What is up, everyone? It is Saturday, November 11th of 2023. I am here with you for another family education and support group. Really grateful to be here. I missed you guys last week. I will be here today, we’ll be here next week, so we’re good to go. We’ll deal with the following week as that time comes. It’s going to be Thanksgiving, the holiday kind of weekend, but so if you’re coming into this channel for the first time, you’re tuning in, you’re logging in, I want to welcome you first and foremost and say that my hope is that you’re able to find something in this channel, on this stream, in our content that helps you and your family in your healing, recovery and transformation process. It’s a journey, it’s a process and in order to get to where you want to get to in life you got to go through certain steps and certain experiences that allow you, that provide the catalyst for change.
So a couple things about myself as we wait for others to pop on. And this is interactive so as you’ll be able to see soon I could put up comments like, for example, Marilyn’s saying “What’s up?” to myself and everyone else on the channel. Mr Jim Shand, our esteemed colleague and clinician and a good friend. Mom and Dad, anytime your mom and dad are able to pop on anything in life, be grateful for it. For those of you who are still fortunate enough to have a mom and dad you know what I’m talking about, and for those of you who don’t you also know what I’m talking about. So it’s nice to have my parents there. Going to dinner with them tonight at a Persian restaurant. How cliche, Persians going to a Persian restaurant, but it’s okay. Sometimes you have to have a little bit of that. Bita, well, she has been following us for a good amount of years. Kenny and the crew at Pacific Sand Recovery Center what’s up everyone? Hossein Jan, what’s up from the Bay? Katalin, how are you my friend? So you could see that people can pop up and say what’s up.
About myself real quick, so my name is Parham, I have a Master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy with an emphasis in Child Development. Let’s see, my specialty comes with addictions and the addiction processes and behaviors. But I am a Mental Health clinician. I am on the faculty of a local community college to teach a community college class. I’m still waiting on the bench for them to put me in but I am on the faculty and I attend all the staff meetings. I do coach high school basketball – I’ve been doing it for 15 seasons right now and that’s why I missed last week. And if I miss any of these upcoming Saturdays that’s going to be the reason but it ends around January so you know there’s no more conflicts. I am in recovery myself so June 13th of 2008 is the day that I say I changed my life around and ultimately changed my world and in the world of those around me. And so my hope is that my personal experience, my professional experience and my expertise that I’ve gained over years of doing this allows for a platform to be created for you to sit here and get some value out of it, to give you a good return on your investment – it’s called ROI. You are investing your time with me right now so make sure that you leave this experience with something that you didn’t have before and we’ll go from there.
So you know I’m really big on this thing called personal development. A lot of people want their lives to get better, they want their relationships to get better, they want their health to get better, they want their I don’t know just the way they feel get better, but not a lot of people want to actually get better. So if you want your life to get better my friends, you have to get better. And I’m not saying that you’re bad, I’m saying you’re whole, perfect and complete the way you are, and the way you’re not. There’s nothing wrong with you, be you, but there’s a version of you in the future that is better than the version of you right now. And if you want to become that version in the future you must become better today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, until that vision becomes a reality. Okay, so that you know, what I did was I started to think of all of the people that I know that have been able to gain some type of transformation in their life and I kind of looked at their common denominators and I created an acronym system on the word Development. Some of you have heard this before, that’s okay, we’re always hearing it for the first time because each time you listen to something the goal is that you are a new version of yourself and a new version of yourself can retain information and apply information in a way that it probably couldn’t before. And the other thing that I’m really big on is, you know sometimes people say, “Well I’ve heard this before, I’ve heard this before in the past,” and what I say to them is this.
