 And I was sitting there, and I was like, I don't know how I got here. I don't know what I'm supposed to do to get myself out of here. Who were you before the world told you who you're supposed to be? So who am I? Oh, let's get really deep, right? At a core level, who are you? A few weeks ago was my 35th birthday party, and we had a bunch of people come over to my house, this house that we just newly moved into not too long ago. And we probably had 25 people come over to the house and a bunch of friends that lived around town and one of my friends who came over is a friend who just recently moved to Austin. And he was actually my roommate in college for my last year of college, right before I dropped out to go start my business. And I kind of went into... We're all sitting outside, we're all hanging out, we're all talking, and I was looking over at him and I had this flashback to when we used to be roommates and how different my life is now compared to the way my life was then. Now, we were roommates, 2008, going into 2009. So we're talking at this point in time, about 12 years ago, right? 11, 12 years ago or so. And at that point in time, my life was only about a couple of things. My life was how can I get drunk as quick as I possibly can and how can I do a whole lot of drugs, right? And I'm telling you this because I want you to understand I'm not this perfect person who's just been this master of mastermind, like of my mind or anything like that for my entire life. The way I get into doing what I do now in the way I get into teaching people about mindset is because I had to try to master my own mindset to get to where I am. And so people think that I wake up and I'm just highly motivated, I'm just driven, all this stuff. No, I have to work on myself sometimes harder than anybody else that I know, but that in turn has given me tools to be able to teach people. And so when I had this little flashback thinking about him, I was like, man, my life is way different than when we were roommates. I'm literally a different person. The things that I enjoy now, I would not have enjoyed then. And if I would have met myself in 2009 then, 2008, 2009, met myself now, I would have gone, wow, I can't believe all of the stuff that you've accomplished. I can't believe all of the things that you've done. And I say that because I know there's people out there that are listening to me right now. And they're thinking to themselves, I don't know if I can get out of where I am. I don't know if I can get out of this spot. I don't know if I have enough energy, enough motivation to get out. I don't like what my circumstances look like, but I also don't see a light at the end of the tunnel. And there's been many times in my life where I didn't think that I saw a light at the end of the tunnel, right? So when we were roommates, everything was okay. I was in college and I was partying and getting drunk as quick as I could and smoking weed and doing whip-its and doing all of that stuff that crazy college kids do, right? Then after that, I moved out. He moved out. I went and started my own company and it went well for a while. And then it didn't go well. And I was working so much, I started actually resenting the company that I was building because I was literally working 110 hours a week for years. And I was working and I was working myself to bone. I had a quarter-life crisis and I was just over it. Didn't want to do anymore. And I ran into the ground and I had a moment of, I don't know how I'm going to get out of this. And if you've been listening to the podcast long enough, you know this moment. It's when I was sitting there and I was living off of pasta for two months. I was five months behind of my car payment and my car was about to get repossessed. And I was sitting there and I was like, I don't know how I got here. I don't know what I'm supposed to do to get myself out of here. There's no one that I know to ask for help and I don't want to be doing this anymore. All of the money that I did have, I had saved about $40,000 about eight months before then. I used into my business. I lost all of it. The marketing money didn't come back. So I was at a point where I didn't have anything. I was negative. I was overdrafting. Non-sufficient funds in my bank account. They were charging me 40 bucks for every charge, even though I didn't have the money inside of my bank account. And so I thought it's so crazy to think about how different my life is now compared to how my life was then. And then I thought to myself, man, the thing that has allowed me to get to where I am is this absolute obsession with always wanting to be better, always wanting to improve, never thinking to myself that where I was was going to be my final destination. Like just the thought of myself, of I know that if I work on myself, I can make this better. And I want to tell you that I was right. I won't often say that I was right, but there was something inside of me. There was a gut feeling of if you just keep working on yourself, Rob, it's going to work out. If you just keep working yourself, it's going to work out. And it did. And I can say that I love where I am. I love, I'm proud of myself for all the stuff that I've done. I'm proud of myself for the business and the achievements and all of those things. And I don't say it to brag. I just say it because I know that no matter where you are, you can feel the same. You can do the same. Now you're not going to get it right away. It might take you some time, but I promise you it'll be worth it. And then what popped up into my head was with all of that personal development, all this knowledge that's inside of my head, that's something that can never be taken away from me ever. Right? Like my house can be taken away, you know, my computer, my car, my everything, my camera that I'm shooting this on, the microphone I'm speaking into, the computer that's recording and all of that stuff, it can all be taken away. The one thing that can never be taken from me is the knowledge that I've built up over years and years and years of working it myself. And that's the most important thing. And the reason why is because that means I can always get it back. None of that knowledge can be taken away from me. So people want to buy things and they want to do all of this stuff, but I think what's really important is is trying to improve yourself at every