 One subject that has come up quite a lot recently in pretty much all of my coaching sessions lately has been the subject of acknowledging where you currently are. Most people don't actually know where they're at in their life in terms of what's the main pressing issue of the day. So what that means is somebody who's very, very fat, like obese, you know, like 40% of the United States at the moment. That kind of person usually does not acknowledge the fact that he's obese and that this is a big problem unless the the world forces it on him through illness or signs that illness is coming soon. So that person conducts his life normally as if nothing happened, as if nothing's wrong, and you know, they conduct their life regularly, they get pissed off on traffic, they have their job usually, have some sort of a relationship usually, and it doesn't come up. It's not like, hey, the pressing issue of the day is I'm obese, it's gonna kill me. So by not acknowledging that this is where this person is at, he will never actually be able to solve the problem until it's too late, until like in 2008 with the credit crisis crash it was too late, you know, everybody's like, oh shit, you know, there's a problem, but nobody acknowledged that there was a problem until everything crashed, or you know, that again, that person won't acknowledge the obesity is a problem until it's too late. So I talk to people all the time who are in various states of denial, and that's kind of the fundamental thing that these people are missing. I really managed to boil it down to this. It's you don't acknowledge where you are. So just to give you some examples from a few recent coaching calls without of course naming any names. So a guy that I talked to today, young guy a couple years younger than me, wants to be rich and successful and travel the world, but his main problem is that he's in college right now, and he's too afraid to quit college, and I was like, okay, why? And we talked about it, and okay, it's his parents. That's a problem. He knows he doesn't want to be in college, but his parents really care about it because they're you know, previous immigrants, and it's kind of that mentality. But upon further investigation, we found out that the main issue is actually the fact that he's afraid to leave the house and get kicked out of the house. And I had to explain to him that you can't think of you can't focus on being rich and traveling the world and treating that as if that's like the next step when you're still too afraid to leave your house at age 20. That's like imagine you're again an obese person and you're training, you know, thinking, not training, but thinking about one day running a marathon, and you say, one day I'll do it, one day I'll run a marathon, and instead of that thing pushing you forward, the fact that you're thinking so far ahead is just an excuse to wait. So you're like, okay, one day I'll do it, so I'll keep sitting and thinking and you know, watching videos about it and motivational content and one day I will do that marathon, but you don't acknowledge the situation, like, look, you're in no shape to do a marathon. You're obese. You should be aiming for the next logical step, which is I gotta shave some weight. Like, I even just get thin. I gotta get too fat from obese to fat. That would be a massive improvement already. So that lack of ability to acknowledge your situation, it keeps you in place. So either you act normally, like there's nothing wrong, or if you do take action, it's on the wrong things by the fact that, for example, again, if you're obese and you're not focused on that, you're gonna find problems. Everybody finds problems in their life. But the problems that you're gonna focus on are going to be, oh, my boss said this to me, or oh, my wife treats me like this. Oh, the money thing. Yeah, okay, that's important, but unless you focus on the main thing, which is the fact that you're obese, you're not gonna be around to talk about these things for a lot and many more years. Another client that had similar problem, but with completely different circumstances was, and again, just for the sake of privacy, I'm not gonna say names or anything, a guy who his wife recently left him and just took their baby and pretty much filed rape charges against him and he needed to get his life together and fix it. Now, he had a job and, you know, he's a pretty fit guy. He's very health-conscious, very takes care of himself, learns all the time, but he was conducting himself at work and in his regular life, as if everything is just cool. So imagine like the mother of your child running away with your baby and putting you in a legal battle where you're most likely going to lose that baby. And instead of making it your, kind of like your life's purpose at that point, you just, you try to fix it, but you try to fix it like it's some activity, like going to the gym or going to work, instead of like completely adopting it and making it your main purpose. And that was his problem. So everybody knew about this problem. Everybody thought that he was a great guy and we were rooting for him, but I told him, look, you need to completely adopt this identity. You need to