Welcome back to Brainverse Me. I'm your host, Joshua Erickson. Today I want to talk about something I'm pretty sure everyone can relate to. It's that I'm tired. Not physically tired, I'm mentally tired. Because I'm tired of always having to be on. What I mean by that is this constant feeling that I have to perform. Whether it's being the best dad, being an awesome husband, even though I probably feel like that, being the perfect boss or the perfect employee, or when it comes to anything content-related, I do. Always being on with the humor, the introspection, the energy, the whole performance. Whenever I'm around people, I feel like I have to be on. And I'll tell you, it's fucking exhausting. Now, maybe if you're an extrovert, that's fine for you. Maybe you love being the center of attention. Maybe you get energy from people watching you, admiring you, interacting with you. But I am not an extrovert. I'm an introvert. And people are exhausting. You've heard the term social battery? That thing is real. When my battery gets low, I don't want to talk, I don't want to perform, I want to disappear into a quiet dark hole and recharge. But this isn't about social energy. This is about the pressure to always be present, always be your best, always be on. Why is that even a thing? And for the people who say, Oh, I'm fine. I don't need a therapist. My mental state is perfectly stable whether I'm on or not. Cool. You're not real. Anyone who claims they're perfectly fine all the time, that's usually the most unstable of us all. Everybody has something going on. It might not be life-altering, it might not ruin relationships, it might not even feel like a big deal. But there's always something. Something that makes you pause, something that gives you anxiety, something that makes you different. And for some of us, that something is the pressure to always perform. In my books, I talk a lot about masking. If you're not familiar with the term, it basically means showing a version of yourself that isn't actually how you feel in that moment. Not pretending to be someone else entirely, just hiding the real version of you. You do it because you don't want to expose what you're actually feeling. And if you mask long enough, it starts to mess with you. I've masked for so long in my life that sometimes I honestly ask myself, wait, which one is the real me? Is this the mask? Or is the other version the mask? We mask because we feel we have to be on. We mask to protect our mental state, to preserve our energy, to keep things normal for other people. When I used to live stream, I'd go for two to three hours a day, three or four times a week. I'd be loud, I'd be funny, I'd be entertaining, I'd interview people, I'd perform. And the second the stream ended, I'd collapse into my chair. Not physically, mentally. Three hours of being on feels like standing on a stage. It didn't energize me, even if it looked like it did, because I knew I had to perform. And for me, performance requires a mask. Now, sometimes wearing a mask is okay. I'm not getting into when or why in this episode, that's up to you. But here's what I won't use a mask for. I won't use it to lie. I use it when I need to show a version of myself I don't fully feel in that moment. When I'm streaming, I showed a version of me that wasn't tired, that loved entertaining, that loved having people around. And I did like it, just not as much as it looked like I did. At work, when someone says something stupid, and let's be honest, that happens. I don't say what I'm actually thinking. I say, hey, we all need clarification sometimes. Good question, or no worries. Inside I'm thinking, you're a fucking idiot. But I don't say that. That's a mask. When that mask comes off, I'm exhausted at the end of the day. If you feel pressure to always be on, if you feel like you're wearing different masks for different people, if you feel drained just trying to keep up appearances, maybe it's time to do something about it. One of the biggest changes I've made in my life is wearing fewer masks. I don't pretend to be perfect. I don't pretend to be energized when I'm not. I don't pretend to be having a good time when I'm not. Some people don't like that. Some people want a version of you that makes them feel comfortable. But if you spend your life trying to please everyone, you're doing yourself a disservice. So the next time you feel that pressure to perform, ask yourself, who am I doing this for? What am I really getting out of it? And is this the best thing for me? Because at the end of the day, you're the one who has to live with yourself. You're the one who has to try to unwind at the end of the day. The one who needs to be able to get through that next day. Do you want to do that always pretending to be a different version of yourself? I know that I didn't. It's exhausting. It just makes you feel like nobody sees the real you because guess what? You're not showing them the real you. Not all of the time. Your closest friends, family, they might see the real you most of the time. But even then, you know, sometimes you've got to put up appearances. Now, everybody's saying, or probably thinking, well, everybody has to act a little bit sometimes. And I absolutely agree with that. You know, you have to be very professional at work, right? You can't go around dropping F-bombs in a conference. But there's a difference between that and burying your personality constantly, never allowing the real you to show through, suppressing every instinct that you have. Not letting people know what's really in your head. They always tell me at work over the years, you know, bring your authentic self to work. And I would say, you don't want that. You really don't want that. And over the years, I didn't. I didn't bring the real me to work. If you read my book called Fuck That, a fictional memoir, you would see exactly what I'm talking about. That is a prime example of masking. Now, over the years, wearing a mask became heavier and heavier. And it became difficult for me to just interact with people. My social battery didn't even last as long as it used to. Because I was trying so hard to be who I thought people wanted. And doing that caused me to struggle more mentally, which made it even harder. So by trying to show people what I thought they wanted from me, of me, I was making my life more difficult. And at some point I kind of reached a limit where I'm like, I can't I can't do this anymore. I can't I just can't do it. I'm either gonna be me or I'm not. And I chose to be me, no matter where I am. Now, people at my job noticed the change. They said, Hey, can you do this thing for me? I'm like, No, no, I got I got other stuff I need to do. I'm not gonna do that. Maybe to some people that's like not a big deal, but for me that was. It's hard to say no. I like to please people. But as I kept doing this and practicing this, becoming more comfortable in my own skin, showing people who I was, what I actually think, it became easier. There came a point where maybe I showed a little bit too much of myself. But then I decided that if you don't like me for me, that's fine. We have nothing more to talk about. I took that same attitude when I used when I did live streaming. I took that same attitude for every other podcast that I've done. Taking that same attitude in my writing. And you know what? Not everybody likes what I do. But those that do, what I say, what I do, usually affects them positively. I've had somebody, probably my favorite uh comment that someone ever told me is He said, I I think he was reading something I wrote, and he said, you know, when I read what you were writing, I hated you. I really did. But I hated you because you were right. And I love that because, you know, here's someone who decided they didn't like the way I presented something, the truth about something, and it made them look inside and realize, damn it, he's right. Why did he have to call that call that out? And that comment has always stuck with me. Always. And it really gave me the confidence to just do what I do at jobs being the way that I am has cost me promotions because I am not conforming to a certain role, to a a type, a stereotype of a role that I'm going for. But it's the same it's the same concern that I have. If I have to be different, if I can't speak my mind, if I can't tell other people when their idea isn't good, and yes, you can do it with tact, sure. If I have to pretend that I need to kiss everyone's ass, I I'm I'm not gonna do it. I don't care if I'm gonna make a little bit more money. It's not worth it. It's not like I'm really selling out selling myself out. It's more of it's exhausting. It's too tiring. Because once you finally get that mask off and start being you, living your own life, showing people who you are. If you try to put it back on, it may seem okay. But I promise you, it's gonna get heavier and heavier all over again. And that progress you made and showing confidence and belief in yourself, of developing that self-awareness that allows you to realize that what you're doing is harmful to you, then you've thrown away all that effort. And I don't want that. I don't want that for you. So think about who you are, who you really are. And decide for yourself if you think the world is ready. You are that is the world, and if they're not, fuck them. Thanks for listening. I'm Joshua Erickson. This has been Brain versus Me. Be kind to yourself. Remember, you don't have to be on for everyone, just yourself.