single moment. So then I had another quick little flashback and I thought to myself, man, when did this personal development journey start? When did this personal development journey start? When was it? And I thought to myself, I remember hiring my very first mentor. I paid him 500 bucks a month when I was 19 turning 20 years old. I'd only paid $350 and right at that time. And I thought to myself, while it was still outside, it's my own damn birthday and I'm thinking this deep, right? There's all my friends all around, pool party, all of this stuff. Everyone's hanging out outside. I'm going into these deep thoughts like I always do because I'm so freaking philosophical, right? And then so I'm thinking to myself, oh man, I know when it really kicked off and it really kicked off when my mentor told me to read a book. And hopefully this book sales just spike up like crazy today, but the book is called The Five Major Pieces to the Life Puzzle and it's a super, super short book for those of you guys that are looking, you know, on video. It's this book right here. It's a short little tiny book for those of you guys that are following on just in the podcast. That's why you need to be also following along on Instagram or following along on YouTube as well. It's a tiny book. I mean, you can see it's probably 100 and, let's see, it's 119 pages. It's nothing, super easy to read. It was kind of like my gateway drug to personal development. And so I thought to myself, I should go inside and pick that book up and just see if the universe is ever going to give me messages. It's going to be now. And I believe that if I go pick up a book and I open up to a page, that's a message that I need to have. So I went in and my freaking birthday party is still going on at this point, guys. My birthday is still happening and I'm walking inside of my freaking house to go see if the universe wants to give me any messages for my 35th birthday. I walk into the house and lo and behold, the New University Society gave me a message. I'm flipping through the pages and I'm like, you know what? I'm just going to pick one. And I just open up to a page. The page that I open up to, I don't remember, I was looking for it. I didn't get enough time to look for it to find the actual quote. But it said something along the lines of don't underestimate where you can be in 10 years by dedicating work into yourself every single day and trying to improve every single day. And for me, it was like this message of you did pretty good. You're still doing great. Like you might not be where your final destination is, but you're doing pretty damn good. And it was eye-opening for me because I remember where I was when I wrote, like when I highlighted that because I highlighted the hell out of this book. Very first book I ever had. I highlighted it. I took notes, all of that stuff. And that's what really started me into reading. It's also really started me into highlighting and making notes. And I thought to myself, I remember where I was when I highlighted that. This is the time machine I'm telling you about. I had this flashback to, I remember when I was selling Cutco, selling knives in people's houses. And I was waiting for someone to show up to her appointment. She was late. And so I went back into my car and I was inside of my 2000, I think it was actually, no, what was it? It was a 1999 Nissan Sentra. It was all beat up. It looked like crap. And I remember I was highlighting this part of never underestimate what 10 years of work in yourself every single day will get you. It's like the compound effect. It's just little tiny improvements over years and years and years put you in a completely different place. And that was 15 years ago that I was reading that. And I thought to myself, what if I never read this book? What if I never hired my very first mentor? What if I decided to quit my job early instead of opening a franchise with the business? What if I decided to go the easy route? What if I decided to not follow my heart? What if I decided to finish college instead of dropping out? What if I decided to go the route that I was supposed to go, the things I was supposed to do? What if I would have listened to society instead of listening to my gut? And I thought to myself, my life could have been in a completely different circumstance than it is right now. If I would have gone the easier routes, but one thing that I've done consistently is I've always followed my heart on what I felt was the right thing to do. Most of the time, I'll be honest with you, it didn't logically make sense. The majority of the time, it didn't logically make sense. But for some reason, in my gut, in my heart, it felt like it was the right thing to do. And so what did I do? I just decided to follow it because I thought this feels right. Let me at least see what happens. Dropping out of college to start a business, that didn't logically make a whole lot of sense. There weren't a whole lot of people at my age. That time I was 23. They were dropping out of college. Yeah, I was 23. I still wasn't done with college for all of you guys that are judging me. I was going the long route in college. 23 dropping out of college so that they could go and open their own business. Normally at that time, people are trying to graduate college so that they can get into some company. It didn't logically make sense for me to start a podcast. It didn't logically make sense for me to start posting stuff on Instagram that was inspirational. It didn't logically make sense for me to try to start making viral videos. But all of those things added up to where I am now. Once again, I'm not telling you any of this stuff to brag. I'm telling you this just to give you my own personal experience of what I've noticed works really well in my life. And what it is, is sometimes looking at the way that you are quote unquote supposed to go and saying, you know what? That's not what I want to do. I know there's some people out here that are listening to me right now that are in college and they're thinking about dropping out and nobody's supporting them. But something feels right about it. I know there's some of you that are listening and you're thinking about leaving a relationship because it feels like that's what's supposed to happen. It feels like you're being restricted but it doesn't logically make sense. I know there's some people that