How to Transform Self Doubt Into Self Trust and Build a Life That Is Aligned With Who You Really Are, with Mario Lanzarotti | #542

What if the voice of self-doubt isn’t your enemy, but the doorway to your most peaceful, purposeful, and courageous life?

If you’re outwardly “successful” yet still feel not-enough, isolated, or stuck in your head, this conversation shows how to shift from overthinking and overachieving to inner alignment, so you can live and lead without the constant pressure cooker of proving yourself.

• Discover a practical way to separate from self-doubt instead of obeying it using breath and simple heart-focused presence.
• Learn how courageous honesty and sharing your doubts dismantle loneliness and deepen relationships at work and at home.
• Learn repeatable practices that build real fulfillment, not just more goals.

Hit play now to learn the head-to-heart path Mario Lanzarotti uses with founders to quiet doubt, amplify self-trust, and create success that actually feels like success.

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KEY POINTS AND TIMESTAMPS:

02:40 - Mario Lanzarotti's Background and Personal Journey

03:26 - Turning Point: Understanding Self-Doubt Through Meditation

07:14 - The Relationship Between Self-Doubt and Loneliness

12:38 - Living in the Heart: A Practical Approach to Overcoming Self-Doubt

18:19 - Transitioning from Head to Heart: Practical Strategies

24:00 - The Role of Self-Love in Addressing Self-Doubt

29:36 - Finding Fulfillment and Alignment in Life

33:38 - Personal Development Insights and Closing Reflections

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MEMORABLE QUOTE:

"Keep going, make your mistakes, and trust the journey."

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VALUABLE RESOURCES:

Connect with Mario on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lanzarottimario/

Mario's website: https://www.mariolanzarotti.com/

Mario's TEDx talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmeOX5Zu36M

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Coaching with Agi: https://personaldevelopmentmasterypodcast.com/mentor

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🎙️ Want to be a guest on the podcast?

Message Agi on PodMatch: https://www.podmatch.com/member/personaldevelopmentmastery

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Personal development interviews exploring key principles of personal development, self improvement, self mastery, personal growth, self-discipline, and personal improvement — all supporting a life of purpose and fulfilment.

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Transcript

Agi Keramidas: 0:00

How to transform self doubt into self trust and build a life that is aligned with who you really are. Welcome to personal development mastery, the podcast for intelligent, busy professionals who have achieved success but feel something's missing and are seeking clarity, purpose and fulfilment. Each episode helps you grow by inspiring aligned action through practical insights you can actually use. I'm your host. Agi Keramidas. Join us every Monday for an insightful conversation with a guest, and it's Thursday for a shorter episode where I reflect and share with you. This is episode 542 if you are looking to overcome self doubt and live with greater alignment, this conversation explores how self doubt is actually the doorway to your most peaceful, purposeful and courageous life. Keep listening to discover practical ways to separate from self doubt Instead of obeying it, and transform it into self trust. Before we start, if you resonate with the topics we discuss on the podcast, and you are navigating a transition, or perhaps feeling cold, to a next chapter that is more purposeful and intentional, I offer one to one coaching and mentoring to help you get clear, reconnect with what truly matters and move ahead with confidence to explore what that could look like for you, visit personal development mastery podcast.com/mentor or just tap the link in the show notes. Now let's get started. My yesterday is Mario. Lanzarote, Mario, you are the founder of aligned founders, a global movement helping high performing men scale their businesses without sacrificing their peace, purpose or relationships. You have coached over 2000 founders in 15 countries have built a multi six figure coaching business, and you delivered a TEDx talk with nearly 3 million views on how to stop doubting yourself. Mario, welcome to the show. It's such a delight to have you with me today.

Mario Lanzarotti: 2:40

Agi, thank you so much for having me on your show, and I'm excited to dive into the conversation.