What’s up Jaleh Joon? You got Jaleh in hare, let me just say Hi. Jim: “I want my day to get better.” Man, don’t we all! Well, I’m happy that you do the things you got to do for your day to get better because if you want your day to get better and don’t do them, guess what’s going to happen? Nothing. And your day stays the same and your week stays the same and your month stays the same and your year stays the same and your decade stays the same and people say, “Why is my life just never changing?” Because you never changed. You resist change. You go against the forces of nature which are always teaching us and showing us the importance of change. If you’re stuck in your old ways wondering why life doesn’t look new and there’s no new ways it ain’t about life. It’s about you and your commitment to complacency and staying the same version. And there’s a lot of people who do it because they’re afraid. What if I do all these things? What’s going to happen? I don’t know. Let’s find out. So I looked at all these people and by the way, this is why it’s important. So if you say I’ve heard this before let’s say that you just went out and worked out or you were out in the sun all day or you were just kind of like in a really humid place and your body got full of sweat, well, what do you have to do as an adult that hopefully has running water? You go and take a shower, you wash your hair, you rinse your body, you wash your face and afterwards you come out looking, smelling, feeling like a million bucks. Smelling good, smelling fresh, but if the next day and the next day and the next day and the next day you don’t go and take another shower what’s going to happen is you’re going to start smelling like body odor. You’re going to start looking disheveled. You’re going to start looking tired. Someone walks next to you and they go like, “Oh my God,” because here’s the thing. The shower you took four days ago doesn’t do anything for your cleanliness today. So the talks you heard in the past, the inspiration you gained in the past, the motivation you found in the past, if you don’t constantly re-engage with content that inspires you, motivates you, even if it’s repetitive, it doesn’t mean anything. We must continuously remotivate ourselves the way we shower if we want to stay motivated. Simple. You know the simple things in life, things that are easy to do are also easy not to do. Ain’t that the truth? Ain’t that the simple truth?
Okay JD in the house what’s up over there good to see you my man!
So, what do we got here? You got this acronym system. Let’s start it off. It’s the word Development, and we’re going to go and we’re going to break it down all the way through.
1. And the first one is, if you want to grow in life, if you want to personally develop in life, if you want to go from where you are to where you want to go in life, you must make a decision and decide. I just did this group for a few group members a few days ago and I taught them this and it resonated with them so I want to say it to you so it resonates with you. What does it mean to make a decision and decide to change your life? What does it mean to decide? Well, let’s look at the word Decide. It’s spelled D-E-C-I-D-E. What other words do you know of in the English language that end with CIDE? Homicide, suicide, genocide, pesticide. Homicide means to kill off another person. Suicide means to kill off self. Genocide means to kill off a group or a race of people. Pesticide means to kill off bugs, insects, and rodents. So when you make a decision and decide to change your life around you kill off the previous version. You kill off the other options. You kill off the other choices. But what do people do? They decide to do something only when it’s convenient, only when it’s comfortable, and as soon as they start to feel their emotions dysregulated, as soon as they start to feel a little anxiety, a little bit of fear, a little discomfort, they go back to their old way again. It’s not a decision. You haven’t decided until you kill off the previous version. If someone decides to get sober that means you kill off the option of drinking and using it no longer exists, but what happens to them as soon as they get triggered somewhere, as soon as they get dysregulated somewhere, they go right back to the drink. Man, you never made a decision. You never decided. You just temporarily halted something. And the same thing goes to personal development. If you want to become a different version of yourself you have to decide to kill off the old version of life. Some people do and some people don’t. I got out of the business of trying to find out why. None of my business.
So let’s see what we got here. We got Ricky from Alabama, oh my goodness, Hey Bro! Good to see you, welcome, that’s awesome man! I know you said you were gonna be on here and you actually showed up. I appreciate that. That’s cool stuff. Oh I’m back. Okay sorry Jim, I don’t know what was happening there but yeah, take the bad options off the table full of choices. Thank you for letting me know if I disconnect or something like that. It really helps me and “My day is better because I’m here taking wisdom from Parham.” Thank you my friend, you’re really welcome. You know, it’s my pleasure. My day gets better when you’re here writing comments to me so it goes both ways.