are out there that are, you have the feeling that you want to quit your job and start your own business and it doesn't logically make sense but inside of your gut, inside of your heart, it makes sense I know there's some people out there that are you know, you had a little bit of money saved up and the only thing you truly want to do right now is travel so you want to quit so that you can do it. It doesn't logically make sense but in your heart, it makes sense. And I want you to realize that following your heart is always the right choice. I've been in all of those situations, right? The dropping out of college, been in that situation. I've been in the situation of needing to break up with somebody. I've been in the situation quitting my job to start my own business. I've been in the situation of quitting a job to go travel for three months and backpack around Europe by myself. Even though none of those things logically seem to make sense at that point in time in my life, they all felt right and I think that one thing we all need to get better at is listening to our gut. Thinking about what feels right versus what doesn't, what logically makes sense because ultimately, as I always say, your gut is your, their gut feeling is your emotional compass, right? Your brain tries to keep you out of danger. It tries to keep you out into your comfort zone. So it doesn't try, it tries to change as little as possible. Your gut though, your gut knows what's supposed to happen. And when you stay in places that you're not supposed to stay in, you can feel yourself getting more depressed or slowly slipping away or in, you know, what I always say is the way that I felt in certain aspects when I was working for somebody when I knew I shouldn't be and I want to start my business was felt like I was, my soul was just slowly dying inside of me. And so I want you to realize that a couple of things that I've realized from this time machine, from this flashback, from this 35th birthday when I went on this really deep thought process, was that number one, working on yourself is always going to pay off. There's never a downside to working on yourself, right? Invest the time, the money, the energy into yourself because there is no better ROI than working on yourself. I absolutely promise you that I've invested into a lot of different things. I've invested a lot of different things for myself and to companies and to real estate. I still to this day have not found anything that gives me a better return than putting money into my own development, business development, personal development, mindset, whatever it is that I'm doing. That's the first thing I'll say to you. And it compounds over years and years and years and years and years so that when you look back, like I am at 35 and see yourself at 20 years old, 15 years later you go, holy s***, Rob, yes, thank you for having this little gut feeling that you followed. Thank you for reading the books when you didn't need to read the books. Thank you for paying $500 a month for your very first mentor when you didn't really even have the money to do it. None of it logically makes sense, but thank you for being wise enough to do that. Thank you. The second thing that I'll say is this, stop thinking so much of your head and start thinking more with your heart because it's going to tell you where you need to go. It will. And if you stop listening to your gut, if you stop listening to your heart, eventually it's going to stop communicating with you. It's going to stop telling you because there's a pointless at that point. So if you have an urging, if you have a feeling, something feels right, it always is right. So work on yourself. Dedicate your life to working on yourself. Don't give up on yourself. And when things get hard, ask yourself what your gut feeling is and try to think of that and follow that path. And I promise you, it will never lead you down the wrong path. I've been in this space for a really, really long time. 15 years now I've been in personal development and I'll admit before I got into personal development, before I get into reading, before I get into working on myself, I thought that personal development in improving myself was stupid. My mom, when I was a child, in my teens, early teens, I remember her listening to Tony Robbins tapes and I was like, that is so stupid. Like this woman's listening to another guy telling her how to be better. I thought it was ridiculous. And then when I got into this space, it was like this awakening of how I have built myself unconsciously. That's the important part. Unconsciously into someone that I did not want to be anymore. And I don't know about you, that might hit, should hit home with you, might strike a chord. Maybe you've realized that who you are, you just don't want to be anymore. You want to be a different person, not the person that you currently are. And as I started improving myself, I started to feel like I was constantly in a battle. It was almost like there was me and then there was who I wanted to be. There was like this person that I built myself up to be and then the person who I felt like I actually truly was. And it was almost like I was fighting with myself. Like I would do things and I would think things and I would think, why the hell did I just do that? Like I would get into an argument. My girlfriend at the time, I'd be like, why did I just say that thing? I didn't mean, like that's not who I truly am. I don't want to be the person that says that. And I would think things and I'd be like, where did that thought just come from? Like who, who the hell thought that? Because I don't feel like I thought, like that's not what I want to think. And it felt like this constant battle of who I was versus who I felt like I truly was behind the scenes, if that makes sense. And I would think, how is it possible to have these thoughts that are so different than true, who these thoughts and these actions and these feelings that are so different than who I feel like I truly am deep down inside. And I realized that each of us has at least two sides to us. And that's why I said bipolar. It's not a knock on people who are actually clinically bipolar. What I mean is it's almost like there's two sides of us that are fighting at all points in time. I don't know about you, but it feels like I have two people that are inside of me fighting at all points