Agi Keramidas: 2:46

And so in my end, I'm looking forward to exploring with you, building trust in ourselves and stop doubting ourselves. I know it is a big promise to make, but that will be you know, the main topic I want to discuss with you before I go there, and I will go there in a moment. But can you tell us briefly, what was the turning point for you in your self doubt, to perceive it in the different way that led you afterwards to the talk and the work that you have done?

Mario Lanzarotti: 3:26

Yeah, that's a great question. I would say this started when I began meditating, because until then, I I understood doubt as a voice of truth. So when doubt was telling me I'm not working hard enough, I'm not good enough, I tried to improve myself, like so many do, and so that led me down to a path of self improvement, where I gained a lot of skills in communication, in organisation, in planning, and that definitely helped, and it also got me to become more more effective in the way that I work. And so I achieved more, but it was always very short lived, because the doubt never stopped, and I was always left with, I don't feel good enough. I'm not doing enough. And it was always this voice of not enoughness, this voice of scarcity. And no matter how many goals I achieved, you know, I sold my first business in New York, and I thought that after that, I must feel like they're the king of the world. And I didn't very far from that. And so I began to question my solution to self doubt, because my solution to self doubt was just work harder, perform more, achieve more. And that just clearly didn't work. And. Years, then I started meditation, and in meditation, I learned to separate myself from the doubt. I learned to recognise that doubt is a part of me, but it's not who I am. And so with that separation, I understood that I don't actually have to do what the doubt tells me to do. And that may sound like a small thing, but it was a huge breakthrough for me, because I realised that this is simply a voice inside of me, and that voice wants something. It has a need. And if I treat the voice like it's a part of me that simply wants something, then I can understand, begin to understand that maybe that part of me isn't asking me to achieve more, but it's asking me to pay more attention, and specifically pay more loving attention, because I started to do this simply by sitting, breathing and just like putting my hand on my heart. And the moment I did that, the voice became really quiet, really quiet, and I was like, this is interesting. I'm not achieving more, I'm not doing more, I'm not working harder. I'm not doing anything actually. I'm just sitting here taking deep breaths, observing that voice and putting my hand on my heart, and all of a sudden, the voice is getting quiet. I was like, this is very interesting. So maybe this, this doubt, isn't this bad, evil enemy that has been chasing me and telling me that I'm not good enough my whole life. Maybe this is something different. And that was the point where I started to ask myself, well actually, what if doubt was a good thing? Because if I use doubt in the way that I just described to you, and I just sat more, meditated more, took deeper breaths, and basically was more compassionate with myself than what's actually helping me do that, and it's the doubt that's helping me do that.

Agi Keramidas: 7:14

Thank you for this, the way that you shared the story, and I think the the ability to separate, even for brief moments, from that, the self doubt in the case, the case that you were describing, but from any stream of thinking that takes you in a way that you don't want to go it is an ability that it's not a small thing to be able to see that, to separate yourself from that, rather than, you know, identify with with it. Let's talk about self doubt. So you started already with self doubt, and I would love to stay with that and discuss something that you talk about in your TED Talk, which, by the way, I will say also that it is, in my humble opinion, it is an outstanding dog. So I will anyone watching us, I would definitely, and the link will be in the show notes watch it, but there was something that I will start with, and you were talking about self doubt, having loneliness as its ally. So in other words, they go hand to hand, so self doubt causes you to become lonely, and then loneliness feeds on self doubt. So I would like to start with some with a comment. Your comment on that, because I think it's important to understand that self doubt is not something that affects only us.

