Most of us have that voice in our head that says we’re not ready, not good enough, or just faking it—and Jay Schwedelson is here to shut that voice up for good. In this episode, Jay explains how negative self-talk sneaks into your brain, why it’s so convincing, and the weird trick he uses to stop it instantly. Plus, he somehow ties it all back to Mean Girls, Rocky, and Eddie Murphy.

ㅤ

Best Moments:

(01:15) Why switching careers into marketing isn’t as hard as you think

(02:18) The sneaky power of negative self-talk and how everyone falls for it

(03:49) What UCLA’s research says about how self-doubt rewires your brain

(05:14) The hilarious but effective way Jay shuts up his inner critic

(07:00) Jay’s unapologetic list of the greatest movies ever made

ㅤ

Check out Jay’s YOUTUBE Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@schwedelson

Check out Jay’s TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@schwedelson

Check Out Jay's INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/jayschwedelson/

Jay Schwedelson: We are back for ask us anything from the Do this, not that podcast. This is our short episode. We're all week long. We get in questions, we get in word questions, we get in ridiculous questions. We try to tackle one of each. If you want to, uh, ask a question, that'd be awesome. Just go to j schon.com is a button that says podcast, another one that says, ask us anything we love.

Jay Schwedelson: Questions can be wild, ridiculous. Doesn't matter. Let's jump into it though. Let's do the work question first. We got a question from Stacy, from Sarasota, Florida. I have never been to Sarasota. I've lived in Florida for over 30 years. I'm on the East Coast, Bo Raton, and I feel like, I feel like Stacy, you're probably nice 'cause nice people live in Sarasota.

Jay Schwedelson: I live in Bo Raton where everybody's obnoxious, myself included a bunch of former like Northeastern. Horrendous people. That's why I'm not allowed to go to Sarasota. 'cause I'm horrendous anyway. You're not though, Stacey. What's your question, Jay? I just moved into marketing after a career in a totally unrelated field.

Jay Schwedelson: I feel like I don't have the right background and won't be able to catch up and be a real marketer. Any advice on how to rapidly get better at this marketing stuff? Alright, well. Super fair question, but the reality of it is you're not moving into becoming a CPA. You're not moving into becoming a lawyer or a doctor or anything that requires a really serious degree.

Jay Schwedelson: No offense to all the marketers out there. I don't care if you got certified in whatever. Who are you kidding? This ain't that. Right. So, uh, Stacy, you can do this. You'll figure it out, and you're probably better than the majority of marketers that are out there right now because the majority of marketers out there right now are just following what they've learned from the last 20 years, and they have no new ideas.

Jay Schwedelson: So you're probably gonna crush everybody, but more important than that, okay. Uh, in general, what you are really doing is this idea of negative. Self-talk, and this is something we all, every one of us, myself included, we need to stop doing. It doesn't matter what it is. I had this early on in my career as well, and we all have done it right.

Jay Schwedelson: I would say to myself, oh, I'm not smart enough. To do this at the start of my career, I'm too young. Okay? I don't know the right people. Um, I, I'm not very smart. I don't have the right background. I'm not technical enough. I'm introverted. I'm scared to publicly speak 400 other things. All right? And then. In my head, in all of our heads, we all do this.

Jay Schwedelson: We maybe, we don't say it out loud, but we put it in our heads and we put it, we say it on repeat nonstop. Right? And negative self-talk is something you wind up actually buying into. It's like. When I go out to dinner, when my wife makes dinner plans for us, 'cause I never make the dinner plans, we wind up gonna dinner with somebody she's friends with and I have to sit next to the guy, the husband or whatever.

Jay Schwedelson: Of who of of her friend. Okay. And a lot of times the husband, I didn't pick this dude. I don't even like the person. Okay. And the dude winds up like, like explaining cryptocurrency to me, uh, and just saying all this weird stuff that I don't understand that I could care less about. And then he'll tell me about, uh, the fact that he likes bourbon and he had this life changing bourbon.

Jay Schwedelson: I don't even know what he's talking about, but you know what? By the end of it, I'm convinced, I'm convinced I should move my 401k to like a, a Bitcoin or something because this. Clown of a human has convinced me and I've bought into something I didn't even think was possible. Right? And this is the same thing as negative self-talk.

