Let's Think About It Podcast

Episode 64: When Self-Doubt Becomes the Real Opponent

• Morice Mabry • Season 3 • Episode 64

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Episode Summary

Self-doubt is one of the toughest opponents leaders, professionals, and everyday people face. In this episode of Let’s Think About It, Coach Mo and co-host Algie Mosley dig into the inner battle of self-doubt, imposter syndrome, and the “punk-ass inner critic” that keeps so many from stepping into their potential. They explore how fear often comes from cycles passed down by family, culture, and society—and how curiosity, self-awareness, and choice can break those chains. Through raw personal stories—from near-drowning to overcoming ridicule in school—Mo and Algie reveal how to transform doubt into a signal for growth. This conversation challenges listeners to take one courageous step, hush and flush the toxic thoughts, and reclaim the power of choice in the face of fear.

Key Takeaways

  • Self-doubt isn’t weakness: It’s proof you care deeply about what you’re pursuing.
  • Cycles of fear run deep: Family, culture, and media often pass down limiting beliefs without us realizing.
  • The power of one step: Moving forward with one small action is often the antidote to paralysis.
  • Hush and flush the toxins: Replace toxic self-talk with renewed thinking and conscious choice.
  • Choice = power: You don’t have to let fear dictate your actions—you decide your lane.
Speaker 1:

Welcome to the let's Think About it podcast, where we embark on a journey of thoughtfulness and personal growth. I'm your host, Coach Mo, and I'm here to guide you through thought-provoking discussions that will inspire you to unlock your full potential. In each episode, we'll explore a wide range of topics, from self-discovery and mindfulness to goal-setting and achieving success. Together, we'll challenge conventional thinking and dive deep into the realms of possibility. Whether you're looking to find clarity in your personal or professional life, or seeking strategies to overcome obstacles, this podcast is your go-to source for insightful conversations and practical advice. So find a comfortable spot, chill and let's embark on this journey of self-improvement together. Remember, the power of transformation lies within you, and together we'll uncover the tools and insights you need to make it happen. So let's dive in. Welcome to another episode of the let's Think About it podcast. I'm your host, Coach Mo, and I'm here with a new co-host, my man, Algie Mosley. What's up, bro? We're about to do this.

Speaker 2:

Oh, another episode, Mo, I'm so excited about this. Let's also be about it, right.

Speaker 1:

Man, that's what I'm talking about, bro. Yeah, man, I think us coming together just talking about a lot of different concepts, things that people struggle with to help them get out of their own way, and today I got a topic for us, man, and I was thinking about this and I shot it to you and I was like man, I think our audience would like really vibe on this and I want to talk about the inner battle when self-doubt becomes the real opponent. I want to get into that, because a lot of things that I talk about on this show is about taming that punk ass inner critic, and when you start talking about self-doubt imposter syndrome, that punk ass inner critic is present and I'm excited to get into this conversation with you, brother.

Speaker 2:

It's something that we all struggle with. I don't care if you're an executive, I don't care if you're just somebody that is a housekeeper. We all struggle with self-doubt Am I really who I say I am? Can I really achieve the dreams and the aspirations that I long for?

Speaker 1:

But here's the thing when I think about self-doubt, that's something that's not taught in school in how to overcome it. Learning how to think in education does not exist when you grow up in an environment where, naturally, your family members have mental limitations in itself when I say mental limitations not really knowing how to get out of their own way and they continue to produce the same cycles and no one ever really teaches you how to overcome self-doubts and fears. What do you do? Where do you learn this from? What are your thoughts about that?

Speaker 2:

I think you learn it from life experiences. Right, and life experiences. I don't know about you, what environment you grew up in, but a lot of mine was always thinking less than instead of greater than. So self-doubt was always one of my friends, in a sense, but I realized that self-doubt is not a sign of weakness, but it's just proof that I care deeply about something that I'm about to do.

Speaker 2:

So for me, I always recognize self-doubt, and when I recognize self-doubt, I view it as a signal that I'm pushing my limits and I need to move forward regardless of that self-doubt, to overcome self-doubt. So I think life experiences is a good teacher. I need to move forward regardless of that self-doubt, to overcome self-doubt. So I think life experiences is a good teacher, mo, and I'm going to touch on one thing in regards to self-doubt, because self-doubt can lead you into this state of energy. Being a low form of energy, you start to doubt yourself, and one of the things that I learned, mo, is when I'm in low energy, I try to put myself in an environment where there's high energy. If I'm having a bad moment, I'm going to go out and make sure I create some good moments with somebody else and just bathe in it Happiness, and that joy.