Mario Lanzarotti: 9:05

Yeah, big time. Think about this. Most every human being has self doubt. The people that say they don't, they're usually afraid to admit it, and those are other deeper issues going on there. But every human being experiences self doubt, and that's just a very normal thing that takes place. But the problem happens is when we pretend that we don't, and when we then make self doubt to be this, this sign of weakness, this confirmation of weakness. And this happens in my experience more in men than in women, and when we don't share that, when we don't, when we're not real about that, we isolate and we retreat. And you can be you can be in a room with loving family, friends, spouse, children, and you can feel deeply a. On, and that's not because you are alone, but that's because you isolate with a part of yourself. It's like, there's a, there's this, like, imagine there's a, there's a corner in your psyche that you do not allow anyone to know that it's there. And so essentially, you're only showing you know. You're showing, a limited, reduced version of yourself, and you're saying about the rest of that version that's not worthy of being seen, of being acknowledged, of really existing actually. And so loneliness is always the result of that. And if you don't know that, then you're going to look for external measures. Then you're going to go, oh, you know, my wife doesn't love me enough, my my my colleague doesn't praise me enough, my father doesn't appreciate me enough. You're going to stop projecting it to your relationships, because you don't know that you're carrying that on the inside, so you're looking for it on the outside, and that then causes all the problems in relationships, because now you distance yourself from people because you're looking to get something from another person that they cannot give you. And the sad part of this is completely unconscious, so you have no no understanding that this is taking place, and you can't even do something about this. And this is what I see. A lot happening in our society, is that we, we fear being singled out, being rejected for our inherent human vulnerability. That in this case I call self doubt.

Agi Keramidas: 11:42

Indeed, I like how you said it the human vulnerability. And you say that in order to step out of this, or that is to share that self doubt, that piece of you that you have been possibly withholding from from public views, to share it, but with someone who you trust, and you talk about sharing it with in a courageous way, because it, and from my experience, it does require a certain amount of courage to express something that is vulnerable or that you feel might reveal a weakness of you or might open you up to other people's judgments. I think you can understand where I'm going with that. So talk to us about this, sharing our self doubt courageously.

Mario Lanzarotti: 12:45

Yeah, you know, it's interesting, because if you ask what people want, more or less, people all give you the same answers. They want a good career, they want a healthy body. They want good relationships. Maybe they want to travel, a nice house, a nice car. You know, these are things that every human being wants, but then you ask, Why do you want that? And then you get deeper, and then you people want these things because they provide them with a sense of safety, with a sense of peace, with a sense of happiness. And essentially, in essence, we all want internal experiences, and we just think that these external experiences are only possible through material or relational success in inherent ways that we control. But then, when you look at it, all of the things that we desire, they are heart qualities. They all live inside the heart. And what I've seen is that even though we often attach ourselves to wanting the the positive things in life, like I only want to feel happy, I only want to feel peace, I only want to feel joy, I only want to feel great about myself. That's not a that's not a human experience. It's just that's not life. And when we try to make that this way, we end up suffering more than actually intended. And what I've seen is the more you live in your heart, the less that actually matters. What I mean by that is, when you live in your heart, you essentially live a more unfiltered experience of life. When you live in your heart, you can almost, you can be fully present to sadness, and then what you're experiencing is actually aliveness, because aliveness is being present with what's what's taking place, without labelling it good or bad. And when we live in our minds. Space, we think, we rationalise, we strategic, we put a strategy on, on everything, and that always leads to suffering. But then in the heart space, there's this there's this place of like, I don't know what's going to happen, and it doesn't matter. I know what's here, and I know what's now, and I know it's alive and courage the gateway to that when you're, when you when, when you doubt your capability to start your own business. I got it all right, that's normal, cool. And now what? Nothing changes. You can doubt that experience, and you can say, Look, you know what? It doesn't matter. I live in my heart and I will take a courageous step. And the courageous step might be you hiring a business coach, or you going to a seminar, or you put handing in your three months notice at your job, right? It could be so many things that are all dependent on you living in your heart space. In the heart space, you act on faith you say I don't know what's going to happen, and that's okay. I will do what I need to do based on what's true for me in this moment right now, and when you're living inside of that, you're no longer held back by the conversation that takes place up here that so often over complicates your way of living life.