2. So the next one we have here is this thing called expectations. If you want your life to develop and you want to grow in different areas of your life you must learn how to curb your expectations. William Shakespeare, a very famous poet that most of us at least know of, says that expectations are the root of all heartbreak. I’m gonna say that one again. So if you are trying to develop in life and you are trying to become a different version of yourself you must learn how to manage your expectations. William Shakespeare, a pretty famous poet, has the following statement. He says that expectations are the root of all heartbreak. And many people that come into this recovery world, this healing world, this transformation world, they have unrealistic false expectations, that by walking on this path and this journey for 30-60-90 days, that their life is going to all of a sudden magically get better. Don’t lie to yourself, my friends. It’s not the only thing that gets better when we discontinue the use of drugs and alcohol is the problems related to drugs and alcohol go away but every other challenge and problem and obstacle that you have in your life or have had in your life that you’re trying to overcome will be right there glaring you in your eyes. They don’t go away until we work on them, until we address them and that’s what it is. You know, family members come in, their kid gets sober, they’re like, “Alright, everything’s good now.” No, it’s not – their inability to manage their emotions, their inability to communicate properly, their inability to follow through with goals and expectations, their inability to become self-sufficient and manageable and reliable of their own life. That’s not all of a sudden going to change. It can change, it will change, if we curb our expectations and realize it takes time. It takes time to build new skills, to build new habits, to build a new way of life. Be careful of your expectations.
Jim wrote here that expectations can kill your peace and serenity. He doesn’t say they reduce it. He says they kill it. And you know, they say that our expectations and our level of serenity are a zero sum. So what is a zero sum? A zero sum means that let’s say two things cannot be more than 100. So if our expectations are 80 our serenity can only be 20. If our expectations are 50 our serenity can be 50. If our expectations are 20 our serenity could be 80 and if you got no expectations in life you can be blissfully living in peace. Katalin: “Consistency is the key.” Consistency over time is the key you know, because people can be consistent for 30-60-90 days, consistent like machines, and then all of a sudden they put their foot off the gas and they start to relax and before you know it they’re right back to living the way they used to live, doing the things they used to do, engaging in things they used to engage in. So that part of time consistency over time is where the magic happens. And that time is different for everybody based on how long you’ve been experiencing life, based on how long you’ve been experiencing life. Hossein Jan, yes, commitment is a key. It’s probably the key, you know. Let’s say if you want to develop in life, personal development, and I’m giving you this acronym system, let’s say all of this stuff is inside this box. The key to open the box up in the first place is being committed. But what do we do? Most people don’t want to be committed in life. Let’s see, we got a group member here, Julie says, “Repetition, repetition, repetition.” Repetition is the master of all skills. Doing something over and over again polishes our skill set. You know some of you have been on record telling me, “Hey, how are you such a good speaker? How do you speak so well?” I promise you, the first time I did a speech in class I was drenched in sweat. My jaws clenched. I blacked out. A five minute speech was a minute and a half, and I ran out of things to say. Well, right now I can speak for five marathon days and I won’t run out of things to say. Repetition, repetition, repetition. It is the mother of all skills. People want to do things a few times here and there. Oh my God, I got a quote that I love. This is helping me in my pickleball journey. Okay so, “Amateurs do something until they get it right. Professionals do something until they can’t get it wrong.” Man, how many people do something just to be able to do it. If you really want to level up you got to do it till the point that you can’t do it wrong. That’s powerful. And that comes from commitment, consistency and repetition to put everything together.