Jay Schwedelson: We buy into garbage. That inner voice that you have that, oh, I'm moving into this marketing role, I don't know anything. Maybe I shouldn't even be in this role, that inner voice. Is a liar. It is. And it crushes your confidence in everything that you wanna do. And you know what? You are gonna figure it out.

Jay Schwedelson: Nobody's ever ready. To do anything. I cannot tell you how many things in my career I have started and have failed businesses. I have started and failed. Ideas I've invested in, started and failed, but every single one of them okay, gets me closer to like something that actually works. This idea of negative self-talk is not just annoying.

Jay Schwedelson: I did some research on this. Okay. UCLA did this study and they actually found in their neuroscience research that repeated. Negative thinking actually strengthens neural pathways. Ooh, fancy words for fear, self-doubt, anxiety, basically. The more you run those, I'm not good enough scripts in your head, the more your brain defaults to them, even when they're not true.

Jay Schwedelson: Okay. And this is dangerous. Dangerous stuff. So this idea of you saying to yourself, well I'm new to this field, I can't do it. Maybe I shouldn't even be here, or anything else out there that anybody's like saying to themselves this idea that they can't do something. Alright. Absolute trash garbage. So how do I shut it up?

Jay Schwedelson: How do I shut up negative self-talk in my mind? 'cause we all have it. Alright, we all have it. So here's what I do every single time and you're gonna be like, this is the dumbest thing I've ever heard, right? In my mind. Uh, I name. My inner critic. Okay, so I, whenever I'm saying something negative about anything to myself that I can't do it or I'm not qualified, I don't even know how to do it, what, who cares?

Jay Schwedelson: I name that thing that it's like, I believe it or not, I name an ass clown. I do, I name it as clown, which is the stupidest thing in the world. I know. But anytime something pops into my mind, I've been doing this forever. Um, and as clown starts running its mouth in my head. Okay. I literally say, and sometimes if I'm like outside, just walking by myself, I'll actually say it out loud, but I'll say it in my head and I know, so this sounds so ridiculous.

Jay Schwedelson: I say, not today. Ask clown. And, and it's a trigger for me to stop. And I, I stop thinking like that and I move on. Now, I'm not saying, listen to this episode and name your inner voice as clown. You can feel free. Okay? But that's what I did. And this oddly works very, very well for me, right? Because you need to address the fact that you know, it's not real what you're saying to yourself.

Jay Schwedelson: And then you need to say, okay, I'm gonna go ahead and move forward. All right? So. The next time Ask Clown shows up. Okay. You say, not today. Ask Clown. Not today. What am I talking about? I have no idea. All right, let's get to the ridiculous question. This is a ridiculous episode. I don't know what I just said.

Jay Schwedelson: Uh, all right. Here's the ridiculous question. It came in from James from Seattle, Washington. Alright, James, what do you got? Oh, this is way easier. Jay. What are the best movies? Ever Woo loaded question. All right. I'm gonna lay it on you here and I'm gonna lose a lot of listeners. Don't actually care. Here's what I got for you, right.

Jay Schwedelson: Best movies ever mean girls? Yes. If it's not in your top list, you are a tool and you're wrong. Ready for another one? Boomerang with Eddie Murphy. You haven't seen it? It's fantastic. Great, great. Love Eddie Murphy. Very funny. Now we're gonna do a, a hard turn here, Rocky one through four. Love Rocky movies.

Jay Schwedelson: One Rocky Five is not really a movie. If you have never seen Rocky, I want you to spend time watch watching one through four. If you don't like them, unfollow the show. I don't even know what you're talking about. Then I would say old school with Vince Vaughn. Love that dude. Straight up, one of the funniest movies ever.

Jay Schwedelson: Old school. And then, um, if I had to go pick, um, superhero, I may have said this previously, but Iron Man number one, greatest superhero movie of all time. And then, uh, finally I would go Breakfast Club. These are the greatest movies of all time. If you don't agree, you have no actual, uh, credibility in the world of movie picking.

Jay Schwedelson: Um, and that's my hot take there. So once again. This has been a seriously bizarro podcast episode. It's the first time you've ever listened. You're like, what just happened? Super fair. Um, if you wanna follow the show and you give it a review, it circulates the show so more people can hear about me talking about Boomerang, which is really weird.

Jay Schwedelson: And, uh, yeah, keep it real later.