Agi Keramidas: 16:59

Mario, you in your answer you mentioned a few times, live in in your heart. There is perhaps some in some people, some kind of lack of clarity on what that means. Of course, you gave some explanations with sitting with your emotion or with your self doubt. But what I wanted to ask more than that is practically for someone. And you know, I would assume that most people listening are living in their head, at least, perhaps, you know, not 100% of the time, but the majority of their time. And I will hold my hand up, and I will say, I am one of them, honestly, however, living in the heart, it is, in many ways, it is, I personally see it as a spiritual evolution. I will use this phrase, but it doesn't matter how one calls it. It is a more, let's say advantageous way of living, certainly more at peace, more aligned with our true nature as beings and so on. My question is, what can one do? You mention meditation? Let's say one does practices meditation. What is something else one can do to travel more into that journey from, as you say, the beautifully in your talk, the journey from the head to the heart.

Mario Lanzarotti: 18:54

Yeah, that's a great question. And you know, the what we have to understand about that is that that old age saying the mind thinks and the heart knows, and what that actually means is that when you live in the heart, you live in truth, and we all know ultimately what is true for ourselves. We know what we want. People often say this. It's like, oh, I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want, and I'm and I often challenge people, and I say, I think you do know what you want. You're just too scared to own what you actually want. You know that you don't want to be in this career. You know that you don't want to work with these clients. You know that you don't want to be single. You know that you don't want to live in the UK in the cold weather, and you want to move to Greece. You know that you you know you already know this is the this is the attitude that we have to take. And when you come from a place of truth. You're now also living at the risk of losing your ego in your your constructed self, the busy, constructed way that you have to think that you have to live your life and look, I have compassion for this, because I've been through this many, many, many, many times, and I'm going through it right now in many different ways, because my mind is telling me go left, and my heart is telling me go right, and the heart is very silent. It's very clear. It doesn't have to make a great bravado. It doesn't have to give me a drama chaos, none of it. It's just saying you're supposed to go this way. And the mind then goes and creates. It's all of these limitations, all of this. But what if this happens? What if I lose my job? What if I lose the approval of my family? What if no one likes me anymore? What if people cancel me online? Oh, my God. Oh my God. And the heart just keeps saying, hey, go right. Keep going right. And so in order for one to to to make this transition as smooth as humanly possible. In my experience is you have to slow down. If you don't slow down, nothing else matters, because you're not going to hear it and you're going to be caught up in the jungle of your mind, in the in the in the radio station that keeps telling you, I'm not good enough. I can't do this. I'm not ready. It's too late. You're going to be caught up there. And so you have to slow yourself down. And that starts by taking deep breaths and by actually slowing down your movement. Literally, people think slowing down is like, this complex style, this is this? Like, what do I have to do? Like, this is done the seminar. I'm like, no walk slower, Drink slower, eat slower. Just move slower. Slow down. Your speaking tone, all of these things help your body start to move into into a into a peace response, right? Your your nervous system starts to regulate, starts to slow down. And when that happens, you're going to be confronted with two things. You're going to be confronted with all of the stuff that you've been running from, which is the I'm not good enough, I've I've missed out on life. People don't like me. I'm a loser, I'm a failure. All of those limiting beliefs that we've been running away from, they're going to come up, and you're not going to like that. It's going to feel uncomfortable. Some anger will pop up, some sadness will come up, some guilt, some shame. And when you sit through that, when you breathe through that, there's going to be peace, there's going to be clarity, and then you're going to get these intuitive moments of like, call Agi, ask him to be on his podcast. Go book the ticket to Dubai. Quit your job, buy that book, let go of that person, and it won't make sense in many cases, because your mind will go, Yeah, but, yeah, but, but the moment you follow it, you're going to you're building trust in the heart. And you do this day after day. Literally, this can be a daily practice, and over the next course of months, you've built so much trust in your heart that now you know this is a path for me that I can trust, and it's resulting in in beneficial experiences in my life. So why wouldn't I just keep going down, walking down that path?

