Episode 312 · Dec 21, 2020

What Mentally Strong People Don't Do

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George Wright III opens this episode of The Daily Mastermind with a reminder that success demands more than willpower and positivity. You can practice every good habit in the book, but if you are simultaneously doing things that drain your mental energy, you will keep stalling. This episode takes a look at the behaviors that mentally strong people have decided to eliminate from their lives.

The key insight George shares is that most personal development content tells you what to do. Fewer resources identify what you need to stop doing. Both sides of the equation matter equally.

Why Mentally Strong People Don't Give Up Their Power

The first and perhaps most foundational habit to drop is handing your power over to other people or to circumstances. Mentally strong people believe they create their own lives. That means refusing to say things like "my boss makes me feel this way" or "circumstances forced my hand." The moment you blame something outside yourself, you become disempowered.

Mentally strong people don't give up their power because they believe they create their life.

Taking full ownership of your choices keeps you on the path toward your goals. It is not always easy, but it is always your responsibility.

How to Stop Feeling Sorry for Yourself

Life is genuinely unfair sometimes. Mentally strong people know this and accept it rather than getting stuck in self-pity. When you take personal responsibility for your life, your business, and your relationships, you move into action instead of circling in resentment. If you notice yourself slipping into that mode, get up, make a move, change something.

Why Fear Cannot Be Allowed to Stop You

Mentally strong people experience fear. The difference is they do not let it halt them. They take calculated risks, not blind ones. They gather information, they assess, and then they act in spite of their mood. Acting in spite of your mood is a critical phrase here. You do not wait until you feel ready. You act now.

What to Do Instead of Worrying About Things Outside Your Control

Wasted energy is one of the greatest threats to productivity. Traffic, a flat tire, a coworker's attitude, lost luggage: none of these are within your control. Spending mental energy on them is spending it on nothing.

Don't waste energy. Don't waste time. Don't waste your productivity on stuff you can't control. Focus on solutions.

Control your health. Control your actions. Focus on the outcomes you can actually influence. This one shift frees up an enormous amount of mental bandwidth.

How Pleasing Everyone Destroys Your Focus

You cannot make everyone happy, and attempting to do so will eat away at your happiness, your productivity, and your focus. Mentally strong people learn to say no. They orient their lives around their own goals and values rather than around the expectations of others. This is not selfishness. It is clarity.

Why Patience Is a Mental Strength Strategy

Mentally strong people do not require immediate validation. They hold a long-term vision while executing in the short term. They believe in the results they are working toward without needing proof every step of the way. Impatience is often disguised anxiety. When you trust the process and release the need for instant confirmation, you actually work better and sustain effort longer.

How Not Dwelling on the Past Builds Mental Strength

George emphasizes a rule worth writing down: do not waste time dwelling on the past, whether the low points or the high points. There is a 24-hour rule on bragging. Your resume and your highlight reel are not a plan.

The future isn't written, so why not go write that?

Mentally strong people orient toward what comes next. They learn the lesson, release it, and move on.

Why Silence and Alone Time Are Assets

One of the most underrated behaviors on George's list is refusing to fear alone time. Mentally strong people require silence. They use it to crystallize their vision, slow their racing thoughts, and reconnect with what matters. Many people fill every quiet moment with noise because they are uncomfortable with their own thoughts. That discomfort is worth confronting. You do not need the validation of other people to feel happy, and you do not need constant input to feel productive.

Action Steps

Stop blaming outside circumstances for how you feel or what happens in your life. Own every outcome and every choice.
When fear shows up, gather information and act anyway. Distinguish between calculated risk and blind risk.
Identify the top two or three things you currently waste mental energy on that are outside your control, and make a conscious decision to redirect that focus toward solutions.
Practice saying no to requests that pull you away from your core goals. Pleasing everyone is not a success strategy.
Build intentional silence into your day, even for ten minutes. Let your thoughts settle instead of drowning them in noise.