3. So the next one that I have here is our Values. Our values are our guiding light in life. Our values allow us to experience a life that aligns with our truest self but here’s the thing. If you don’t know what your values are you will never have the opportunity to experience that. If you’ve never sat down to identify what your values are in life you will never experience a relationship that is abundant of those values. If you’ve never sat down to realize what is important in your life you will have a life full of things that are not important. Sit down for 5 or 10 minutes and write down your values. And when you have that list make sure and ensure that everything you do in life aligns with those values. See, when we live by our values we are our strongest self. We are full of life, full of vitality, full of creation. If you say my value in life is honesty, my value in life is respect and my value in life is health, and you live a life that aligns and is congruent with those values at the end of the day you will feel good. If your value is honesty and you’re honest to yourself and honest to others you can look at yourself in the mirror, be proud of the reflection. If you say your value is respect and you respect yourself and respect others you look at the mirror at the end of the night and you like your reflection. If you say your value is health and you live a life that is mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, healthy you will look at yourself in the mirror and be happy with the reflection. But if you lie, cheat and steal and live a dishonest life, if you disrespect yourself and disrespect the world, and you live a life that is not only in line with health but the exact opposite of it, self-sabotage and destruction of self, you will look in the mirror and feel lost. People don’t even know their values in relationships and they put up with anything and everything. We only get in life what we’re willing to tolerate. You only get in life what you’re willing to tolerate. If you tolerate a specific toxic human being in your life and you’re pissed and annoyed and frustrated that person keeps treating you a certain way it’s not about them – it’s about what you have been willing to tolerate in your life. Because the moment you say, “This does not align with my values I will no longer tolerate this,” you just free yourself of everything that human being says and does. People don’t do it sometimes unfortunately. Whatever it takes to maintain my peace and serenity takes a lot of work but worth it. Yeah it’s the number one thing we got in life is peace and serenity. Number one thing. You know, I could be happy as a clam as long as I got peace and serenity or I could be stressed out, annoyed, frustrated. No serenity, no peace, and just hoping and searching for it. So sad that people just don’t understand how simple this is.
4. So the next one I got here is this thing called everyday. So the D was Decide, curb your Expectations, understand your Values, and then do it everyday. And why do we got to do things everyday? Because that’s the only way it becomes something tangible and it becomes something real and it becomes a part of your identity. Three days on, four days off, five days on, two days off, it doesn’t do anything but create an inconsistent experience in life. And are you willing to do something everyday for your personal development? Are you willing to go on a walk, read a book, talk to someone that levels you up? Are you willing to take care of your mind, body, spirit? Are you willing to help others everyday? If the answer is yes, your life’s going to get real good, real fast. If the answer is no, my question is, “Why?” If the answer is no, my question is, “When?” Simple as that. When are you going to start doing something everyday for your life? You know, the funny part is by the way, sometimes parents that talk to me they’re like, “Yeah, my kid’s not doing X Y and Z, they’re not doing this and that,” and my question is like, “Oh that’s cool, what are you doing everyday?” and they’re like, “No no no, I’m not talking about me. I’m talking about my kid, I’m okay.” I’m like, “I know you’re okay but do you have the life that you want? Are you the version of yourself that one day when you were a child you thought of becoming? If the answer is no, then what’s the difference between you and your kid? What’s the difference between you and your spouse? Just because they have a raging alcohol and drug problem they have to do something that you don’t? Remove the drugs and alcohol. All human beings must take steps for personal development.” Sometimes people say, “Why can’t I just be myself?” That’s okay, I just know that oftentimes people that think they just want to be themselves have resigned on the idea that they can be something different. They resigned on the idea that at some point in their life they had dreams, hopes, aspirations, goals for themselves and as soon as life hit him in the face, as soon as they experience some trauma, as soon as they experience some pain, they just said, “You know what, I’m just going to settle. I’m just going to settle.” I’m okay with it but they’re not peaceful, they’re struggling inside. So make sure you’re doing something everyday.
5. The next one we got is this thing called Lifestyle. So in Development, the L is lifestyle. Here’s what it means. Well, here’s what I think it means. Are you ready? If you want to grow and develop in life you have to remember the following. That your new life is going to cost you your old life. Are you willing to pay that price? Some people are and some people aren’t. Some people want to hold on to certain aspects and elements of their old life. They hold on, wondering why they don’t embrace or experience a new way of life or experience. You can’t have it both ways. If you want to grow and develop in your life you have to look at the areas in your life that you have to let go of that don’t serve you, that don’t help you get to your destination, that are holding you from your progress. And you got to become willing to let them go. And sometimes that means people. There might be people in your life that you might need to let go of. And some of you might say, “Well, that person is my family member, that person’s my this.” That’s cool. I’m not saying end your relationship. I’m just saying let go of the type of relationship you have with them. Some people say, “Every time I talk to this person and when I’m with them for like five or six hours, or I’m with them for a day, it just drains me. It’s too much to handle. They suck my soul out. They’re manipulative.” Well, hey, how about instead of five or six hours, you go kick it with them for an hour? Protect yourself, change the way you view the world, change the way you view others. Let go of certain aspects of your life that don’t serve you. Yeah yeah here’s Jim: “My old life sucked. This one doesn’t. Plain and simple.” Isn’t it funny Jim? Sometimes people know that their old life sucks but they still don’t want to let go of it? They know that they’re not happy, joyous and free and they still choose a life of misery. They get moments of glimpses of like, “Wow, there’s so much contrast to this new life versus the old life. If only I continue on this path for a little longer, maybe I’ll get to another destination. But life slaps them in the face and guess what they do? Revert back to the old lifestyle. They settle for status quo. They settle for their comfort zone. They settle for a life lack of progress. So sad man, so sad.
