What it Taught Me About Confidence, Success, and Showing Up For Myself
Yesterday, we spoke more about confidence in the dating world.
Today, I want to talk to you about confidence when it comes to your business or career.
You might be satisfied with your current job right now.
Or maybe you daydream about a business you want to start, but you never actually take any action towards creating it.
Or you may currently have a business, and you are suffocating in the struggle of endless to-do lists with not much money in your bank account.
I’ve been in both of these positions before and it absolutely sucks.
But these moments in my journey have taught me valuable lessons of where I was at subconsciously with creating a secure and powerful relationship with myself.
The way you think and feel about yourself bleeds EVERYWHERE in your life.
How you do one thing is how you do everything.
This is a foundational philosophy I teach my students.
Everything is one, created by you and your mind.
When you work on becoming more secure with yourself, you become more secure in the things you create.
Just like friends, family, and romantic partners mirror parts of yourself that are healed and unhealed.
So does your career and your business.
Monday, I had one of those moments where I just wanted to give up on my coaching business again.
As some of you may know, if you follow my social media,
I have been slowly healing from intense inflammation in my gut and body over the past several years.
And it would seriously mess up my days at times.
I’d have an amazing day of creating content and prepping for my students ahead of schedule.
Then suddenly, huge amounts of bloating would hit — I’d be in pain, couldn’t breathe properly, and would get slammed with brain fog.
This has been on and off for the past 2.5 years.
And although it’s gotten better, it still comes back sometimes.
I was really happy with how much better it had been getting lately…
Then Monday, my internet went out a few times, and I lost the content I was writing.
I LOST THE CONTENT TWICE.
Oh boy, was I f*cking pissed off and upset.
I remember literally telling myself in that moment:
“It’s like I’m cursed and God doesn’t want me to just have a normal day that goes as planned.”
Then, of course, my gut started flaring up again.
By the end of the day, I got the newsletter done — but I didn’t get to the other tasks I had planned.
And I felt like a failure.
Not just a guy having a bad day, but a man who felt miles away from the version of himself he’s striving to become…
All because of health issues and internet outages.
The voice inside me said:
“Maybe you’re just not him.”
And for a few hours, I believed it.
But here’s the truth I came back to:
It wasn’t my business that was failing.
It wasn’t my dream that was wrong.
It was an old part of me trying to protect myself from feeling more pain.
It was just my nervous system, scared because everything felt slow, hard, and out of my control.
I realized something important that Monday evening:
Success isn’t about how you operate on your best days.
Success is who you decide to be on your worst ones.
It’s about how you decide to show up and love yourself when things don’t go your way.
The men who build real legacies don’t skip these days.
They do what they can under their current circumstances, and they are compassionate with themselves while doing it.
They don’t do the work from a place of punishment.
They don’t move through life feeling “lower than” the rest of society.
They do it with understanding.
They just refuse to quit when those days show up.
So I forgave myself.
I journaled.
I used the same modalities I give to my students.
I did what I could, and let that be enough for the day.
Then yesterday morning, drinking my green tea and reflecting deeper, something hit me:
I realized how much I still treat my schedule like it’s a fight.
How I still, in the back of my mind, tie my lovability as a man to how much I get done in a day.
And when you feel like you have to fight to prove you are lovable…
It creates a constant mental and emotional weight you drag through everything you do.
So honestly, with that being said:
I’m grateful the internet took a sh*t on me Monday.
It forced me to slow down.
It forced me to face something deeper.
It taught me what I need to let go of to be more at peace with myself.
And now I want to leave you with this:
Whatever you’re facing right now —
whether it’s career, health, wealth, time management, productivity, or your entrepreneurial vision —
It’s all a mirror.
It’s a tool to help you understand what’s happening inside your mind and body.
Where are you still fighting yourself?
Where are you not allowing yourself to have a healthy relationship with success?
Sit with that.
Much love,
Shawn “Sheshn” Heshmatpour
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