in time. I had a friend that I was talking to about this the other day and he's like bipolar. He's like, I feel like I'm octopolar. Like I've got so many different people that have so many different viewpoints that are fighting inside of me. And it sounds like an alien movie, right? Like I have two people that are fighting inside of me. But in reality, it's when I take a step back and I think about it, it's kind of like the movies. I used to watch when I was a kid or maybe the movies I watched when I was a kid or maybe even the cartoons as well, where they're, this is what they meant when you have an angel on your shoulder and you have a devil on your shoulder. The angel is basically like your true self, who you truly are deep down below everything. The devil is like the conditioned self. So let me explain the difference between true self and conditioned self because this is super important for you to understand it. So the angel is more of like the true self. The devil is a conditioned self. So there's the true self, which is the angel. And when I think back to who I was as a child, when like when I think to who I was, when I was three years old and I see videos and tapes of me when I was a kid. I was this sweet little kid. I used to always, I remember I used to, I don't know if you guys can relate to this. I used to go on walks and I'd come home and I'd bring my mom like a rock or I'd bring her like a flower that I picked from somewhere. And it's who I was before the world told me who I should be. Right? It's my true self. It's before I learned who I was supposed to be. So it's who you are. Your true self is who you are, who you were before the world, before family, before society, before advertisements, told you who you were supposed to be. Think about that. Who were you before the world told you who you're supposed to be? And what happens is and the reason why we build up, we build up a conditioned self, aka get out of that true self is because at some point we were hurt and usually hurt at multiple stages in our lives. We were hurt. There could have been some trauma in your life. There could have been something that happened in your life. It was this is you before the trauma. This is you before the heartbreak. This is before you learn to protect yourselves. And what do I mean by protect yourself? Right? So let me give you an example of a dog. No dog is born aggressive. There's no puppy that's just like an aggressive puppy that's attacking everybody else around. Obviously there's different levels of aggressiveness and lovingness and all of that stuff in each person, in each puppy and stuff. But no dog is born aggressive. The aggressiveness is a defense mechanism that it is learned to protect itself. Usually an aggressive dog comes from an aggressive odor or a odor that beats their dog and that defense mechanism builds up. The aggressiveness builds up. That protection mechanism is the conditioned dog. The same way that we have our true self and then we're hurt and we have traumas we have things that happen to us. You don't go through this life without getting some scars. It's just things happen. People die. We get broken up with tragedies happen. Bullies happen. People get talked down to. We don't think that we're good enough. We don't think we're smart enough, pretty enough, fit enough. And we get down on ourselves. And that true self starts to hide. And so what we start to do is we start to build up walls around ourselves, around our hearts so that therefore people don't see who we truly are. And we become a little bit of like this conditioned self aka the devil on the shoulder. This is what we're told that we should be. We learn how we are supposed to be, how we're supposed to act, how we're supposed to treat people. And we also, we learn how to protect ourselves. We learn how to defend ourselves. I'll give you a perfect example of my own life and my own situations. When I was first became a manager, I was about, I was 21. I came a manager in this company and I started training people and I started running training seminars. I started running interviews very, very young age. And I started training people 17 hour, three day seminars. I would run meetings every single Wednesday for two hours for 30 to 50 people on average. I would run Sunday meetings for 30 to 50 people on average. Sometimes 100 people would be at the meetings as well. So I was in front of people all the time and I was training and I was working and training and working and probably about 18 months into being a manager. So I'm probably about 21 years old, about to turn 22 I would guess. I'm running the number one office in the entire United States out of 700 of them. And I think I'm just hot shit. I think we're crushing it. We're doing so well. We're making so many sales. And my manager at the time calls me up. He's like, hey man, I'm in town. Do you want to go get some food? I was like, sure. So he's like, all right, meet me at Chipotle. We go to Chipotle. True story. And he gets his burrito before me. I meet him there, I go in the head and I get my burrito and I sit down. We're talking for a few minutes and I can tell there's something that's not coming out that he wants to tell me. He goes, hey man, I've got something to tell you. Can I just be honest with you? I was like, sure, tell me. And he goes, okay. There's a lot of people that don't like you. I was like, oh, where did this come from? I wasn't expecting this to come out. And he started talking about, he's like, listen, I know who you truly are because I'm with you all of the time and we're constantly working. We're constantly, I can see who your true self is. But your true self doesn't come out very often when you're around people, when you're in groups of people, when you're, you know, some, it usually comes out one on one. But you are way more brash than you need to be. And I started realizing my condition self, right? I started realizing that I was pretending to be someone who I wasn't truly deep down inside of my heart. I wasn't that person. But I was hurt so bad as a child in different ways from my father to bullies to playing in sports and the way that guys talk to each other and treat each other. And I learned to have really thick skin and a really sharp tongue. So I would strike first with having a sharp tongue so hard that nobody would try to come back at me and nobody would ever try