6. So the next one we have here, my friends, is that you must overcome your negative beliefs about yourself and others. So if you are trying to grow in life, if you are trying to take steps in your personal development in life, you must identify your negative beliefs and then you must overcome them. Here’s a good question to ask anybody in life. Who were you before the world told you who you ought to be, who you need to be, who you should be, who you shouldn’t be? Before the world stripped you of your authenticity, before the world stripped you of your uniqueness? Who were you when you started to believe things like, I am not smart enough, I’m not good enough, I’m not tough enough, I’m not blank enough, I’m not tall enough, I’m not skinny enough, I’m not buff enough, I’m not rich enough. Who were you before all these negative limiting beliefs started to penetrate your mind and penetrate your soul and your heart? You got to overcome them and how do we overcome our negative beliefs, is by massive action by contrary action. By doing what it is that we think we can’t do, doing it with commitment and consistency and repetition over and over and over again until you do it. And how long do you do it? Until it’s done. Here’s a fair question – how long does a mom give their infant child or their young child time to walk? Until he or she walks. It’s not like, “Oh you got six months and if you don’t walk by then, it’s over.” Different Strokes for different folks. It takes different times for different people. How long do you go on this path of personal development to accomplish your goals and dreams? Well, until you do and when you do a very profound and powerful thing happens. You get split into two and there’s a different version of you. Are you the person that can’t or the person that just did and now you have a binary choice. Black or white. One or two. Yes or no. Which one are you? And the moment you choose the new version of you the old you can die. You shed that skin. You free yourself. The caterpillar, the butterfly, the cocoon, the transformation, you know the story. I try the best version of myself and improve myself 1% every day. And by the way, I like this 1% Marilyn, here’s why. 1% is a significant, significant number. And someone might say, “Dude, what are you talking about? 1% is nothing. It’s like one out of a 100 is 1%” Well, if you don’t think that 1% matters, 1° matters, let’s just look at physics. Let’s look at nature, water, the life source. What makes the world live? Oxygen and water, right? What makes the world live? At 211° Fahrenheit water is water. At 212° Fahrenheit water changes form and turns into steam. On the flip side at 33° Fahrenheit water is water. At 32° Fahrenheit water changes its form and turns into ice. See, 1% can change our form. So 1% better can change your 1% better, it can change your life, if you subscribe to the importance of just getting 1% better in each and every single thing we do.
Eileen, what’s up Eileen from Miami? That is the mission. Too often we have no idea who we were. The tapes were implanted so young. Yeah you know, the tapes were implanted so long ago. You know, sometimes it’s like the people planting us love us. That’s the weird part you know. It’s people that care about us and they just want the best for us, you know. It’s kind of like that hypercritical parent that really wants their kid to be good at school and their intention is because if they’re good at school they have a chance to go to college and get a good job and just be a good member of society, but they’re so critical and so intense that when the kid gets a B they tell them, “Hey, like what happened there? What’s wrong with you?” You don’t even have to work. All you have to do is study. Why can’t you just get an A?” And that kid doesn’t internalize it that way. They think, “My mom or dad doesn’t love me and I’m stupid,” or “I’m not good enough.” So the intention was really pure by the mom to be like, “Hey, let’s do well in school,” but when the kid struggled and failed for whatever reasons the kid doesn’t think, “Oh it’s because my mom had best intentions.” “I’m not good enough, I’m not smart enough.” And that kid’s screwed, because everything he’s gonna do in life he’s never going to be good enough. So we unintentionally can do damage to people we love and then of course there’s the intentional stuff. People genuinely puts some tapes in their head that it’s really painful. Kids that get bullied all the time, man their self-esteem, their self-worth, really tough to overcome. People that experience trauma and the tape of what they’re worth, oh so hard to overcome. So we got to eventually overcome all these negative beliefs because they’re not us. They’re just thoughts.
