The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Moment 15 - Ant Middleton: The Power Of A Positive Perspective

Episode Date: July 22, 2021

In these ‘Moment’ episodes of my podcast, I’ll be selecting my favourite moments from previous episodes of The Diary Of A CEO. Today, I’ve chosen one of the most powerful moments from my episode with Ant Middleton. Ant shares with us how liberating it can feel when you turn a negative into a positive and reveals just how easy it can be to shift your mindset to a more positive one. The truth is, failure and negativity aren’t always harmful to our success, in fact, Ant would argue that they’re both important in fueling our growth and becoming better as people. Episode 74 - https://g2ul0.app.link/HkxIXqbI4hb Ant: https://www.instagram.com/antmiddleton/ https://twitter.com/antmiddleton

Quick one, just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio.

And thirdly to Amazon Music who, when they heard that we were expanding to the united states and i'd be recording a lot more over in the states they put a massive billboard in time square um for the show so thank you so much amazon music um thank you to our team and thank you to all of you that listen to this show let's continue and there's nothing more rewarding in this world than flipping a negative into a positive because if you're willing and again if you're willing to work hard enough and you're willing to take the shit and the fucking uh and the bullshit and everything that surrounds negativity if you're willing to dive into the center of it and you're willing to work in order to flip it into a positive then i guarantee you you you will find a positive in it and i guarantee you that would

be the most rewarding thing you ever do it's like failure it's exactly the same with failure i look at failure and it's just it's like a challenge to me it's like you can't do that and you don't know nothing about that you're gonna fail at that well listen i'll tell you what i probably will fail at it but i'm not scared to commit because i know that the moment i commit to failure i'll take two or three or four steps into failure and i might go yeah right i haven't achieved that but those three or four steps i've taken that's that's what i bank those moments in the moment that's what i bank a lot of people they they might take on failure and they might fail their objective and they think oh i failed that therefore i'm a failure and they forget how

far they've come that just it's completely automatically written off because they're going oh i failed that do you mean it's like yeah i won't go near that again that becomes part of your identity i'm a failure i'm a failure yeah so they anytime failures they think they're safety bubble safety bubble victim but whatever, victim bubble, whatever. They won't go anywhere near it. But I love it. When negativity comes along and failure comes along, I'm so intrigued on what I'll get out of it.

I'm so intrigued what I'll learn from it. Because when you learn, you grow. When you grow, you become a better version of who you are. It's just that knock-on effect that it has. And failure is exactly that. Failure isn't going anywhere. I've failed up to now in my life. I'm going to fail to the day I die.

So are you. So are you. So are you. Every single one of you in here is going to fail. Whether you like it or not, it is everyday part of life as much as it is breathing. It's surrounded by us. So why do we ignore it?

If it's part of who we are and part of what makes the world tick, then why don't we ignore it if it's part of who we are and part of part of part of what's what makes the world tick then why don't we use it to our advantage because the perceived cost of failure whatever that might be you know jenny at work is going to think i'm not so whatever and this person's going to write this about me the perceived cost especially in the short term feels greater it feels and that's the same force of like the pc brigade or that you know it's like it's better just to stay in your lane today and to just like put your head down be quiet because people think and this is the where it's wrong people think that's the safest place to be

reflecting on my own journey when i went to university and i knew that i this was a piece of shit and that i needed to quit if i was actually going to become an entrepreneur like it's calling my mom and then telling her i'm dropping out and her telling me never to speak to her again right that was the resistance that was the moment where life goes stay in your fucking lane right yeah but when I and people go you were so you were so brave and then you're like that you're grabbing hold of the wheel like my brain was so clear the biggest risk the biggest failure would have been staying in university and living a life not true to myself so people get people say oh you're so you're so much courage okay courage

would have been staying yeah right and i think that's the that's the thing of course my mom says i'd never speak to me again and i don't speak to her for two years but look at the upside of living even if i'd failed like look at the upside of being myself and i think that's pretty much what i'm hearing from what you're saying is like there's this you know the there is the short-term resistance where it's like oh my god if you fail you're gonna lose it all so no you'll lose it all if you don't try it's exactly how the thing about it is the way that your mindset thinks then it is it's not a complicated way of thinking it's not you know i mean it's like it's it's so simple really so simple stupid that it's almost incomprehensible um and everything that i do and you just said it then and make what you just said

there makes complete sense to me every single word you said about that story i'm like that yes it's like it's obvious like why wouldn't you do that? But sometimes the most obvious things that are the hardest to process, the hardest to achieve. And with my books and my tours, you know, I don't get people coming off my tours going, and, you know, I've tapped into this part of my brain now. Thank you for this. It's like they come off my tours or read my books and go,

and it was always in there. You just gave me this kick yourself moment where i'm just like how did i not see that how did i not you put it in such layman terms because i'm i'm a simple man do you mean i'm not i'm not an intellect i'm not a bookworm i'm i'm a simpleton i'm a simple man i keep things the way that i get to my answers is good bad right wrong positive negative yes no do you mean i keep it and it's listening but it's listening to who i am and it's it's the most simplest way of of of getting to where you need to be but we let the constraints and the bullshit and the complications of society and

what other people think cloud all of that. I almost see it like two dials, right? One of them is this voice inside, which everyone has in them. They're saying, go and dance in the hills of Costa Rica. And then there's this other really loud dial, right? The sound dial. And it's society and your mom and your whatever.

