“Who are you…Dr. Phil?”

That’s what some of the top startup founders in the world said to me.

Why? I’ll explain…

Yesterday I told you about how my second business failed.

And that it failed because I didn’t do the things I knew I needed to do.

WHY didn’t I do the things?!

That’s what I had to find out.

I started to talk to successful entrepreneurs, and I began recording these conversations on video.

I learned two things:

  1. We all have this same problem.
  2. No one wants to talk about it. At least, not on camera.

In fact, that’s still the case.

I’ve now interviewed more than 1,000 top founders. And more often than not, we’ll have this deep conversation beforehand about the mental chatter that they struggle with.

Only when it’s time to hit record…

You can’t talk about any of that on camera,” they tell me.

So I don’t. Their secrets are safe with me.

However, I am going to talk about the problem.

In yesterday’s email I told you that before my second business bombed, I had the chance to get some valuable feedback from my friend Jon.

But I didn’t do that, even though I knew I should.

And when I got brutally honest with myself, here’s why I didn’t talk to Jon:

At first, I came up with excuses like:

  • “I don’t want to bother him, he’s busy…”
  • “I’ll do it…tomorrow…”

And then I turned on myself:

  • “Who am I to ask Jon for feedback? I don’t even have a site yet.”
  • “He thinks I’m smart because my last business did so well. But what if he thinks this idea is stupid? And then he thinks I’M stupid?”

It was my inner critic taking over.

As a result, I built my business in a bubble. And when I launched, it bombed.

And you know what? These are the very same thoughts that the top entrepreneurs in the world tell me about…off-camera.

Because no matter how many wins…

No matter how many millions they make…

No matter how many times they’re quoted in the Wall Street Journal…

They deal with negative thoughts. This unhelpful mental chatter.

And if none of them wanted to talk about it…

I knew where to find people who WOULD.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you all about it, and about the solution we discovered.

However, first, I want to know this:

What is ONE thing your inner critic tells you? And what has it cost you?

Tell me in the comments below.