Speaker 1:

Feel you, though, algie, but let's like really dig a little deeper. If you don't know what you don't know, to get into an environment with people with high energy or people who carries a lot of positivity my culture, my awareness, my surroundings is amongst others who have a lot of self-doubt and limiting beliefs that they carry Then how do someone know to move towards what you're just talking about?

Speaker 2:

That's a deep, dark place, man. And how does one get to the point where you recognize, I think about how did I come out of the dogma state that I was right? I guess for me, mo, when I think about it, as I surrounded myself by people that thought differently, that longed to be in a place where I longed to be right. So I think I stumbled on it by happenstance. There were just a few people that God brought into my life that started speaking positivity. And started because when I grew up I was a very shy person.

Speaker 2:

So the world was a big place, right, when I was very shy and I was even in science class reading about science, and I came across his name and it said algae. Right, I was a very shy person, and so when the teacher said I was trying to pronounce it, she says yeah, go ahead, pronounce it. And when I pronounce it, all the kids just laughed and oh, I shrunk. One day I was reading and I found out there was brown algae, there was green algae and I found out that algae was a fungus.

Speaker 2:

And that plural of fungus was a fun guy right. Wow, Wow. I stumbled upon that, but reading that really opened my eyes to understanding who I could possibly be.

Speaker 1:

That's great man. When I think about my journey around this topic, I'm just thankful. I'm thankful for God for giving me the awareness to ask myself why right? I remember always questioning why do I feel the way that I feel? Or why does this keep happening to me, why am I so doubtful? And when I look back on it, I was creating self-awareness for myself, not knowing that I was doing that because I'm questioning and I challenge myself to find out better ways to overcome it, which ultimately led me to professional or personal development and reading different concepts about the mind and consciousness and things like that actually propelled me out of certain environments because of my curiosity, to want to learn more about why I feel so doubtful. And through those experiences I just naturally started gaining more awareness about myself, to why I feel scared or why fear is here or why there's this doubt. You start challenging it.

Speaker 1:

I almost drowned man when I was about 10 years old 10, 11. Swimming in the deep end, halfway through there in the pool. I get tired, I panic and I go under. Someone tried to save me and my friends tried to save me. I'm pulling him under, I'm so scared and then I just blackout. I wake up pumping water coming out of my mouth. I'm in the hospital pumping the water out the whole nine man, the whole nine. So I had this natural fear of water, right, and that's a legitimate fear after what I experienced, right. But somehow, some way, I worked through that to not be afraid of the water anymore. Now, don't get me wrong, I ain't trying to go swim in the ocean. No ocean. I'm not just going to let you drop me into the lake. I'm going to be very cautious about that. But when we're talking about the confines of going swimming into the pool and things like that, I'm good Overcoming that fear and being courageous to take steps forward and overcoming the fear of water.

Speaker 2:

I just want to touch on that just a little bit. Amazing story, Just incredible. I can relate to that really well as one time I was swimming in the ocean and the water started taking me out and I started swimming back in and every time I swim in I would take me back and I started going through these anxieties at that time. And then I remembered somebody saying swim at an angle Right. And so I swam at an angle. Can you tell me what was it that? When you came back, faced that water again, whether it was an ocean, whether it was a pool, what were your thoughts coming back?

Speaker 1:

Early on. The initial thought was I don't want that to happen again and don't put yourself in jeopardy where you won't be able to be saved again. So the option was not to go in the deep end ever, right. Until I truly understood how to swim right, I avoided deep waters all the time. I would even going into the pool or whatever your feet can touch the ground. I would even going into the pool or whatever your feet can touch the ground. You're good.

Speaker 1:

As a young kid, I never officially learned how to float effectively. I was just a real, a true risk taker and whatever I wanted to do, I'll just try it and do it with disregard of what could possibly be the consequences. When I think back of that experience, that's how it was. I wasn't a good swimmer or anything. I wanted to do what my friends was doing, and so I put myself out there and I think that's a great quality to have, in a sense of taking risk without necessarily really worrying about the consequences of it.

Speaker 1:

It just depends on the type of risk that you're taking and as a kid, you just want to. You just want to live. You just want to be a part of the excitement of what you see your friends are doing, and so that's what I was. And then, when after that happened, it was different because I was managing risk as it became to the water and I was just this different kid. Now I felt when I see others in the deep end having a good time, I was limited because of that fear that was present and so I was always very cautious until I started taking more steps forward and becoming a better swimmer so I can re-acclimate myself into that part of swimming. For a good portion of time I avoided water as a whole.