7. So the next one is planning. I know Julie over there probably has a good one for planning here. I talked about it yesterday. But planning is very important because here’s the reason why. You ready? If you don’t plan for your life you will fall into someone else’s plans. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much. They got nothing on their agenda for you. You’re not even a part of their plans. You’re not even a blip on the radar. Because you want to know why? Whose plans? They’re into their own. So if you want your life to get better you must plan and prepare and here’s a wonderful powerful quote by a very, very, very successful college basketball coach named John Wooden. “If you fail to plan in life then prepare yourself to fail.” “If you fail to plan and prepare in life then then you must plan to fail,” because you are going to fail. You know people that wake up in the morning and say, “What am I going to do today? Where am I going to go today?” Man you’re already screwed up if you didn’t set that up the night before. It’s too hard to catch up when the day starts. It’s like changing the flat tire of a moving car. Did you get that one? If you try to plan your day after you wake up instead of planning it the night before right before you go to bed, it’s the equivalent of trying to to change a flat tire of a moving car. Good luck with that. It’s easier to plan when we’re stopped. It’s easier to adjust when we’re stopped. It’s easier to make repairs when we’re stopped. And then in the morning when you wake up you’re ready to go. You got boom boom boom boom boom lists of things that you’re going to get done and accomplished. Don’t sleep on the power of planning. It’s a game changer. Stick to the plan once you have one. Persistence. You know, that’s another thing what people do. They plan for a little bit and then when adversity comes in they hit the eject button. And they abort. They’re not persistent. They just get up and go. You know, it’s kind of like when people build a house and there’s proper planning that’s happening and then all of a sudden they’re building it one day and something doesn’t go as planned. Do they just abandon the house and say we’re going to go build somewhere else? No man, they’re persistent until they find the solution. They work around it and they figure it out and they move forward and build the house. Life is the same way. Plans are plans and if and when the plan changes we must change with it. It is very important to know. Like in sports you go in with a game plan. How good of an example is this? In sports you go in with a game plan, you have it all dialed in, you’ve worked on it all week, you feel like it’s going to work and execute perfectly with the goal of getting a win, and all of a sudden it’s all falling apart at halftime. You go in, you got a choice – do I stick with the plan? Yes, because we worked on it. Do I need to make some adjustments to the plan? Yes, we adjust and continue on the same path. Hopefully, those adjustments are enough to produce a positive outcome. And yep, proper planning, there it is. Proper planning prevents poor performance. I love that thing you know you shared it the other day – that was a very powerful one. I like it. Katalin says, “If I don’t plan my day I actually get very tired throughout the day, lost all day.” It’s 100% true. Because we’re trying to play catchup. We’re trying to pull all of our resources and finding out what’s the most efficient way to do it. And by doing so we are already burning at both ends of the candle because psychological thinking also has a physiological effect. So when she says she gets very tired, if you sit down and just think all day and not even move you’ll feel tired. Thinking even burns calories. People don’t know that but it’s very important to plan. So I’m glad we’re all on the same page with that one.
