CHASE HUGHES: what if I told you that carrying that, carrying the shame or guilt about that, makes you a bad person. And that shame is not morality. It's cowardice. It's absolute cowardice.

🧠 This Will Stick With You Forever… pic.twitter.com/smOOhx9SNQ

— ⭕️ Chase Hughes (@NCIUniversity) October 30, 2025

What I want to try to do tonight is give you something that I pray and I hope will stick inside of your brain for the rest of your life. And I'm going to give you something that is going to flare up your ego's defense mechanisms a little bit, but I want you to promise me are you willing to suspend any of the ego stuff that comes up, any of the "that's not me. I would never do that," or the "I'm way more perfect than what he's describing."  So as we kick this off, I want you just to think about the one thing that you are ashamed of.  The one thing maybe you hate yourself for the most, and you don't need to say it, you don't need to type it in, and what if I told you that carrying that, carrying the shame or guilt about that, makes you a bad person.  And that shame is not morality.  It's cowardice.  It's absolute cowardice.  And if you keep clutching onto it, people are not going to get a gut feeling to trust you.  You're not going to be followed easily unless you fake it for the rest of your life.  And you're never going to be free 

This will BREAK YOU (out)  https://t.co/IRPW68dZXC

— ⭕️ Chase Hughes (@NCIUniversity) October 29, 2025

CHASE HUGHES: Shame today is institutionalized. It's a public weapon to use shame.

How we metaphorize maturity with ownership.  If someone makes fun of you online, like own it, or if you did something wrong and you get caught, like own up to it.  What's going on there?  

When it comes to owning things, you can own it with shame.  You can own it with fear.  You can own it with obligation.  You can own it with guilt.  Those are like the big four: shame, fear, obligation, guilt.  Or you can own it with just "it is what it is," and see yourself as a fact instead of all the other people.  Like those are layers of how we see people.  Can . . . am I able to see myself as a fact?  Like well that's just what happened.  It's just something that happened. I'll definitely work to make this better in the future.  I'm in charge of the future.  I'm not in charge of the past right now.  But once you get to that delusional self forgiving, you get into the mode of viewing life almost not in a bizarre way but like a video game, like, "Well that sucked.  Let's try to do better this next week or next month."  And if I treat it like it's a video game and still I'm good to people, I'm good natured, I have great intentions, I'm not hurting anybody, I'm not trying to hurt anybody, then I think we tend to enjoy our lives more.

More on shame.

The fastest way to read a human being, number one way, is to keep one question in your head.  It is "What does this person want me to feel about them and what do they want me to notice?" because everyone wears some kind of a mask.  The mask is made up of the things that this person built to conceal shame.  And shame today is institutionalized.  It's a public weapon to use shame.  So shame creates cognitive dissonance, which is a mental discomfort. Mental discomfort says, "I don't want to be this uncomfortable in front of people."  That creates a mask.  So we wear these personas in these masks to cover up something.