And that one's saying, go be a fucking lawyer and shut up, right? And in all of our lives, I think one dial is a little bit higher than the other. And the challenging thing but the most important thing you can do if you want to reach your potential be happy avoid mental health issues avoid midlife crises is to like turn up the internal dial and just try and get that the other dial which is society's voice right down to to fucking zero right and and i and i just do you know and i just feel if everyone could just do that in their own lives which is not easy to do because listening to this internal voice is going

to come with real resistance people are going to cancel you they're going to my mom's going to not speak to me for years right but in that's the short-term cost for a long-term gain and as is the way with comfort i see like comfort and like avoiding with that resistance is a it looks like a friend it's a short-term friend but a long-term enemy and if you know if you're if you're in the moments where you've said you've been like cancelled quote-unquote um had you caved short-term friend probably would still have a show or two yeah of course long term but long time and I say to people, what you've got to realize is that you are with yourself 24 hours a day for the rest of your life. No one else can even come close to that.

No one else will even come close to that. So you are with yourself your whole life. People, they come and go. Situations, they come and go. So ultimately, you've got to live with yourself first before you try and live with anyone else before you try and live with any situation before you try and put yourself into any environment that's what i say to people when they go well i'm like you're with yourself 24 hours a day to the day you die nothing comes close to that no one comes close to being anywhere near

that that's the person you've got to honor that's who you are yeah so that's the person who you've got to honor that's the person that you've got to make make happy the boss that's the person you've got to honour. That's who you are. Yeah. So that's the person who you've got to honour. That's the person that you've got to make happy. That's the boss. That's the boss, right? That's the person you've got to make happy. And it's impossible to please that voice and that voice, right? So like... But please yourself.

And ultimately, you know, what comes out, you know, should be raw, should be authentic, should be true. So, and then you'll find your belonging. You'll find your circle. You'll find your like-minded people. You'll find your, yeah, you'll find your belonging you'll find your circle you'll find your like-minded people you'll find it you're you're yeah you'll find your belonging it's like you know you must know as you get more successful as you you know you start thinking you start changing start evolving your mindset more and more and more and more your circle gets smaller and smaller and smaller and

smaller i'm happy with that you know i'm i'm happy with that because not that I'm above anyone or below anyone, you know, we're just on different ends of the spectrum. Okay, because guess what? I'm going to keep evolving. My mindset's going to keep changing. I'm going to keep getting wise. I'm going to keep getting more knowledgeable. I'm going to keep being honest with myself.

Now, for me, that's my purpose in life. Nothing out there. You know, it's nice to have the nice cars, the nice houses. Don't get me wrong. It's nice to have money. I've had no money and now i've got money i know which side i'd rather be on okay that's all but that's all what comes apart and parcel with with being true to who you are um and my purpose in life which is i will never achieve but which is i find fascinating is trying to get the best possible version of ant middleton

trying to get to that okay but knowing that i never get to that answer because i'll be on this constant progression of becoming a better version of who i am but i never become the best version of who i am because that's when you're perfect that That's when you're at 100% you and that's not real. It doesn't exist. But the purpose of getting closer and closer and closer and closer to that answer is such a fascinating journey for me that there's nothing that comes close to it. There's nothing that comes close to it. And whether I have the counseling or the shows that keep

coming or the tv production companies that call me now and the channels that go whether i have failures or whatever it may be all of these everything that bounces in towards me is a is something to learn from and it's a lesson and it's going to, I'm going to learn from it and I'm going to grow from it. And I'm going to get closer and closer to the answer, closer and closer to, to my objective, closer and closer to my purpose. And that is to try and get as close as I can to being the best version of myself. And I'm fascinated with that. I'm addicted by it. I'm addicted by it i'm addicted to it i'm obsessed with it um so like i said when i get that fanos moment i'm like bring all this negativity at me bring it because i'm just churning away it doesn't mean i'm always happy you know i'm not always happy you know i'm

you know i don't go around sprinkling positive fairy dust. I'm not that type of preacher, right? But I preach, you know, working on your mind to make it positive. You know, challenging negative situations, thinking what is a negative situation, I've got to tackle it with a positive mindset. Make a conservative effort to train your mindset to think positively, to flip the script from this default mindset where everyone, you know, thinks negatively. And I love working at that.

I love working at it. So all of this stuff that you give me, it does. Once I got, because I go quiet, like this last week has been a media storm and I'll go quiet and I'll be with my family. I'll be with my management. They're like, aren't you quiet? And I'm like, I'm quiet

because I'm churning away at negativity. I'm not unhappy. Don't get me wrong. Listen, but I need to be left alone for two, three days, maybe a week because there's so much negativity coming in and I'm chipping away at it, trying to find the light. No, nothing there. Trying to find the light, trying to find, ah, boom, bang.

And then I bank this positivity. And then the next week I'll be, boom, back to Ant. Do you know what I mean? Back to this positive naturally positive person because i've trained my mind to think like that i'm always in a positive headspace um but sometimes i'll go quiet doesn't mean i'm always happy so don't get don't get positivity mixed up with happiness yeah yeah because they're two completely different things and happiness comes from yeah in knowing who you are you know it comes from from being true to you from knowing who you are. It comes from being true to who you are, knowing who you are.

And you could be the poorest man in the world and you could have no one or nothing, but you could still be happy. Or you could be the richest man in the world and you know the script.