Hold Your Own Opinion Higher

Josh Felgoise (00:00.204)

Welcome to Guy's Set, a guy's guide to what should be talked about. I'm Josh, I'm 24 years old, and I'm here to find all the tips, advice, and recommendations for everything you're wondering about. Let's get into it.

Josh Felgoise (00:18.158)

Hi guys, welcome back to Guy's Set, a guy's guide to what should be talked about. I've spent a lot of time the past year thinking about what other people think about me. Probably more than I should, and probably more than most people do. That comes with the territory of putting your thoughts and feelings out online and on a podcast for people to hopefully relate to and maybe to pick apart. And because I've spent a lot of time with other people's opinions and thoughts,

There's been times where that has led to self-doubt and disbelief and lack of self-confidence, and that's not a place you or I want to be. And I've learned a lot about myself through it, through the times where I was down there and also on the other side where I feel like I am right now, and I am here to share what I've learned from that. So the way I experience it may be on a different level or more often,

than most by doing a weekly podcast, is for people to derive thoughts from, which inherently makes me think about what other people think about what I'm saying. It just comes with the territory of doing this. But I really do think it's no different than what a lot of people experience on a day-to-day basis, thinking about what other people think about them. So here are two good examples.

The first one I saw this past weekend when I was going out to a bar, which is the reason I created this episode or why I thought of this episode. And I'm not going out with the intention of looking at interactions or people or people watching to see something and coming here to say what I've learned or seen from the weekend. I'm not going out with that intention, but when I do see something, I say something. So that's why I'm here and why I thought of this episode. it, it, it's an interaction I saw that inspired.

all of these thoughts that I'm sharing with you today. So this guy was talking to this girl at the bar, his intention, unclear but pretty obvious, her intention to get as far as fuck away from him as possible. And that's just like you can can surmise that from watching the two of them talk. And I wasn't just watching them the whole time like I'm not like a fucking creep, but I saw the interaction and I watched it in full. So here I am to talk about it. Now when you're in the trenches, and I've been in that guy's shoes where like

Josh Felgoise (02:34.414)

you're about to be rejected and not read the signal clear enough or read that she wanted out of the conversation and tried to hold like a good conversation because I was interested in her and she obviously wasn't and like, you know that feeling I've been there, you've been there and from a bird's eye view, like it's very easy to see what I saw that he was interested in, she obviously wasn't but when you're in the trenches of that conversation, it's not always as easy. So I'm not like, I'm not coming after that guy. I've been in his place many times before and I'm sure you have too.

And that's a very hard place to be because you know what's gonna come when you get rejected into a shitty feeling and like that's not what I'm here to talk about we've talked about rejection before and I'll probably talk about it a lot more times to come. It's not always easy to see that somebody's not that interested in a conversation until you make the move where you're like hey do I get a drink or hey can I get your number and then she either says no I'm gonna like I have a boyfriend I'll talk to some friends or blah blah blah like she makes an excuse whatever so when you're in that position it's not always easy to see beside from what I saw was her shoulder turned and like the obvious body language.

which that guy obviously wasn't reading, but the shoulder turn, an easy telltale sign that she's just not that into you. He seemed very nice and wrapped up the conversation and walked away in the distance, probably to the closest bar to his friends to find where they are. And after he left, she turned around and her two friends were standing right there. Now, her two friends were ready to take in every last word that she was willing to say. Like they were waiting with bated breath about what she was about to say about this guy.

and wanted literally every last crumb of that conversation. And she may have said, like, he was a really great guy, maybe we'll meet again soon, I don't know, it just wasn't for me, I wasn't feeling it, blah, blah, blah. But like, we can surmise that most likely from that conversation, or I can share with you that they were talking shit about the guy. We'll come back to that. But another example, let's go into the corporate world. This is an example for myself.

When I told my company and some people from my old company, old coworkers, that I was leaving my last job and going to my next place and what the position was and what the company was and blah, blah, blah, blah, I heard somebody say to somebody else, there's no way he'll be ready for that job or there's no way he'll be able to handle all that responsibility, which is a really like just mean thing to hear somebody say and it's obviously stuck with me. It bothered me like that.

