Hey beautiful souls! Guess what? You are in Trust Yourself Thursday mode today, here on the Sweet Spot. I'm Dr. Sweet. I'm so glad you're here. I'm so glad you made it to Trust Yourself Thursday. We have a great episode planned for you today. As you know, I'm a board certified psychiatrist and I specialize in high performance. But more than that, I really enjoy connecting with individuals like yourself who are making a difference in the world, and I know you do. And I love connecting with individuals who want to live their best life ever. And that's why we're in the sweet spot. So welcome. As you know, the sweet spot is where neuroscience, ancient wisdom, and real life courage collide to help you rise. This week we've been doing an incredible series based on David and Goliath's story, and it's called Facing Giants. And if you've been walking with us all week, you've already learned on Monday, Making Moves Monday, how to name and identify your giant before you even begin to fight that giant. On Tuesday, you learned the importance of dropping the armor that doesn't fit you, being authentic. And then on Win It All Wednesday, we learned yesterday how to aim for the forehead, aim for the target with clarity and focus. Yeah, we've been dropping all these pearls around handling giants, and I think it's been pretty helpful based on the feedback I've been getting. And today we hit the nerve center of the entire story with David and Goliath. Because none of this stuff with finding giants matters if you don't trust yourself. You've got to trust yourself enough to act. Remember, in the ancient wisdom, remember what David said in 1 Samuel 17? Remember what he said? Remember, everybody was afraid of Goliath, and Goliath was just taunting the Israelites. He was just giving them all kinds of help and daring them to step forward, and they were afraid. And guess what? David said this: He said, The Lord who delivered me from the lion and from the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine. Remember, David, before he faced this giant, he faced lions as a shepherd. He faced bears as a shepherd. He faced the elements. He faced darkness. He faced uncertainty. Now, here's the thing: when he says the Lord who delivered me will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine, people read this story as about trusting God, and that's a hundred percent right because it starts there. But if you look deeper, and this is Trust Yourself Thursday, David is also trusting himself. It started with trusting the divine, the most high, the power within him that's greater than him, but it does boil down to having some trust in himself. David is trusting his own judgment, his own preparation, and his own instincts. Listen, he could have played it safe as a shepherd boy because nobody thought he could win this fight. Have you ever been in that situation where nobody was gonna think, nobody thinks you're gonna win? He could have let the doubts from Saul and his brothers and everybody around him shake and people were saying, listen, David, you're just a shepherd boy. You're not a warrior, you're not a fighter, you can't take on Goliath. Have you ever been in that situation where the thing that you're facing is so big that it feels almost impossible to win? David could have played it safe, he could have given in to the doubts, but he didn't. He remembered his track record, he leaned on his lived experience and he trusted that what was in him was enough. That's the whole point of it, as you think through how you're facing your giant here on Trust Yourself Thursday. David was able to trust himself because he understood what was inside of him, and you, my friend, have to do the same thing. And you know it here on the sweet spot, we're into the neuroscience. We try to look for connections between ancient wisdom and neuroscience, and what I found was that when you trust yourself, when we trust ourselves, there's a part of the brain that gets activated. And for those of you who are the sweet spotters, my listeners from you know, those of you, you already know I'm gonna say the prefrontal cortex, right? Because the prefrontal cortex, the PFC, that's the center of decision making, that's the center of confidence, goal-directed behavior of judgment. And you know, every time you act in alignment with your values and your skills, that circuit in your prefrontal cortex strengthens, and when you ignore your instincts and override your gut instinct, that's when self-doubt creeps in, the amygdala, the threat detection center in the brain starts growing. And over time, what happens if you practice doubt and fear? Over time, that gap between what you know inside and what you show on the outside becomes wider, and you get this sort of disconnection. And here's the thing: we're always looking for an answer outside of ourselves. What we're learning here from David is that he went within, he went inside of himself to find the answer, and maybe that's what you need to do too. People are always blaming their circumstances, George Bernard Shaw says. That's what George Bernard Shaw said. And I like that idea. We can't always blame the circumstances. Listen, I'm good at blaming circumstances, and sometimes you just got to. But at the end of the day, to move forward, you've got to look for the circumstances you want. Focus your mind on making the circumstances work for you, especially when you're dealing with the giant. David didn't wait for the perfect conditions to face Goliath, he trusted what was already in his hand. And he was able to get rid of Goliath because he had trust, a deep trust in himself. Whatever giant you're facing, you've gotta have that trust. And I'm not talking about ego. Self-trust isn't about ego. Sometimes we confuse that because somebody seems super confident. No, it's not arrogance, it's a quiet voice that says, I've been here before, I know what I'm doing, and I've got this. That's not arrogance. Sometimes you're facing an illness, and you've got to remember you've faced other kinds of illnesses before. You've been to the doctor before, you've heard all kinds of reports before, but you know what you're doing. You know your God, you know the strength in you, and you know your fight, and you've identified it, and you're gonna go passlessly. It's turning down the noise and turning up the inner clarity. That's self-trust. And when you move from that place, even giants fall. So, what's today's challenge? What's the trust yourself Thursday challenge? I want you to build a feedback loop. Think back to a time when you faced something hard. Remember, David faced the bear, he faced the lion, he faced the elements, you have faced things too, and you have handled them. But lots of times we forget all the battles we have fought and won. We are only focused on the big, scary giants in front of us. And giants are designed to be scary. They're designed, they're usually faster, bigger, stronger, they usually have some advantage, and that's what makes them so gigantic. But I want you to think about all the other giants you faced in many ways, and write it down. What worked? Those wins that you had in the past, how did they work? What did those wins, those successes that you've had, show you about your own capacity? It's very important that you remember that because that's what David used in the ancient wisdom to set himself up to get the right mindset to go face Goliath. He remembered that God had removed the fear from him and that he was able to be delivered from other things. And I want you to give yourself credit for that wisdom. Give yourself credit for the things that you've done well. Give God all the glory, obviously. But you don't diminish yourself in front of the giant. That never works. If you think you're a grasshopper and act like one, remember Caleb and that group. You can't you won't, you know, you gotta be, you gotta see yourself as more than able to fight because you have power. And let that memory strengthen your self-trust today. You don't need louder hype, you don't need to be the biggest and the strongest and the fastest. You need a deeper recall of who you are, what you have faced, what you have walked through, the pressure that has been on you, and then how you responded to that. And if you're struggling today, if today's one of those days where it's kind of tough, remember this. David didn't need anyone else to tell him he was ready. He trusted the one who made him. And he trusted what that one had already put inside of him. And so should you. You know the phrase greater is that which is in me than whatever is in the world. Hmm. Now, tomorrow on Finish Strong Friday, we're turning that inner trust that we talked about today into bold outer action. It's time to stop circling the fight and start running towards it. Alright now, this is the sweet spot, and I'm Dr. Derek Sweet. You've got this, my friend. I believe in you, and I'll see you tomorrow. We're gonna finish strong on Friday. Stay with me. And if you like what you're hearing, if this means something to you, please subscribe to the channel. And more than that, I'm sure you know someone who can use this message. There's someone in your life or someone that you know that might benefit from the wisdom of understanding how to trust themselves as they face their giants. I'll see you tomorrow.