me. So it was basically like I was trying to not even consciously do it, subconsciously make myself seem superior to people and harder than people that nobody'd be like, I don't want to mess with this guy. And that wasn't my true nature. So when I look at who I was and who I had built myself up to be at 21 years old and I compare that to who I was when I see myself in videos at three years old, I wasn't the same person, right? That's the angel versus the devil, right? That's the angel on my shoulder, the devil on my shoulder. That's the true self, me as a young age, versus the conditioned self, the conditioned self that's trying to protect itself that's been through trauma, that's been hurt. And it's the aggressive dog that's trying to bark and scare somebody because it's really just terrified. Not because it's aggressive, but because it's terrified and it's trying to protect itself. And so I had learned that I had conditioned myself to be that way. And I didn't just wake up to it one day and then just got rid of it. I was like, oh, I'm just, I'm going to go back to my perfect true self here, right? That person still exists inside of me that I was at 21 years old. And I have to work to diminish that version of me every single day. Much better now than I was then. But we're talking about this little conversation that was 14 years ago and I still have to work on it. And I'm definitely not as brash as I used to be, not as sharp-tongued as I used to be, but I notice it starts to come up sometimes and I have to consciously bring it back. And sometimes I say stuff and I'm like, oh, God, I didn't mean to say that. It just kind of popped out and I have to backstep from there, right? And I don't know about you, but I would much rather be my true loving self more than I would rather be my conditioned self. I want to be who I was when I was a kid, right? I want to listen more to that angel more than I do to that devil. And I'm definitely not perving in any sort of way. I still judge people way too fast. I notice it in my head, but then when I judge somebody, I go, okay, that's not who I am. That's not who I want to be. And so that first thought comes up and that's the whole thing I was talking about, almost like the bipolarness where it's like there's just two people inside of me. There's the person who automatically comes up, the conditioned self, and they're like, ah, that's not my true self. And so when I notice myself judge somebody too fast or say something too fast or think something's too fast, I then in my head have to say three good things about the person that I just judged a few minutes ago, right? I have to consciously try to diminish that conditioned version of myself because I don't want that to be me because it's not even truly me. My true self is me when I was three years old. I still get pissed off when I get cut off on the road. Still comes out. I notice it come out. And then so I have to become aware, breathe through it, and then I remind myself that maybe this person is in such a rush because they've got to hurry up to the hospital to see someone that they love because something might have happened. Or maybe that person's really has to poop. I don't know, but I always remind myself they're either on the way, so when I get started to get pissed off from being cut off, all right, they're either on the way to the hospital or they're on the way to the bathroom. They either gonna go see someone they love or they gotta poop. It's one of the two things. And that kind of takes myself out of that little bit of a pissed off mind frame. And I go, okay, is it a really big deal that it's got cut off on the road? It's not. Am I gonna remember this in five years? No, I probably won't even be thinking about this in five minutes. And so I notice that thought come up. I notice those feelings come up and I have to just take a step back, be aware to get myself out of the feelings. I always say, heard me say it, if you've listened to the podcast for a long time, when you're in the jar, you can't read the label. I've got to take myself out of the jar of my head and say, hey, what's actually happening here? And it starts with having that awareness. I've got to become aware of who I truly am, who I have been and who I want to be. Well, that person's got to poop. All right, hey man, go ahead and poop. We've all been in that situation before where it's dire needs. You gotta get there. Maybe that's what that person, why that person cut me off, right? You can't control your first thought, but you can always control your second thought. Your first thought will pop up and then you gotta think, is that the thought that I wanted? It isn't. Okay, that was just my conditioned self. That was just the devil on the shoulder. It'll pop up, but it's about the awareness of going, yeah, that's not who I want to be in my future. I don't want to be the person that's sharp-tongued. I don't want to be the person who gets pissed off and people just for cutting them off. I want to be more calm, more loving, whatever it is. And then just keep working through it. The important thing though is not to judge yourself, because a lot of times when people start to work on themselves and they notice that person cut them off and they notice them getting pissed off, then they start judging themselves. Why would I judge myself? That's not who I truly am. And then get pissed off and stuff. No, it's about, all right, I've got the awareness. I see how it is. Let me go ahead and help myself work through this. And it's kind of like the ants will still pop off. So pop up. Ants stands for automatic negative thoughts. Those automatic negative thoughts are still going to pop up. It's just the way that life is. I don't know if you'll ever get rid of the automatic negative thoughts. I don't know if I'll ever get rid of the conditioned self, but I'm noticing that over years of working on myself, working on myself, it starts to get smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. I started to notice myself of years of working on myself to start to get more back to who I feel like I truly am. The automatic negative thoughts are still going to pop up. That automatic negative thought, which automatic means automatically first, is the first thought. Once again, you can't control your first thought, but you can always control your second thought. So what usually happens is it makes