Agi Keramidas: 23:33

Thank you, and I will only add to that when you have this kind of inspired thoughts or ideas or that come up, or knowing that comes up many times because it is and again, I will speak from my personal experience because it is impractical to take action on them straight away at where you are, and because they can be subtle, they can be forgotten. I was keeping a diary of these kinds of thoughts so that I can refer to those inspired ideas that I had, so I'm just adding that as something that helped me to keep track of because there can be a lot

Mario Lanzarotti: 24:26

that's a good One, that's a very practical

Agi Keramidas: 24:30

one. Mario

Unknown: 24:33

in

Agi Keramidas: 24:35

facing self doubt and expressing our self doubt to others, and all these things we have discussed so far, I want to add in the mix the element of self love, or as you said in your talk to fill our cup, our self love tongue, that's how you say it. So explain to us also the relevance of that, and specifically with in terms of self doubt.

Mario Lanzarotti: 25:13

Yeah, that's a great one. So the way that I got to this is from what I shared earlier, when I realised that if I stop running from self doubt, and if I stop making it an enemy, and if instead I sit down, I take deep breaths, I place a hand on my heart. And I allow myself to actually feel what I haven't allowed myself to feel. That very act is an act of love. It's an act of love towards the self that I've been running from because the self that's creating the thoughts around I'm not good enough, I can't do this. I'm not ready. That's a part of myself that I've been abandoning, that I've been rejecting, that I've been denying. And it's so interesting, once you do this work, you will understand, for instance, a lot of people have have a fear of putting themselves out here, like doing a podcast, recording content, doing a TEDx talk, because they will say, What if people judge me? What if people reject me? But I can guarantee you, it's every time. It's not because of some something that someone's actually saying in their life. It's because of of is a reflection of how they are relating to the part of themselves that's scared. That part is saying, oh my god, oh my god. What if people judge me? And what do they do? And they go, you don't matter. Shut up. I don't want to hear you. So they push it away. So they go, work harder, study more, learn more, achieve more. But if you actually let that part come up and give it love in the way that I showed and explained, that part is going to feel loved, that part will feel acknowledged, seen, listened to, and in that way, you're meeting your own needs, and that's how you fill up the self love tank. And this is different from what a lot you see in this, in the in the popular culture, whereas the sense of like, just love yourself, you know, just just, you know, take a bubble bath and do something that's good for you, that that's nice. I'm not saying that's bad thing, you know, sure, but this goes way deeper. This is about actually healing the relationship that you have with all of yourself, because everything that you're lacking on the outside is a reflection of what you're lacking on the inside. If you're lacking money, you are not taking the actions to get the money. Why you're not taking the actions? Because there's some form of doubt or fear that you have that is preventing you from taking that action. If you're if you don't have a great relationship, is because you're either choosing the wrong people, or you are the wrong person. You're not showing up as a kind, loving, courageous, warm person, you're holding back, and that's because of the relationship you have with yourself. And so this kind of shift empowers you beyond measure, and it gives you back the power that you've always been looking for outside of yourself, and then you realise that it has always been within you. And to me, that's the most beautiful thing, definitely.

Agi Keramidas: 28:48

And thank you for this way of explaining how it is the word acceptance came to my self acceptance, you know, especially of the parts of us that we that are, let's say the dark ones, or the ones that they are not Showing Mario, there is for someone listening right now that I have, I've had quite a few conversations with people, and there seem to be all in a similar situation with which means external success. It's actually you have experienced that as well, and so have I success without fulfilment or with an element of disconnect, or something lacking despite, you know, having ticked all the boxes? So for someone listening who fits that criteria, what would you tell them what's one, perhaps one courageous step they could take towards alignment, fulfilment, or anything else that might be on the other side of this?