acknowledge where you are. So you need to acknowledge, like, look, I'm fighting for my kid and I'm fighting for my life, to some extent. That's where I am. And by acknowledging that, you realize that this is the most important thing. And now you can actually solve it. So that lack of ability to acknowledge where you are will be pretty much years of your life spent in wasting time. And again, the way the symptoms react in this is you're not going to do anything. So that's pretty much the best way to know that you're actually not acknowledging where you are is that you deeply feel that there's something wrong with your life. Either emotionally you feel that, or again, there's proof that there is something wrong. And you find that instead of facing that feeling, you just try to avoid it. And also another indicator is that you never actually move on your dreams. So you, you know, again, if you want to be highly successful, you notice they're just sit at home all day and think about it. If you want to become very fit, you just, again, think about it, but there's no concrete action. And usually it becomes, it happens because of you overreach. So by not acknowledging, like, hey, I'm broke, so that means I need to get some initial finances just to be able to survive or finance a business that I'm going to start. Instead, you think about becoming a billionaire, you know, like broke guys think about one day I'll be a billionaire. Like, yeah, sure, sure, that that makes perfect sense. And then people will criticize you for saying that, like people will be like, hey, you know, that's so pessimistic. Why would you talk like that? But I mean, it's just statistically true. Like why it's not pessimistic that not a lot of people can become highly successful marathon runners. Not a lot of people can become billionaires. And you know, what's especially realistic, it's obese people are not likely to become highly successful marathon runners. And poor people are very much unlikely to become billionaires. But, you know, who's more likely to become a billionaire, somebody who's actually starting a business and working towards that, you know, who's likely to become a successful marathon runner, somebody who is dramatically losing weight by exercising heavily and also motivating himself to eat properly. So just virtue signaling by thinking about things that you want to get in the future does not move you forward. And again, the reason it happens is because you fail to acknowledge where you are right now. So if the obese person realizes and focuses and confronts the fact that he's obese and that's a major, major issue, he can stop fantasizing about the faraway stuff and virtue signaling about things that he might be one day if he actually perhaps maybe does the work. Because that's theory. But there is a problem right now. You're obese. It's dangerous. And by acknowledging it, there's a chance of taking care of it. Once you go from obese to fat, well, now you can acknowledge, okay, I'm fat. I'm still not thin. So now you can actually fix it and get thin. Now you got thin. Now you can say, okay, I want to become a marathon runner. Now you can acknowledge that. You can work to become a marathon runner. Then you become a marathon runner and say, I want to be the best and now you have a chance to be the best. So work at it from steps by acknowledging where you are at every situation. And again, you can know that you're not recognizing where you are when you start leering into fantasy. Fantasy that's not based on action. That's not based on moving forward, but simply based on feeling good because you think about something cool or again, another symptom would be just finding yourself getting really upset by things that should not upset you. So that's the second best indicator that you're not acknowledging where you are because we all have problems that we need to get upset about that really, really require our attention. They could be related to money or health or relationships or family or anything else. But when you find yourself getting pissed at the gym or at the the waiting line at the bank or because somebody said something mean, what that means is a clear, clear indicator that you're not, you're hiding something, you're avoiding something because you're gonna have to get upset about something. And if that something is not important, that means that you're hiding the important thing and you're currently in avoidance. So take this advice to heart. Again, this is the main thing, the main topic that comes up in my coaching course. Like the biggest one is you don't acknowledge where you are, so you're got stuck and I simply show you this is where you are. And then we move forward from there. So it's just one step forward, but after years of being stuck in the same place, we will feel to you like like a world of difference. But imagine if you caught yourself ahead of time instead of waiting for years and you know actually said this is where I am and you know acknowledged it, moved forward and multiply that by years of action. Now that's something. Anyway, hope you enjoyed this one. The next one is coming up in a couple of hours. Please subscribe if you haven't and I'll see you soon.