Josh Felgoise (04:51.128)

did bother me, would be weird if it didn't. Like that's where the shit talking can be a very big problem. And if that guy had heard what she had said to her friends or a friend of a friend heard it and relate it back to him and it was something that wasn't great, like he could easily fall into a place where he feels a really big lack of self-confidence and does not feel confident going up to other girls and you know, like trying to get someone else's number or trying to talk to somebody and you can fall into a

place of self-doubt from shit talk. Whether it's shit talk in the corporate world, whether it's shit talk in a social setting, whether it's with girls, whether it's with friends, whether it's with a friend of a friend, like shit talking can really hurt someone's self-esteem, create a lot of self-doubt, and put you in a really bad spot. And it's not as much gossip, it can be gossip, but it's not as much gossip as like hearing somebody say something that can like really hit you like where it hurts or feel really mean or hurtful or like a painful thing to hear.

And I could give so many more examples of shit talk or potential shit talk, but I think you get the picture as you have probably either been the shit talker or been the one shit talked or both the shit talker as well as the shit talked. The ones doing the shit talking and the ones being shit talked about. I'm no angel either. We've all done both. And at the end of the day, everybody talks about everybody. Like that's what we do as humans at some point or another. Like it's normal.

to about other people and what they're doing and who they're doing and what they're up to and what they're not up to and like I do it, you do it, our founding fathers did it and our kids will do it, like everybody does it. But that is really not the point of this episode and I will land the plane. The point of this episode is how much you let that shit talk affect you. How much you let what other people think of you shape your opinion of yourself.

If everybody's talking about everybody, then whose opinion matters? And like, here's the question I'll propose. Does what they think about you really matter? Because somebody else thinks something completely different. And if all these opinions make up what you think of yourself, how can you form an opinion of yourself when you have all these opposing opinions to combine into one? Who's to believe? Who's right? Which opinion weighs more than the other?

Josh Felgoise (07:08.876)

And at the end of the day, how can you create a good sense of self or a sense of self-confidence or belief in yourself when you're too busy combining everybody else's opinions of you? And here's my counter offer to that. The most important opinion is the one you have of yourself. If what you believe about yourself holds more weight than what you think about what everybody else thinks about you, you'll be better off. The quicker you decide that what everybody else thinks about you is not as important

as what you think of yourself, the quicker you'll be happier, the quicker you'll find self-confidence, the quicker you'll believe in yourself. When I'm in the place mentally that I talked about in the beginning, where other people's opinions and thoughts aren't filling my head, and my opinion of myself is the one that's like the highest standard, the one on the highest like bar, that's when I feel like I do my best work. That's when I feel like I communicate with my friends best and my family better, and I walk taller and I sleep better.

and I feel more confident in myself and I have more belief in myself and I'm not as worried and I'm not as anxious. When I hold my opinion of myself to the highest and everybody else is below, that's when I feel that way. I'm not coming here to say don't shit talk. I'm not coming here to say don't care about what anybody else thinks about you and forget everybody's opinions because that is literally impossible to do and like I've dealt with that on many occasions this year. The point is that on a daily basis we all have

or hear opinions that other people hold about us. Whether it's something your boss said to you, a coworker said to you, an interviewer said to you, your friend, a coworker, a family member, your significant other. Like, we all hear opinions all the time of what other people think about us and our actions and what we do and who we do. But at the end of the day, if you hold your opinion of yourself higher and what you believe about yourself to be more true than what you think everybody else is saying about you, you'll be happier. But if you let everybody else's opinion of you

determine how you think about yourself, where do you end up? It can be really good to hear what other people think about you. I think it can really help you change and grow, but know how you think about yourself and make sure that that belief is concrete before you let other people's opinions in. Know what you think about yourself before you let somebody else's opinion drive your self-belief. Whoa, okay, maybe that was really good. Because I do believe

Josh Felgoise (09:33.004)

that self-belief can quickly become self-doubt, I've experienced it myself, and that self-doubt can quickly become self-deprecation, and that can lead to a really bad place that you don't want to end up. And I don't think this is something that happens overnight, it's something that you really have to practice if you want to change. Of course, if you hear something that somebody said or think somebody is saying something about you, it will affect you. Like that thing the person said about me at my old job, and like, of course it'll affect you, we're humans, like, how could it not?

The first response, I believe, can be uncontrollable, and that is where you get affected. It's the second response that matters. How much you allow that feeling to resonate or sink its teeth into you. How much that opinion or that thought or that comment that they said about you shape your own belief. If I let that person's thought and opinion about me determine the way I drove,

then I easily could have ended up in a really big place of self-doubt. And that's what I mean by that. Like, the first response is uncontrollable. That's mean. That's hurtful. Why the hell would you say that about me? Fuck you. Like, literally, fuck you. It's the second response that matters most, which is derived from your previous belief in yourself and the previous opinions you already hold of yourself, knowing that, no, that's not true because I know I will give it all my effort. No, that's not true because...