Speaker 2:

Makes sense. I can only assume you never went and dove off the diving board. Yeah, the deep end right is a barrier for you, but getting through that it also became a great teacher. So life experiences right when we're talking about overcoming that inner critic. Now that you've got these experiences, women, if you were to go back to the pool today, would you have those same fears and those same issues, or what kind of thoughts would you have?

Speaker 1:

That's a great question. I think, when I look at myself now, it's calculated risk. So here's an example we just went to Costa Rica and I had a beautiful time. We was out in the ocean or whatever. They took us way out and we parted the boat and people could just jump in and go swimming in the middle of the lake and you can do some snorkeling and all of that.

Speaker 1:

That question came up Mo, you're going to get in the water, are you going to go swimming? And I said no, not a sense that I was afraid, but I said no in the sense that I didn't feel like dealing with my inner critic in that moment. Right, because jumping in the water, so I know how to float and particularly when you're out in that water, it's salt water, so it even helps you float even more. Right, I was enjoying myself so much on my vacation that I didn't want to deal with the thought of what if this happened. So it was naturally easier for me to enjoy my group and watching them swim and have a good time and videotape them and be comfortable with myself and not needing to be in the water. I didn't feel like being in the water and thinking what if I didn't feel like it, because on this trip I was enjoying myself so much and my mind was just free. I was comfortable, I was relaxed. I just didn't want to explore if this happened or this. And then the other thing of it is I could have put on a life jacket and went in the water and, naturally, floated. That was an option too, but it was my decision and I think that's the power of this conversation.

Speaker 1:

The fear didn't dictate whether I got into the ocean or the lake, wherever we were. Fear didn't dictate it. I dictated what I wanted to do in that moment, because everybody was like Mo, why are you not getting in? I said I don't want to. I just don't want to right now, I'm just happy with killing everybody else and things like that. And then later I told him about my past experiences and stuff like that with the water. But I said in that moment I didn't feel like dealing with the what if Right, that was my choice. And there's been other times when I've been on vacation when I have gotten in the water and I floated, doing some snorkeling or I put on a life vest and I jump in the water. But in that moment it was just my choice, because the comfortability that I was experiencing and in that moment I felt I had power of choice and I didn't have to do it because I felt the pressure to need to, because everybody else was doing it and it was just my choice.

Speaker 2:

A little bit different when you were a child or a teenager, when you first experienced it because everybody else was doing it and you longed to do it.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, and that carries over into just like everyday life. When we, when we battering the self-doubt Right, we feel the pressure that we have to, when we feel that we have to, there's no choice involved. Your doubt becomes the real opponent in who you're competing against, and that's just real talk. How do you learn? How do we learn to overcome that? How do we teach this to people? How do we teach our kids how to overcome certain struggles when it pertains to the outer world, and they have to look at themselves and they're afraid? How do we teach them to have the courage to move forward?

Speaker 2:

I think it starts with where you just stated. You have to get out of your own way, right, and understand that these things are just thoughts, right? Or, as we say, false evidence appearing real yes, necessarily real. Or it's the lady once said some of my worst nightmares never happened. You have experience now, right, and your experience is a great teacher that you can rely upon, right, but what you're asking is, how do you teach someone that doesn't have those experiences?

Speaker 1:

I think it's teaching them that there's two sides of the coin. There's the worst case scenario and there's the best case scenario, and you always have a choice of where you want to put your energy. I agree, naturally, as humans, because of social media, advertisement, family it's always worst case scenario. That's the scenario your family as a kid, they're trying to protect you from getting hurt. I fear that my son will get hurt, so I got to protect him from XYZ. That's worst case scenario, correct, so that becomes the nature, right? There's, like I mentioned, there's two sides of the coin. The best case scenario, what if it does go great? That's right, right, and I think that's what's missing teaching the other side of the coin.

Speaker 2:

I can remember talking to my mom right, and we were telling my mom we were going to go do some whitewater rafting, right, and she was like baby I've been listening to the news and things ain't been good on that water.

Speaker 2:

You shouldn't do that white water man, I don't want you to do that. And I had to stop my mom and I said mom, I can't live your fears. She also told me in her infinite wisdom, which is what I was referring to. She always said no matter how thin the pancake, there's always two sides, yep. And no matter when I'm riding my bicycle, if I think I'm going to crash, I start going that direction. I begin to understand that my thought process, what my focus is, becomes my direction.

Speaker 1:

Exactly Real talk, bro. Real talk Because, at the end of the day, you got kids and everyone's guilty of this because you want the best Y Z, and this happened to me, so I'm trying to protect it from happening to you. Right? We unconsciously put our fears into our kids because we're trying to protect them, and what that ultimately does, over a duration of childhood into young adulthood, is create certain doubts that we carry and fears, not knowing what's formulating inside unconsciously, and your parents doesn't even know that they're doing that to you.

