The Resilient Mind - Your Fear Is a Liar (Do It Anyways!) - Lisa Nichols

Episode Date: May 23, 2025

Lisa Nichols is one of the world’s most-requested motivational speakers, as well as media personality and corporate CEO, whose global platform has reached and served nearly 80 million people. From a struggling single mom on public assistance to a millionaire entrepreneur, Lisa’s courage and determination has inspired fans worldwide and helped countless audiences break through, to discover their own untapped talents and infinite potential.Take action and strengthen your mind with The Resilient Mind Journal. Get your free digital copy today: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Download Now⁠⁠This episode was created in partnership with Motiversity. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Resilient Mind podcast. In this episode, you will be listening to Your Fear is a Liar, Do It Anyways, with Lisa Nichols. Get access to the Resilient Mind Journal by clicking the link in the show notes. Enjoy. I'm on government's assistance and I run out of money and I had to buy pamper's for GILON. And I had $11.42 in the bank. And I remember wrapping my son in a towel for two days. I remember the second day, like you said, I had my hand on Jelani's stomach, and I said,

don't worry, baby. Mommy will never be this broke or broken again. And that day, what shifted for me was I was willing, and I don't know if this is going to sound crazy, I was willing to completely die to any form of me that I had been so that I can birth the woman that I was The reason why a lot of people won't become who they want is because they're too attached to who they've been. And you hear it all the time when people say, I've always been this way. Okay, well, if that's working for you, keep doing that. I knew it wasn't working for me in you home.

I had hit my version of Rock Bile. So I was willing to let go of everything and everybody. See, another reason why people won't get there is because the doorway is for you to fit through. You're trying to carry everybody else through because you're trying to be rescued 911. And you got to rescue you first. I am much more valuable to my family and to my community because I was willing to let them go. Go through the door myself, teach myself, learn myself, condition myself, and then come back and get them. I'm much more valuable to them now.

But I had to go through a window time of 10 years of judgment. You're leaving us hanging out with white people all the time. You're going to these crazy countries. We don't know what you're... I had to be willing to allow my conviction to make me inconvenienced. See, we want to grow, but we want to stay liked by everybody. I was willing to be my own rescue at the risk of your approval. But most of us aren't like that.

Facebook is an example. We want to be liked. Well, I woke up and I liked myself today, so your like is extra. My job is to like me first. I was willing to say every day, Lisa, you like you? Lisa, are you proud of you? Lisa, are you playing for a lot every day before I checked in with anybody else? I was willing to inconvenience my entire life.

My entire life. I was willing to disrupt my entire life to buy my future, to buy my possibility, to give my dream a chance. See, we're not supposed to tuck our job. dreams in on the pillow when we get up in the morning. We're not supposed to leave them at home. Then go and fulfill somebody else's dream. We're not supposed to do that. That's not what we're wired to do. That's not who we are. Your human spirit doesn't care about the economy. The human spirit doesn't care that my son's father went to prison. The human spirit doesn't care what's

happened to your family. The human spirit doesn't care about the past. You may have been molested or your family may have been broke or you may have been betrayed or you may have a divorce. Your human spirit doesn't care about any of that. Your human spirit simply says, what our command for tomorrow? What do you want to create? It's not keeping score. Your brain is keeping score because your brain is designed to keep you safe. Your soul, your intuition, your human spirit is designed to make you sore. When you get to the edge, your brain will always tell you to step back. It's always going to tell you to step back because you can fall. Always, it's going to tell you step back. Because before you fail, the last time you did this, you saw someone else fail, you could hurt, you could be off

work. It's going to tell you, it's designed to keep you safe. So you have to be willing to play between your brain and your soul. And on some days, you've got to just listen to your soul. And you've got to say, I'm a leap. I'm going to get to the edge. Most people are at the edge. And you're standing at the edge and you're watching everyone else fly. That's pit my ride. cribbed, all this stuff. You know, watching people's lives on Facebook. You're at the edge, watching someone else live, wondering what it's going to be like when you jump without ever jumping. When I'm just here to tell you, jump, because only three things can happen. You're either going to jump and fly, or you're going to jump and fall on something soft. Are you going to fall down hard?