I know I will do the best I can and I will work really hard and I'll get my shit done and I'll prove myself. And I already know that about myself. So their opinion of me can't penetrate. I want to say penetrate. Their opinion of me can't. Their opinion of me won't sink its teeth in because I already have these beliefs developed about myself and I know those to be true. And whatever they say about me isn't true. So they can say what they want and they will continue saying what they want.

But that doesn't mean it's true. And that doesn't mean it has to sit with me and resonate and sink and stay. And this is the same idea as somebody like living rent free in your head or like owning a penthouse in your cranium. Like, yes, absolutely. Because words have power. And like when you hear something that somebody says, it can really affect you and the way you look at yourself and the way you see yourself and the way you view yourself. But the point of this isn't about that. It's not really about somebody shit talking or somebody talking shit.

Josh Felgoise (11:53.228)

or somebody living rent-free in your head. The point is how you get out of it and how you can develop opinions of yourself and already have self-beliefs and self-confidence that counteract those opinions or those statements or those mean-spirited comments or the mean things people say. It's how you handle the rejection or how you handle the shit talk or how you handle that person who lives rent-free in your head. And that's through

the already established or the currently being established or the things you're working on establishing the beliefs about yourself, the self confidence you're developing, what you're working to create and the opinion of yourself that you're continuing to create that is based on what you know about yourself, not about what other people are saying about you or thinking about you or talking about you, what you know to be true and what you create and hold about yourself to be true. And when I said earlier, like

I've gotten to a good place with this. That doesn't mean I don't think about what somebody says about me. I absolutely do, but I try my damn- but damn. I try my damn best not to let that opinion take shape or shape the way that I think about myself because I already have these opinions of myself that I've created from experience and from previous times where I've doubted and previous times I've overcome and I know that is not true. So why would I let that-

take shape. But I absolutely stumble with this all the time. And there are there are some things you hear that have much sharper teeth than others and take a little bit longer to get to the other side of and get to that second response. And some things that first response resonates with harder and stay with you more deeply. And there are some things that you can get over faster. So it's a practice like I don't I think this is something that can that sticks with people throughout life. Like I don't think

this is something that goes away after your 20s or your 30s or your 40s or your 50s like you will constantly deal with opinions of other people you will constantly deal with what other people think about you and what other people say about you and what other people are talking about about you that doesn't go away and I'm not saying everybody's thinking about you or everybody's talking about you or me or any of us but in our small circles of people and in our in our little experiences that will happen and that will come and it will

Josh Felgoise (14:14.594)

hurt. But so I think this is something we have to continue to practice like throughout forever. People's opinions and shit talk does not go away and it never will. And I think if it's something that we can get a grasp on now pretty early on and start to develop these really strong senses of self or self beliefs, then it'll be easier and easier as time goes on and that practice will get easier and easier. If that guy at the bar heard something the girl said or something his friend said about him,

It could really easily mess up his self-confidence and like really fuck with the way that he interacts with girls at a bar or the way that he thinks about himself and how others think about him. And he could think like, well, knowing that she thought I was a weirdo, why would I do that? Like if she thinks I'm a loser, then everybody will. Like that, that's a very easy way to, that's an easy trap to fall into. And it's a tough hole to dig yourself back out of. And if I fell into that hole of, well, you know what? I am actually probably not good enough for that job and I am not able to meet

what they expect of me. It's a hard hole to climb back out of. It's a hard battle to go from doubt to determination, but if you already have that self-belief developed, it won't affect you as much. The way that I personally counteract the shit talk is, like I said before, with what I know to be true. With the self-beliefs I've already developed, with the self-confidence I've created and now hold. Everybody is going to talk shit to an extent.

But how much you let that shit affect you is up to you. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Guy's Set, a guy's guide to what should be talked about. If you like this episode, I really hope you did. Please give this podcast five stars at the top of Spotify, Apple podcasts, wherever you're listening. Send any question, anything you want me talk about, and they should be talked about to my email, josh at guyset.com or on my website, guyset.com. You can also DM me at the guyset, T-H-E-G-U-I-S-E-T. If you're still here now, I have a special announcement that I saved for the outro for the real ones like you, if you're still listening.

Tune in next week for an interview with my intern Nina, who will be on to talk about moving to New York City, her internship experience, me as a boss, what she's learned, what she's up to next, her interview processes at her next job, internships in general, and all that good stuff. I think it'll be really fun one. Thank you so much. Listen to Guy Set, and I will see you guys next Tuesday. See you guys.