Speaker 2:

That's correct. Because their parents did it, and we can't help you from being like your parents.

Speaker 1:

As we move forward in life and we get to adulthood, we have certain fears that we don't even know why. They're fears and we feel that we have to react to those fears. The reaction to the fears is avoidance. That's correct. So you never overcome the fear because you're conditioned to avoid it. That's what's been ingrained from your parents to protect you to avoid it.

Speaker 2:

That's correct. And what you just touched on believe it or not, you and me as a black male that's racism one-on-one. Where did I get this fear from? Was it when mom walked up and saw this black guy and she was fearful? Did I pick it up at that moment? And then it became the self-fulfilling prophecy.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely brother.

Speaker 2:

I don't even know why I have it, but I'm wrapped in it. I go around black people and I just feel uneasy.

Speaker 1:

Exactly what we're talking about, bro, and it just transforms into various types of fears and self-doubts, imposter syndrome. All of that it comes from not just the culture. It comes from your family environment, it comes from your socioeconomic status, it comes from the news, social media, you name it. Everything contributes towards it.

Speaker 2:

And guess what? In the midst of that, the body has a great, great mechanism. When we absorb different foods on a daily basis and our body just naturally gets rid of those things that are good and those things that are bad, our mind absorbs everything every day, all day. He said, she said he did this, why they did that, she said he did this, why they did this, this is the recipe, etc. But we have to, as my cliche, have to learn to hush and flush. We have to learn to hush and flush that shit. Or, from a biblical standpoint, to renew your mind daily. Because if you don't hush and flush that shit Mo it reminds me of the acronym for shit Super high in toxins and you begin killing yourself. You self-doubt yourself. You not only self-doubt you, but the world around you, because you're full of shit and you just naturally carry it, bro.

Speaker 1:

You naturally carry it. And then, as you start having kids or family, you inject it on them, not knowing that's what you're doing. It's correct, it's all unconscious. When your kid become young adults and they start having kids, they're doing what was taught to them and then that's the cycle until and this is where I feel I've been blessed by God, because I always just challenge myself and try to go against the grain of the family dynamics I remember my wife asking me you're so different from the rest of your family, what makes you so different? Not that my family is bad or anything like that, but it's just my thought process. Right, go against the grain. That's what we have control over. As human beings, we have the ability to make decisions to be different.

Speaker 2:

I think there was a song that said everybody got choices, absolutely Everybody got choices right. And the thing about choices is it doesn't make you different, but you are different based on the choices and the everyday decisions that you make on a daily basis.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, brother, and I'm going to ask you this question as we get ready to close out. Topic today was the inner battle, when self-doubt becomes the real opponent. How do we be about it?

Speaker 2:

You know, mo, as I thought about it, sometimes I get into this poetic state. And so, as we talk about the real opponent, this is how we be about it by understanding it. So when self-doubt comes, clothed in a whisper, telling me I am less, that my steps are too fragile to reach my internal quest, you dress yourself as wisdom, but you are only fear in fine clothing. You say I am small, yet my breath shakes the silence. My stride echoes down generations, my heart beats the thunder of those before me. Self-doubt, you are not my master. You are only the question that gives birth to my answer, the storm that awakens my sky, the mirror that makes me see. I am more than a reflection. I am strength unspoken, a song unfinished, a promise unbroken. And though you press against me, my forward movement is my lane, with or without you breaking every chain.

Speaker 1:

My drop. There it is. I appreciate you, brother. This was a fabulous conversation today and I'm going to leave the audience with this fear, doubt, imposter syndrome, aka that punk ass inner critic. It's in all of us, it shows up in all of us. Just take one step, just one step to challenge it, to move forward. That's it, and trust that it will quiet down for you. Just trust that one step. The step is action, just one action to move you through whatever that punk ass inner critic is saying and over time you will silent that punk ass inner critic. And that's what I would like to leave the audience with today. Thank you, brother.

Speaker 2:

You're welcome Mo.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for joining me in this episode of let's Think About it. Your time and attention are greatly appreciated. If you found value in today's discussion, I encourage you to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. Remember, the journey of self-improvement is ongoing and I'm here to support you every step of the way. Connect with me on social media for updates and insights. You can find me on Instagram and Facebook, at Coach Mo, coaching or LinkedIn, at Maurice Mabry, or visit my website at mauricemabrycom for exclusive content. Until next time, keep reflecting, keep growing and, most importantly, keep believing in yourself. Remember, the most effective way to do it is to do it Together. We're making incredible strides toward a better and more empowered you, so thank you, and I'll see you in our next episode.