it easier for you. When emotion is high, logic is low. So if you notice yourself getting into high emotion situations where you feel a lot of emotion, when your emotion is high, your logic is low. That is the worst time to try to think critically, try to think logically of what I should do now. And so the best thing to do is noticing when your conditioned self will pop up and you don't want that conditioned self to be there and to make a plan when the emotion is not high. So if you notice yourself get pissed off, don't come up with a plan then, but later on when you cool down say, okay, that wasn't my true self. That's not who I want to be. That's not representative who I feel I truly am. So what can I do to make sure the next time that happens again, I'm going to have a plan right now that I'm going to create. The next time that that pops up and I feel very emotional or pissed off or whatever it is, that I have a plan of exactly what it is that I'm going to do. So the automatic negative thoughts are going to pop up. The judgments are going to pop up. The sharp tongues are going to pop up. All of those things are going to pop up at some point in time. You have to make a plan right now of what you're going to do whenever they do pop up. Because that's the journey that we're on. We're just constantly working on ourself. You're never going to be perfect. You're never going to be exactly where it is that you want to be. This journey of life is a journey of self development and personal development and spiritual development just becoming better every single day. That's all that we're really here to do is just to try to improve ourselves. So don't judge yourself when it happens. Have a plan and start to work through it. You can't control your first thought, but you can always control your second thought. That first thought is usually the conditioned self. That second thought can always be your true self. Who you truly are deep down inside, behind all of the protection mechanisms, behind all of the defense mechanisms, behind all of the walls you've built up for yourself, all of the hurt, the pain, the trauma, all of those things. There is a true self that's deep down inside there. That's the one that you got to find. And that's the one that you got to come in contact with every single day. 99% of people listening to me right now or watching me, however you're consuming this content, your perception of yourself is completely false. And let me explain to you why that is. There's a quote that's really good that I'm going to give you from a guy named Charles Cooley. And the quote summarizes all of this perfectly. And he says, I'm not who I think I am. I'm not who you think I am. I am who I think that you think I am. Now, what the hell does that mean? Let me say it one more time. I'm not who I think I am. I'm not who you think I am. I am who I think that you think that I am. So what exactly does this even mean? Well, let's dive into it. Most people think that they are who they are through their own perception of what they think other people think they are. So I think that I am the person that I see that you think that I am. Now, this is a really big problem because we're dealing with a perception of a perception, right? So not only is all of this completely false, it's so far from who you truly are. But so many people, I'm going to tell you why this is, but so many people have built their entire lives, their entire identity, everything that they know about themselves that they love about themselves that they hate about themselves off of a perception of what they think that they actually are. And it all starts off because in reality, the way that we learn the world and how to navigate through the world is through our parents. But we also learn who we are through our parents. We start off and we become who we think our parents think we are. That's the reason why parents need to be so careful with what they say around their kids and what they do around their kids because the children are literally going to build themselves up based off of what they see, what they think, what they hear. Children become who they think their parents think they are, right? And it's terrible, but some children are verbally abused when they're younger. It's a terrible thing and a lot of people never get over it. Why? Because even though a lot of people consciously know as adults once they grow up, they consciously know that the things that may have been said to them when they were little tiny children and they were just a sponge, they might consciously know those things are false. But in their subconscious, their subconsciousness is still holding it as true because they're not consciously thinking a lot as a child. If an adult comes up to a child and says you are stupid, the child a lot of times is two, three, four years old, is not sitting there and actually saying, well, is this true, is this false, is this true, is this false? It's like a big human just came up to me and told me I'm stupid. They're smarter than I am. I don't know how to navigate this world perfectly still, so they must be right. I must be stupid. And some people will be told something by an adult as a child and they take that as their truth and they act like it's their truth for the rest of their life. But the problem with that is that we're living our lives through what we see in other people. And we also have a really big problem. And the big problem is that people who are talking to you as a child, as you're growing up, as a teenager. And even right now, every single person has a skewed perception based off of their childhood. So looking to somebody else for information on who you are is like looking into a broken mirror to see what you look like. Let me say that again. Looking to someone else for information about who you are is like looking into a broken mirror to see what you look like. You'll never see the true picture because everybody who you talk to has different paradigms and different perceptions of the world around them. And so you're going to be seeing yourself through this broken perception, which isn't true. And so if you base off your entire life based off of someone else's perception, you're going to be living something that's completely false. Imagine this real quick. And I'll bring this together so it makes more sense and it's not as abstract. Let's imagine that you