8. Now, the next one that I have is this thing called Mindset. So a growth mindset looks at challenges in life as opportunities for progress. A growth mindset and that’s what we want to have. We don’t want to have a mindset that’s based in stagnation and complacency, and it’s based on scarcity. You don’t want to have a mindset that’s afraid of obstacles and challenges. Because my friends, the only way you get better in life is by overcoming those obstacles and challenges. And here’s why. Because you have to become a different version of yourself. You have to tap into a higher vibration of yourself. You have to tap into a more resourceful version of yourself to climb and overcome that. And when you do, on the other side you are different. Look at all of the challenges of serious adversity you’ve had in your life. Have they not changed you? Have they not changed your perspective, your mindset? Oftentimes for the better. Then why when we get faced with challenges, and we get overwhelmed instead of fighting, we go in our turtle shell and hide in fear. We succumb to fear and as long as you do so fear will always win. And you will always be stuck in the same place. This talk of personal development doesn’t mean anything. So your mindset matters. How you do anything is how you do everything. Your mindset matters. What do we got here? Yep, obstacles are chances to grow. You know there’s another powerful quote I like. It says that anytime in life you experience a setback, a challenge, a problem, a breakdown, just know that after every breakdown there is the possibility of a breakthrough. A breakthrough of a new world, a new experience, a new you, so when you break down and you fall and you and your world is spinning around you either look at it as like I failed, I struggled, it’s over. Or you say what type of a breakthrough is possible, available for me on the other side of this breakdown? Embrace the breakdown. That’s where the magic happens.
9. The next one is this thing called Eagerness.
Do you remember my friends like when it was the night before your big birthday or like a holiday like a Christmas or something, or the first time you went on a family vacation, you’re about to go to an amusement park, you remember the feeling in your gut? Couldn’t sleep at night, so eager and excited for the life experience? As a child I know you experienced that but when I ask adults when’s the last time you were truly eager and excited for something they say, “Nothing man, I just get excited for the weekend.” I’m like, “Why?” “I’m not working.” It’s like, Okay, well, find another job, find another career if you don’t get eager and excited to show up every day for your life and you have to wait for the weekends, that means you’re just a walking zombie five days of the year. You’re pretty much dead. You’re not even living. You’re just existing. Be eager for change, for transformation. Be eager for a new way of life. Get excited, lose sleep, why not? Oh it’s not for you? It’s only for kids? If I only knew how hard your life was, if I only knew what you’ve experienced, do you really think people that are excited and eager and passionate all the time haven’t had similar life experiences? Do you really think that? See, it’s not a matter of what you’ve gone through. It’s how you deal with what you’ve gone through. Everybody goes through something. Do some people have it a little bit worse than other people? For sure. Do some people experience more pain and trauma than other people? For sure. But everybody experiences something. Just the fact that we’re watching this on the internet talking right now we are ahead of probably two billion people in the world that don’t have this opportunity but we don’t think about those things. We just live in a world of fear, you know. So please, please, please find reasons to be eager for your life. It’s a beautiful thing. Bita: “Unfortunately I’m not good at planning to exercise so I get help from a personal trainer. Now I have a plan to meet up with her at a certain time and day.” So what she’s talking about right now – it’s wonderful and it’s a proven method for success. You know there’s a little cost associated with it, but the reason why that works is because of the accountability piece. Now some people say when they use their dollars and their money you know it raises a level of accountability but the research actually shows that people that have an accountability partner or a gym partner or a workout partner are significantly, significantly more likely to exercise than people that don’t. So if you’re like sitting back and saying, “Well, you know she has the money to get a trainer, I wish I had a trainer, if only I had a trainer, I’d be ripped and fit too,” I want you to know that’s categorically false. The reason why this trainer is working is because she’s accountable to this trainer. It’s the accountability piece and ultimately the goal, by the way, is as she develops her psychological and emotional and physical muscles to become more consistent with her exercise routine and planning, as she gets better and better and better and better at it because if you repeat it, if you’re committed to it, if you’re consistent to it, it eventually becomes a part of your identity. We learn how to be accountable to ourselves. It’s a powerful thing. I cannot operate or function unless I do certain things in life. One of them is exercise. Zero chance, no way in heck I don’t need an accountability partner, no more for it, because I’m obsessed with it. But at some point I did. And yep, that’s the plan. I know it is. So hey, enjoy that trainer right now. Learn as much as you can. Gather from their expertise, build a workout routine, build a few of them, and then eventually you know, 6 months from now, a year from now, you won’t even need that. And you can become the accountability partner for somebody else, and show them the things you learn. And that’s how it goes on. How about having an open mind about the new ideas for more growth in life? I think we have to have an open mind for everything, for new ideas, for old ideas. I think a human being that closes her mind has stopped the possibility of learning and gaining knowledge and developing, all of this, everything I’m saying right now, you need an open mind for, because if you have a closed mind for any of this stuff then you’re just saying, “Hey, I’m okay with who I am and what I know.” And by the way, Hossein Jan, those people won’t even end up on talks like this. As soon as they hear me talking about “Hey, it’s important to plan in life, or it’s important to be eager in life, or it’s important to be consistent or be committed in life,” they’ll just skip through it. They’re like, “Yeah yeah yeah whatever,” and that’s okay. Some people do and some people don’t. Like I say, I got out of the figuring out why business.