Mental strength is not only about adding good habits to your life. It is also about eliminating the patterns that silently drain you. It's never too late to start living the life you were meant to live. Begin by removing what is holding you back.

READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT

welcome back to the daily mastermind George Wright the third here with your daily dose of inspiration motivation and education I hope you're having an amazing week we've got Christmas this week I know people have all kinds of different schedules and things that are going on and activities but for those of you that are entrepreneurs and grinding I got to tell you I know that you're You're going to try to squish your week into a couple of days. And so good luck with that. But keep your priorities right. Make sure you're focused on the important things. The mastermind quote of the day today is, Courage is required. Courage is required. And that's absolutely true. It's so crazy because I've had so many people struggling with their mindset lately that I thought I'd do kind of a throwback episode a while back. and it was on, oh, I don't know, maybe episode 150, 155. We did one on what mentally strong people do and what mentally strong people don't do. And I want to talk about that and highlight a couple of things today because success requires mental strength. It requires you to be focused, committed, consistent, especially consistent and persistent. And it's hard to eliminate those distractions and the negativity and the anxiety that might be happening. So you have to develop a really strong mindset and you do this by mirroring what other mentally strong people do. But at the same token, you've got to identify what mentally strong people don't do because there are many, many things in our day-to-day behaviors and it doesn't matter how many of the positive, successful, right things you're doing if you're offsetting those by doing things you shouldn't be doing as a mentally strong person. So I want to list just a few of the top ones we've had on our podcast episodes of things that you should not do. Things that mentally strong people do not do. And the first right at the top of the list is mentally strong people do not give up their power. Mentally strong people do not give up their power because they believe they create their life. So they don't allow others to control them. Don't say things like my boss makes me do this or I couldn't get out of that or circumstances have made me feel this way. You have to control your life and the minute you give away your power by blaming something else and not taking responsibility you become disempowered and you fall off the path towards your goals So that one thing Don give up your power Number two mentally strong people don feel sorry for themselves And I know this is tough because how many times do we sit around and we wonder why this is happening, life isn't fair. You know, mentally strong people don't feel sorry for themselves. So if you get in that mode, get up, move around, make a change. Because when you take personal responsibility for your life, your business, your relationships, you won't feel sorry for yourself. You'll do something about it. The third thing that mentally strong people don't do is they obviously don't let fear stop them. Mentally strong people might very much have fear when they're dealing with things on a day-to-day, but they don't let fear stop them. They're willing to take calculated risks. Now let's be clear, they don't take blind risks, they take calculated risks, but they also do this because they're informed and they act in spite of their mood. So if you're going to be mentally strong, you have to act in spite of your mood and not let fear stop you. The fourth thing that mentally strong people don't do is they don't waste energy on stuff that they can't control. How many times have we wasted energy on traffic? You know, this time of year when, you know, there's so many things out there, shopping and crowds and even more importantly, wasting energy on the fact that you're at home or you have to wear a mask or whatever it is, or you got a flat tire, you lost your luggage or a co-worker's bugging you. Listen, control what you can control. Focus on your health, your activities, your actions. Don't waste energy. Don't waste time. Don't waste your productivity on stuff you can't control focus on solutions focus on solutions another thing that mentally strong people don't do is they don't worry about pleasing everyone you can't please everyone it's impossible so stop living your life around other people's opinions and other people's expectations learn the ability to say no to things learn the ability to focus on your goals even when others want you to focus on other things. Don't worry about pleasing everyone because mentally strong people don't worry about that. Another thing that I wanna mention, and this is, that last one, by the way, goes to your happiness level because when you worry about pleasing other people, it eats away at your happiness it eats away at your productivity and it eats away at your focus Your focus should be based on what your goals and dreams and desires are not what other people want for you Does that make sense? Now, mentally strong people also, and this is one that a lot of us could really learn from, mentally strong people don't expect immediate results. They don't require that immediate validation because