remind someone of their dad. Maybe you look like him. Maybe you talk like him. Maybe you have the same type of personality, whatever it is. Let's just say that they loved their dad. He was an amazing man. He did everything that he could. He's still around. He loves the hell out of this person. And you remind that person of their dad. Then they are going to have amazing feelings around you. And that's going to show when they are around you. And when someone has amazing feelings towards you and they let that show, well, what's going to happen, it will make you feel good about yourself. And you'll think, man, I must be a good person. You feel good when someone feels good around you, right? So if they love, if you remind someone of their dad, whatever it is that reminds them, then you're going to have this perception of yourself through that person who loved their dad. And be like, damn, I must be really awesome because that person really liked me, okay? Now let's flip it. Let's say that she just happened to look like their dad or you look like their mother if you're a female. Let's say their dad or their mom was a terrible person and you just happened to look just like him. Then what are they going to think of you? It has nothing to do with you and who you are. It has everything to do based off of their perception of another person in their childhood that they're bringing to them now. They're not going to like you, not because it's your fault, but simply because of their own perception of what you remind them of. And it might make you feel worse about yourself because you don't even know that you remind them of their dad. Neither one of those situations, whether they like you or whether they don't like you based off of whether they like their dad or whether they don't like their dad, neither one of those has anything to do with you. And that's why this is so dangerous. That's why it's so important to find out who you are and decide who you're going to be. You know, if I ask you right now, let's play a game, let's do this together. If I ask you, who are you? I want you to answer right now. Answer it in your head. Who are you? Answer it. Think about that for a second. Take a few seconds. Who are you? Say it out loud. Bring as many things into your conscious awareness that are you, that say who you are, right? And so, you know, some of you might say your name. Oh, I'm Rob Dile. Some of you might say I am a mother of two. I'm a father of three. I am 35 years old. I am from Florida. I am a brother. I am a sister. I am a cousin. I am a CEO of a beverage company. I am a janitor at the beverage company. Whatever it is, you're going to say these things. I'm a college graduate. I went to the University of Florida. When I ask you who you are, you're going to start naming off external things. But none of those are actually who you truly are. None of those things, your name, fact that you're a mother or father, your age, where you're from, if you're a brother or sister, if you went to college, if you dropped out of college, if you got a degree, if you got multiple degrees, none of those things are actually who you truly are. I'll give you an example that makes, let's just really try to dumb this down as much as possible, so I can just make it so it's as simple as I possibly can. I drive a 2018 Ford Raptor. I am not a 2018 Ford Raptor. Right now, you might be like, oh yeah, no, that makes complete sense. Of course you're not. Why would I ever think that you're a car? Well, I bought the car, which means that I have, quote unquote, achieved the buying of a car. If I'm not a Ford Raptor, then why are you a college graduate? Why are you a mother? These are all things that you have done. And some of you think that you're a mother or father, which you are, but at the deeper level, right, at the deepest sense, you were someone else before you birthed children. Weren't you? Who were you? Because you're always looking to the external to figure out who you are. You're always looking to other people, or your accomplishments, or your pay, or your job, or what is it you do, or your name tag, to figure out who you actually are. But at your core level, that's not who you are. Right, if I say I'm Rob Dile, that's just a bunch of, you know, sounds that were put together and given to me at birth. I wasn't Rob Dile when I was born, though. So who am I? Oh, let's get really deep, right? At a core level, who are you? This is why so many people have so much trouble when their children leave and they become empty nesters, is because they're like, for years, for 18, 20, 25, 30, 40 years sometimes, they have identified themselves as a parent. Well, then when their children leave, and they don't have somebody to parent, they're always like, well, who the hell am I? Then it becomes this big wake up love figure, I don't know who I am, because people base who they are based off of the external, not the internal. We base it off of other people's perceptions as well. We base everything off of other people's perceptions or the external, but none of those things are actually who you truly are. You weren't a parent when you were four years old, were you? So being a parent is something that you've done. It's something that you've accomplished. You might say there's anything wrong with being a parent, but you weren't a parent when you were four years old. So who are you? You know, I wasn't a Ford Raptor driver when I was four years old either. These are all just external things that we've accomplished over time or gotten over time. So you have to stop basing who you are off of other people's perceptions of you or external accomplishments or things about you. Now, this might be really messing with some of your minds, but when you really get it, you can actually see how powerful it is. Because if you are none of those things that you actually think that you are, then what are you? You know, are you just a spiritual being or a soul or whatever you want to call it that's just inhabiting this meat suit called your body, right? Think about that. And this is why it's so messed up and this is why we could go so deep into it, right? I'll give you a really good example through a story and how this can change, how this little tiny mini perception can completely change your life, right? There's a story about this kid and he's in the 11th grade and he's been failing all of his class, 9th