10. The next one here – I talk about it all the time. If you’re trying to become a different version of yourself, if you’re trying to grow, if you’re trying to develop, you must develop and strengthen this. The emotional muscles, psychological muscles, to learn how to say No. Because the more you say No to other things, the more you say No to other people, the more you say No to some of your impulses, the more you say Yes to yourself, to a new way of life. We can’t overextend ourselves by saying Yes to anything and everyone in a path of personal development. It’s going to be a little selfish at first because you got to grow, you got to develop, kind of like a boxer that’s getting ready to go for a fight. They say No to everything. Temptation. They say No to their diet, they say No to their loved ones, they say No to their sleep schedule, they say No to everything. They wake up early in the morning, they grind, they eat right, they work out their mind, they exercise, they rest, they repeat, they repeat, they repeat, they sacrifice a lot of stuff, to be ready for the fight. And life is that way sometimes. We have to say No to people, places, and things, and say Yes to ourselves in order to be able to grow and develop. And some people do it and some people don’t. The people that do it have learned boundaries. The people that do it have learned the value of saying No. The people that do it understand the importance of saying Yes to yourself. The people that don’t do it are usually codependent. They’re afraid of people’s judgment. They’re afraid of how they will be perceived if they say No. They have people pleasing tendencies and if that’s your way of life just know that you’re going to keep experiencing that. You know you’re always going to be the person that’s being taken advantage of. You’re always going to be the person that’s always feeling like the floor mat in front of the door. You’re going to be the person that feels like nobody respects them. And they think it’s the problem of the world, when it’s just – you don’t know how to set boundaries. You don’t know how to say No. No wonder everybody walks on you because they can. I’ve said that before to somebody and they got so disrespected. They got so mad at me, they got so pissed. “How dare you say that to me?” I’m like, “You just told me that for years people in your life walk all over you, you told me that I didn’t know that about you, that everybody walks all over you. It’s not about them walking. It’s about you letting them walk. The moment you say No and choose yourself, people will learn the lesson quick. They understand the assignment but they won’t learn it until you teach it. Why don’t they just know it on their own? Because you’ve conditioned them not to. You’ve enabled them for 10, 20, 30 years that this is who you are and what you do, so that’s what they expect. They are just doing to you what you have allowed them to do and they didn’t like that either.” But it’s okay. I spoke the truth and maybe one day they come back around and say. “Hey, I started to value myself. I started to set boundaries. I started to say No to people and I feel like even if they don’t like me as much I can respect myself more.” I don’t know if they will. They’re going to go to another therapist or counselor saying that people in my life walk all over me and the therapist or counselor will say, “Oh, how does that make you feel? What do you think of that? Oh I hear that you’re really sad and overwhelmed.” Man, if you want to hear that kind of stuff this ain’t the channel for you. I’m not the guy for you.
11. And the next one here is the last one in the Development is the T. There’s an African proverb that says the following: “If you want to go fast in life, go alone, but if you want to go far in life go with others.” We only develop and transform with other human beings. Cohesive, get in the middle of the herd, follow the direction of people that have been there, that know how to get there, that can show you the way, and get better 1% everyday, everyday, everyday.
So I will be back next week for another talk. I love and appreciate all of you. Feel free to share this video or share the link with anybody who you think finds value from the content. I love and appreciate all of you, and I look forward to another family education support group next week. We got some thank yous, and bye everyone!
