
(06:15):
to be leaving a parking lot knowing I left it better than when I came that I started to gain momentum inside and go.
I want that in every area of my life.
So I started looking at other areas that I can add that at this point.
I'm very,
I,
I have no,
I still have no confidence.
(06:36):
I walk into a room,
I walk into a grocery store.
I have no idea who I am.
I feel like everybody's out to get me and I feel like everybody's gonna find out what I do that's wrong.
I feel like everybody's gonna find out why I'm some sort of fraud,
right.
So I have so much fear inside that I'll barely even go up and talk to somebody because I just am horrified of what they are going to see when they get close to me.
(07:08):
After a few months of applying the same principle of integrity into my life and stringing it into various different categories of my life.
I started to recognize that I had more confidence when I would be in a place where I was using integrity.
(07:28):
So when I first started like getting sober,
right.
I'm in Alcoholics Anonymous.
The only place that I felt like I was confident was when I went to the programs of Alcoholics Anonymous.
And I go wait,
I feel so confident in here.
But then when I'm out in public,
when I'm out with other people,
I'm all anxious.
(07:49):
I'm all nervous.
I have no confidence in actual life.
The only place that I feel self confident is in a a so I recognize what was I doing in a a that was leading me to a state of confidence inside of this program and not outside.
(08:09):
And I started to recognize I had not been applying integrity,
the consistency that I was inside of the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous with my lifestyle outside.
So then I started to make it all congruent,
all congruent based off integrity.
And then I started to feel confidence in showing up because not only was I beyond reproach,
(08:36):
but I knew what the next step was going to be,
I knew every single,
every single decision was going to have a clear focal point.
I knew every single thing that would come up.
I would be able to judge what I needed to do about it.
(08:57):
And I was going to be self assured,
I was finally confident because now I had a lens to see my life that was aligned with nature,
that was aligned with truth,
that was aligned with the rhythm.
It was actually tapping into life.
(09:18):
That's all it is.
That's all it is.
When,
when you tap into integrity,
when you tap into doing the right for the sole purpose of the right or doing the good for the sole purpose of the good or shar sharing love with somebody or,
or being kind or,
or helping somebody across the street.
When you do these types of things,
(09:40):
you are tapping into life and when you fully tapped into life,
no fear can pull you out of it because life and love,
it's eternal and it fights off all fear.
And if you're doing things out of light and love,
there will be no fear.
(10:01):
And I promise you if you walk with your eyes fixed on integrity,
that you will have no fear.
If you fix your eyes on love and on life and on giving kindness to other people,
you will grow in confidence,
you will grow in fearlessness and you will grow in productivity and you will grow in all the things that bring fulfillment into your life and you will start to see other people prosper around you.
(10:35):
You will also start to see other people acting with more integrity around you.
It'll start feeding back your life.
Your life will become a mirror of kindness,
of integrity,
of blessings of love.
Try that,
try to find a couple little simple things in your life that you can tweak just a hair to have a little bit more integrity and see if that doesn't change your levels of confidence.
(11:06):
All right.
Thank you again for episode number three of Empire Self podcast.
I am your host,
Mark a turnip seed.
Have a beautiful day.
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