grade, 10th grade, barely getting into the next grade and his parents are called in because he has this, you know, he's about to have to probably redo the 11th grade. He's getting terrible grades. He's not showing up at school. He's not hanging out with the right kids, all of that stuff. And his mom forces him to go take the SAT because she's like, I really want you to get an education. I really want you to turn your life around. And he's like, it doesn't make any sense. I'm stupid. I feel all of my tests. I've never gotten good grades. I'm barely getting by and I'm not showing up to school because I know how stupid I am. She's like, just go and take the SAT. So he goes and takes the SAT and for those of you guys that are in America, SAT is just a test that you have to take in order to get to college. And he takes the SAT. This stupid kid, quote unquote, stupid kid, failing in school, not showing up, not hanging out with the right people, gets a 1480 out of 1600, which is that's like the top 5%. He gets a 1480 out of 1600. He gets such a good grade to show him how smart he is. His mom actually thought he cheated, but he didn't cheat. And he realized he didn't cheat. He knew he didn't cheat. And he went, Oh my God, I'm actually smarter than I thought I was. What the hell have I been doing? And so he looks at this and says, I'm smarter than I thought I was. Maybe I, if I did so well in the SATs, imagine what would happen if I started studying. So he starts waking up earlier so that he can study. He starts changing who he's hanging out with. He starts showing up to school more because he's like, Oh my gosh, I'm smart. Maybe I can actually do better. And he changes entire life around, starts getting amazing grades, gets into an Ivy League school, becomes a super successful entrepreneur. Right? And here's the crazy thing about it. Every 12 years, the SATs, what they do is they review all of their tests and they go through them. And when they went back through this guy's test, he got something in the mail that said that he actually didn't get a 1480. What he got was a 740. What happened was the machine accidentally doubled his score. So he got a 740 out of 1600, which is not good. But he thought he got a 1480. But because of the fact that his little, literally a couple numbers on a piece of paper changed his entire perception of who he thought he was. He started showing up differently. He started realizing that he was smart. He started taking, you know, time to wake up earlier. He changed the people that he was around. He started studying for his exams. He started going to school and paying attention more and taking all of the notes that he needed to. His perception of himself changed based off of seeing a few numbers on a piece of paper. And what happened? Because his perception of his self changed, he changed. Now think about how powerful that is for that person to change their life completely based off of literally four numbers on a piece of paper. Think about all of the things in your life that you've been basing your life off of what people have said about you, what people have done, the things that you've done, the accomplishments that you have or haven't had. You can be literally whoever you want to be. If this kid is failing out of school and can get into an Ivy League school and become a successful entrepreneur based off of four numbers on a piece of paper, you can be literally whoever the f*** you want to be. So who do you want to be? Because this entire episode, all I've been talking about, how all of the things that you think you are are complete BS. So if that's the truth, then who do you want to be? You can wake up every single day and decide who you want to be. And I don't mean I want to be somebody who's a millionaire. I want to be somebody who has, you know, accomplished this. I want to be somebody who's driving a Ferrari. I want to be someone who's got an amazing family. I want to be an amazing parent. I'm not talking about any of those things. Those are all still external. And this is why it can be hard because we base our, literally, our entire perception of everything based off of external. I want to turn it to internal. Who do you want to be before you walk out of your door? Get out of your bed. Who do you want to be internally before any of those things come up to you? Do you want to be kind? Do you want to be loving? Do you want to be humble? Do you want to be sweet? Do you want to be generous? Who do you want to be at every single moment of your life? And how do you want to show up for other people before the accomplishments, before people see you, before people decide who you are? You decide who you want to be. No one else. What you do is the same way that when you get in your car and go to a place that you've never been before, you get your phone out and you set your GPS. You want to figure out how to go from where you are to where you want to be. You set your GPS. So if you wake up every single morning and you say, who do I want to be today? I want to be kind. I want to be loving. I want to be sweet. I want to be generous. I want to be giving. I want to stop judging people. I want to think the best of people that I possibly can. And you set your GPS, your mental GPS, your internal GPS for who you want to be. It changes how you show up in the world and you realize that other people's perceptions of you have literally nothing to do with you, but you've been basing your entire life based off of your accomplishments and other people's perception. And when you're so firm into who you truly are, other people's perceptions mean nothing to you. Outside circumstances mean nothing to you. They don't change you in any sort of way. So what you need to do is you need to get a pen and paper out and say who do I want to be? You decide who you want to be. And then every single morning you mentally set your GPS to become that person and see what happens in your life and how your life starts to change the exact same way that when that little boy got a piece of paper that said four numbers on it, it completely changed the trajectory of his entire life. Imagine if you didn't get that. Imagine if you got the real results where you could be. The exact same thing is true for you. What you see on that piece of paper of who you want to be, how you set your GPS is going to change where your life goes from this moment forward.