Either way, you're going to get back up. You already know you got what it takes to get back up. Your greatest fear is not that you will fall. The greatest fears that you will live a full life and never fly. That you never leaked. You're not afraid of dying. You're afraid of dying before the world sees you and you really are. Before they really get your fingerprint, before they really feel your breath,

before they really get your contribution, if they really feel you, that's what you don't want to happen. You don't want to leave this place without us knowing you were here. All I'm doing is giving my dream a chance. And I'm not extraordinary. You don't get off the hunt. You don't get to be a lot of the hunt. I'm an ordinary woman who chooses every day

to make one more extraordinary decision. Everything that I need to get back up, I have in me. If I don't have what I need, I can go get it. Once I figured that out, the world was my, like, playground. The question is just, where do I go get it? Oh, I don't know about that. Where do I go get it? And I don't come from a learning backer.

where I was a great student. I wasn't, you know, my highest grade in school was a C-plus. And when I got a C-plus, I did the happy day. And so I didn't have a background where studying was natural for me. But when I realized that if I go study something and I learn it, I own it, it's mine now, man, it was crazy because all through school I struggled. The last time I took an English class, my English teacher told me I was the weakest writer she ever met in her entire life.

Yeah, lovely. And the same year I took a speech class and my speech teacher, he said, quote unquote, Ms. Nichols, I recommend you never speak in public that you get a desk job. And so I. That's neat. Yeah, it just is just, you know, it was demotivated people, sad people, hurt people hurt. Sad people hurt. Bottom line, don't take it personal. Her people hurt.

See, most people want the convenience of transformation without the inconvenience. Required, required for transformation. So my grandmother says, and I love to repeat this, your conviction, what you're passionate about, your conviction, and your convenience don't live on the same block. They ain't even in the same zip code. So if you want to have a conviction for something, you have to sign up, sign up to be inconvenience.

We're trying to find convictions and passion and breakthrough on the inside of our box. Well, when you realize that the box doesn't even exist, like someone made up, oh, you're playing outside the box. So we all bought into, there's a box. box. Well, I don't live in, I don't even own a box. I don't even, I don't even want to get in your box. Like, you better come out here because I ain't getting in there. And so when you start thinking like that, Tom, all of a sudden, everything is possible. So I, you know, I disrupt people when I say,

you want to make me extraordinary because it lets you off the hook. What if the God that we call God, the divine, whatever your faith is, what if there's no partial? It's not going to give me a hook up and not give you one. Not going to give me an option and I give you one. I'm just going to go after. If I die, I die, I'm going to die on a treadmill, like Wilson said. I'm going to be on the trailmill running. You know, I'm just not going to stop because I believe all things are available to us. I'm just willing to go after them. Are you willing?

And then that is so disruptive because then you got to make a decision. Because it's easier to live inside the parameters of, well, as a black woman, well, as born and raised in South Central, well, I'm academically, I'm dyslexic. I'm dyslexic. I'm dyslexic. I wrote seven books. I'm dyslexic. So just knowing, like, I'm not perfect.

What I do, Willie Wells, I manage. my imperfection well. And so we're all waiting for perfect. It's an illusion that will never come to you, and it's an excuse to never show up and play. Your story is not meant to be your fortress. Your story is meant to be your fuel. Any story.

Like the beauty of me being one of the top 1% earners in America is that I was on government's assistance. Right. Like, that's the beauty. Like, come on, it wouldn't be a big deal if my family was rich and whatever. Like, I'm supposed to do something. The beauty is that.

that when you show the little engine that could story, like, I'm not going to run fast, but I ain't going to stop running. I might slow down and have to breathe and catch my breath, but I'm not stopping because I believe all things are available to all of us, and good people should do well. Because when good people do well,

good people just do more good in the world. I'm that same girl who ran track for Dorsey High School, who struggled to get through high school, got kicked out of college school. I couldn't afford to stay. That was on government's, I'm that same girl. I'm that same girl. I don't forget her. I'm also that same woman who runs a multimillion-dollar business. I'm also the same woman who has seven bestsellers. I own both of those. I own all of them. I don't shrink to my greatness. I don't live in my side of my sorrow. If you can own your brilliance while owning your imperfections. If you can own your giant while owning your smalls. If you can live in duality, it's ten. It's ten. duality. The freedom

will be earthshake if you can live in that. See either you don't want to be as great as you really are and you're trying to dim your light so that others won't feel insecure about themselves in your present. And so you keep playing at 79 watts

when you know you're supposed to shine at 159 watts. And you keep checking the temperature of the room to see what the room can handle versus just giving the room you and let them if your light's too bright, then let them put on shades. Can you give yourself permission to live in the duality of your imperfections and your smallness and what you're learning and what you still have to learn in your greatness and your