they have confidence in the long term. They have a vision that's clear and clarified. They have clarity on their vision, but they execute in the short term. But they don't need or expect the immediate results. They have patience. Mentally strong people have patience, so they don't let these needs for immediate results eat away at them. You have to believe in the results and not require that short-term validation. Mentally strong people don't need immediate results, even though they desire it. The other thing I wanted to mention is mentally strong people don't dwell on the past. And this is one that we're going to continue to bring up over and over again. Because mentally strong people don't let themselves get caught up in or waste time dwelling on the past. It's over. Learn the lesson. Move on. But at the same token, they don't live in the past with the positives either. It's a 24-hour rule on bragging, right? You can't live on your highlights or your resume the rest of your life. It's time to move on. So don't let the negative or the positive of the past be something that you dwell on. And the future isn't written, so why not go write that? Why not work towards the best version of yourself? Why not focus on the future and execute in the present? Because in order to have an attitude of abundance, you have to be able to look forward anyway, and that's a real key. And then mentally strong people also don't fear alone time. This is one we talked about when we talked about Ryan Holiday's latest book. Mentally strong people require silence. They want to be in control of their mind. They want to be there with their thoughts. They want to be able to crystallize their vision, and so they don't fear alone time. So many of us, and I've had it happen for myself many times, so many of us hate the silence. We hate sitting still. We hate being alone. And you know, there's a difference between being alone and loneliness. There's a big difference between being alone and loneliness Require the silence Look for the times that you can get clear with your thoughts clear with your objective That the whole purpose behind mindfulness and meditation is to limit the thoughts that are racing through your mind And you don need people to feel validated for your happiness. Dependence or validation, that's not needed for happiness. You can be happy without validation. You can be happy without the dependence of other people. So mentally strong people don't fear alone time. Learn to value and cherish that time. And the last one I'm going to leave you with is mentally strong people don't give up ever. Mentally strong people refuse to give up. It doesn't matter if you have failure after failure after failure. Mentally strong people are relentless. They don't give up ever. That's the biggest thought that I want to leave you with. So let's take a review of these again real quick. mentally strong people don't give up their power. They don't feel sorry for themselves. They don't let fear stop them. They don't waste energy on stuff they can't control. They don't worry about pleasing everyone. They don't expect immediate results, and they don't dwell on the past. And a couple of really good ones, they don't fear alone time, and they never, never give up. I hope those are some things that you, it shifts your thinking just a little bit. We always talk about the things we want to do, but we don't identify those things that we need to stop doing. And I hope this is something that might help you to do that. Once again, do me a favor. Get a hold of me. Let me know what I can do to help you. Give me some ideas of what you need in your business. Is it marketing? Is it strategy? Is it financial planning? Is it just the motivation and inspiration? Let me know what it is that you need. Just send me a short little DM at the Instagram or Facebook page for The Daily Mastermind. I'd love to hear from you. And do me one more favor. It would mean the world to me if you'll share this episode. Share this episode because so many people are struggling right now. I'd love to be able to get the message out. That's the only reason I do this. I don't do it. I don't have sponsors. I don't have any other reason other than to get the message out and help people that are in need. And the fact that I have a personal passion for personal development and financial education. So that's our message for today. Be strong mentally. Create the life that you are meant to live. It's never too late to do that. And I look forward to talking with you again tomorrow. my name is George Wright III and this has been The Daily Mastermind have a great day

About the host

George Wright III

George Wright III is an entrepreneur, investor, and the host of The Daily Mastermind. Over more than two decades he has founded and scaled several multimillion-dollar companies and built a renowned seminar business that put some of the world's biggest names and brands on stage. With 25+ years across marketing, sales, and executive leadership, he's made a career of turning bold ideas into results — and momentum into lasting growth.

Today his mission is singular: empower driven entrepreneurs everywhere to master their mindset, unlock their potential, and live their ultimate destiny. Through The Daily Mastermind, George shares the Prosperity Principles and strategies that help people create massive change — in their business and in their life.

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