Mario Lanzarotti: 30:11

Yeah, it's a great question. And what comes up for me, there is a lack of fulfilment I often see is a reflection of a lack of being true to yourself. Because people are intelligent, we all have a natural intelligence. That's speaking to us at all times. 24/7, call it intuition, and this is pretty much what I to piggyback on earlier. This is the voice of the heart, and it's been speaking to you this whole time, but you've been so busy chasing goals, trying to make it, trying to prove something to the world or to yourself that you've been pushing away this voice, and I would say the first place that you have to start if you want to live a fulfilled life, you have to become quiet, and you have to slow down, and you have to start listening more than you're thinking. This is not a figuring it out process, and this is where most people struggle, because they're so especially successful people in the material sense, they're so used to being in control of their lives, of figuring everything out in their own means that they're always thinking. And this is not a thinking process. This is a listening where you might take a pen and a journal and you ask a question. You're like, Okay, what's what does a fulfilled life look like, actually, to me? And then you don't think about that, but you listen, you notice what comes up. This is okay, that kind of relationship. I want to live in this country. I want to work only one day a week, and all these things start coming up, and then you have a list, like you said, you have a list of other things that you can actually go through, and you could apply this new say, What would fulfilment look like in my relationships? And then my you might get an answer that says, you know, it would look like being true, being and speaking the truth and actually making peace with people and resolving conflict and taking responsibility, maybe, and saying I forgive you, or saying I am sorry, and you'll you'll be met with a list of items, of things that you can do and when, when that comes through. Now you are moved back into a place of alignment, and once you're in a place of alignment, you think from a place of truth, and that's when you can restructure your life. That's when you can restructure your business or your career in a meaningful way. But if you don't do that, you will be creating the next chapter from the persona that caused the chapter that's called I'm not fulfilled, and you're just going to continue the same process that leads you to the same place you know. To conclude with that one of my favourite quotes in the world by Albert Einstein. He said you can fix a problem with the same level of thinking that created it, and this is what most of us are doing. We're trying to use this one here, instead of stepping into this one. What?

Agi Keramidas: 33:29

What is the best place for someone who has listened to us and wants to explore more and find out more about you, Mario, where will you direct them?

Mario Lanzarotti: 33:41

Yeah, thank you for that question. I would say the best way is connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm very active there, almost Monday, pretty much Monday to Friday. Just find me. Use my name, Mario Lanzarote. And what I would say is, I'd love to hear what did you think about the podcast? What did you learn? What was your biggest takeaway, and maybe, is there something that shifted for you just be by listening to this podcast? And yeah, that's that's really my invitation. I'd love to hear from people.

Agi Keramidas: 34:13

Thank you, Mario. I also have two quick questions that I always ask my guests. And the first one is, what does personal development mean to you?

Mario Lanzarotti: 34:27

Personal Development to me, means mastery. It means learning to master the art of living in alignment with who I am and with the life that I am creating.

Agi Keramidas: 34:51

And hypothetically, if you could go back in time and meet your 18 year old self. What's one piece of advice you would give him?

Mario Lanzarotti: 35:02

That's a tricky question, because if I give him a piece of advice, it would change the way he acts

Agi Keramidas: 35:10

only if he listens it.

Mario Lanzarotti: 35:17

Yeah, it would, it would alter the course of my life, and it would change where I end up. And that would probably mean that you and I wouldn't have this conversation today, and so I will stay, stay with my with my philosophy, and I say, I wouldn't say anything. I'd say, you know, keep going, bro, keep you're going to make. Make a lot of mistakes, make them, and maybe I would just say thank you, thank you.

Agi Keramidas: 35:42

And I will also say thank you, Mario for this captivating conversation. I want to wish you all the very best with your mission and making a difference. And I will leave it to you for your parting words and any message for the listener of this conversation,

Mario Lanzarotti: 36:08

thank you, Agi, really appreciate the conversation with you and final parting thoughts, Agi, listen to your heart. It already speaks to you. It's already revealing to you what's right for you, and surrendering to that voice, giving into that voice, will be the scariest thing that you're going to do in your life, and it will be the best thing that you're going to do in your life.

Agi Keramidas: 36:44

Thank you for listening to this conversation with Mario Lanzarote. I hope it has given you a fresh perspective on turning self doubt into a guide for courage, fulfilment and self trust. If this conversation inspired you or gave you something meaningful, consider supporting the show. It's like buying me a coffee in return for the value you received. Visit personal development mastery podcast.com/support or just tap the link in the episode description. You Until next time, stand out don't fit in.