brilliance and your light? Can you allow them to coexist and then serve them up to the world? To love you, to see you, to inhale you, to judge you, to leave you, to love you. You're just, some of us are just as afraid of being loved as we are to be left. If you go where you've never gone. Do what you've never done and say what you've never said. You'll become the woman and the man you've always known yourself to be. You will have to become someone you've never been before. You want to go somewhere you've never gone. You've got to do something you've never done. You got to say something you've never said. You got to go to a place in you that you've never even been. You get to redesign. You are your Michael Angelo. You are your greatest sculpture,

and you get to recarve, and you get to up-level as much as you need. You're not sentenced to this life this way. You chose it. You get to choose as much as you want. You get to design it any way you choose. You're not sentenced to your future. You have an opportunity to your future. What do you warrant and how do you want it. And if it doesn't make you a little afraid, then you ain't playing big enough. Your knees are supposed to knock a little bit. Your teeth are supposed to chatter a little bit. This is supposed to be at least two butterflies in your stomach, at least, because if not, you're playing inside your comfort zone. And we mistake the fact that we're supposed to be comfortable 24-7. Well, let me tell you something. Comfortable is equivalent

to complacent. I'll choose inconvenience every day. any day to make a difference on the planet. I don't mind being mildly to moderately to significantly inconvenienced to leave my fingerprint on this planet. So I just came to talk to the game changes and to the change agents who are willing to confront any part of you that's not speaking

to your madly, wildly, amazing future. I came to challenge you to play in the biggest field you've ever played in. I came for you to challenge the fear that might be inside of you and to redesign and reprogram it. You look at it long enough. You be with it intimately enough and it has to dissipate. You are the designer of your destiny. You are the author of your autobiography.

You write the story of your life. No one can write your financial story. No one can write your spiritual story. No one can write your emotional story but you. The pen has all. been in your hand. The pen has always been in your hand. I say write a story that's going to be damn good to read and ask yourself, what's my dream? What are you willing to do that you've never done before? What are you willing to say that you've never said before? Are you willing?

Are you willing to do that thing you've never done before? Are you willing to stand at the edge of your own greatness? Are you willing to look at your fears? Are you willing to to recognize that you can be afraid. Are you willing to look at the fact that there is always healing to come? There's always growth to come. There's no arrival. Are you willing?

And then in the space of that, are you still willing to lean to the edge? Fill the breeze of possibility, not knowing if you will fly or fall. Are you willing? Are you willing to not quite know what's there? but that something is there is greater than you. Are you willing to say my life has to make a huge difference?

You've heard me say this before, that there's a birthday and a transition day, and in between that is all the opportunity in the world. That's that dad that says, are you willing to disrupt my life? You're not here. You're not put here to leave my life calm. You're here to be a disruption for my life. life. You're here to cause me to want to be someone I've never been, do something I've never done because of my life. Are you willing to show me that rightness? It's going to cost you more time than

you thought you'd have. It's going to cost you way more money than you thought you would invest. It's going to cost you some friends who couldn't make the entire journey with you. It's going to cost you that sense of, oh my God, I got to leave. I got to die to the old me to allow the new me to be born to my future. it's going to cost you something. This is the year for reset. This is the year for restart. This is the year for re-ignite. This is the year for repeat, the things that you love.

This is the year for recommit. This is the year for redesign. This is the year for re-engage. This is the year for restart. This is that year. I stopped by to ignite your fire. I stop by to have you confront fear. I stop by to have you look at what it's cost you

and to make a bold declaration the next time it rise up, you rise up a little bit higher than it. I stopped by for you to no longer make fear your enemy. Make fear your fuel. I stopped by to redefine fear. To redefine it. Because fear is an emotion like any other emotion. Fear is an emotion like love, like compassion.

Fear is an emotion. We just gave it more power. We just gave it more power. compassion, oh, that's my spirit. Whoa. We gave it a meaning. And some of you know you've heard this before, that fear is false evidence,

appearing real. Now it's time to literally file the impact that fear has had on you. That fear no longer becomes your fortress. Fear becomes your fuel. Fear is that thing that puts you forth. Fear is the thing that reminds you, oh, I need to go get more information.

Oh, fear will keep you up and night studying. Fear will take you to a coach or a mentor. Fear will cause you to eat a slice of humble pie. Repeat after me. I am ready for my next best season. Because I know that I am the author of my autobiography. I am the designer of my own destiny. and I'm writing a life story

that I'm going to love reading and others will be inspired by turn to someone to say don't let me off the hook. Thank you for tuning in. Continue strengthening your mind by listening to our other episodes.