Moment 15 - Ant Middleton: The Power Of A Positive Perspective

00:05and 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 will find a positive in it and I guarantee you that would be the most rewarding thing you ever do.

00:33It's like failure. It's exactly the same with failure. I look at failure and 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 going to 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, 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 i 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.

01:20So anytime failures, they think they're a safety bubble, safety bubble, 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.

01:46Failure 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 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.

02:16the 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 but 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's good 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'll never speak to me again and i don't speak to her for two years but look at the upside

03:18of living myself 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 time resistance where it's like oh my god if you fail you're going to 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 to every single word you said about that story I'm like that yes it's like it's obviously like why wouldn't you do that right but sometimes the most obvious things that that are the hardest to process, the hardest to, to, to achieve.

04:08And with my books and, 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. Yes. 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 know what I mean?

04:33I'm not, I'm not an intellect I'm not a bookworm I'm a simpleton I'm a simple man I keep things the way I get to my answers is good bad right wrong positive negative yes no do you know I 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 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 the challenging thing but the most important thing you can do if you want to reach your potential or 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

05:46own 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 you know if you'd 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 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 and they go well i'm like you're with yourself 24 hours a day to the

06:54day 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 hat make happy boss that's the boss right that's the person it's impossible to please that voice and that voice right so like but please yourself and and ultimately you know what comes out it will you know should should be war should be authentic should be true.

07:20So, 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. It's like, you know, you must know. As you get more successful, as you, you know, you start thinking, you start changing, you 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 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 and 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 and nice houses don't 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

08:27of 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's when you're 100% you and that's not real. 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 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 gonna i'm gonna learn from it and i'm gonna grow from it and i'm gonna 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 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

09:54bring 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 a preacher right but i preach you know working on your mind to make it positive you know you know challenging negative situation thinking what's 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 you know thinks negatively um and i love working at that i love working so all of this stuff that you give me it does once I got, cause I go quiet.

10:30Like this last week has been a media storm and I'll go quiet and I'll be with, with my family. I'll be with my management. And I, aren't you quiet? And I'm like, I'm quiet. Cause 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. Cause there's so much negativity coming in. I'm chipping away at trying to find the light. No, nothing there. Trying to find the light, trying to find, ah, boom, bang.

10:56And 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 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 who you are knowing who you are and you could be the poorest man in the world and you could be the, you know, you could have no one or nothing, but you could still be happy, you know, or you could be the richest man in the world and you know the script.