The Mindset Mentor - I Am Not Who I Think I Am

Episode Date: February 1, 2019

Episode 541 - I am not who I think I am. I am willing to bet that you are not who you think that you are either. What do I mean by this? Well in this episode, I am going to go deep down the rabbit hole of how others perception of us changes who we are. Want to learn more about Mindset Mentor+? For nearly nine years, the Mindset Mentor Podcast has guided you through life's ups and downs. Now, you can dive even deeper with Mindset Mentor Plus. Turn every podcast lesson into real-world results with detailed worksheets, journaling prompts, and a supportive community of like-minded people. Enjoy monthly live Q&A sessions with me, and all this for less than a dollar a day. If you’re committed to real, lasting change, this is for you.Join here 👉 www.mindsetmentor.com My first book that I’ve ever written is now available. It’s called LEVEL UP and It’s a step-by-step guide to go from where you are now, to where you want to be as fast as possible.📚If you want to order yours today, you can just head over to robdial.com/bookHere are some useful links for you… If you want access to a multitude of life advice, self development tips, and exclusive content daily that will help you improve your life, then you can follow me around the web at these links here:Instagram TikTokFacebookYoutube

Welcome to the Mindset and Motivation Podcast, one of the top motivational podcasts in the world. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we come out with a short, to the point, no BS episode to help make massive changes in your mind and transform you from who you are now to who you want to be. My name is Rob Dial, and the podcast starts now. Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset and Motivation Podcast. I am your host Rob Dial here. Today what we're going to be talking about is I am not who I think that I am. And I'm going to actually make a guess that you are not who you think that you are either. There's a quote that is out there that's a famous, I think his name is Charles Cooley. He was a sociologist back in the 1800s, early 1900s. And he's quoted saying that I am not who I think that I am. I am not who you think that I am.

I am who I think that you think that I am. So I'm not who I actually am. I am actually what I perceive your perception of me to be. And so let me give you an example before I actually dive into this is I'm not who I, who I really, really am at my core, who I am at my core would be who I was as a child. And this is one of the reasons why I think that we really miss being children is because we miss being our true selves. So we have our true self right here. And on the side, we have our false self. So our true self is who we were from the age from zero to four or five, maybe six years old. Those are called our pre-verbal years,

according to psychologists. Those are pre-verbal years before we're taught what society and the people around us want to be. That's our true self. But then we realize what society wants us to be, what we're supposed to do, what we're supposed to do, what we're supposed to say, how we're supposed to act, and we become our false self, the self that we think that we're supposed to be. And what does this mean when I say I'm not who I think that I am? I'm not who you think that I am. I am who I think that you think that I am. What that means is that I am the perception of what I, my perception of what people perceive of me or what I think they perceive of me. So let me give you an example. So it makes sense to you. The example that I'll give you is this. Let's say that I'm in class

and, uh, and I'm, I'm, you know, filling out a paper and I'm going through it. And my teacher really believes in me, right? My teacher really wants the best of me. And what they do is because they want the best of me and they really believe in me, they mark up my paper a lot. She goes through and she's, you know, she marks it up with the red ink and she's like, well, this is wrong. This is wrong. This is wrong. This could be better. This could be better. This could be better. And she's like, well, this is wrong. This is wrong. This is wrong.

This could be better. This could be better. This could be better. And she's only doing it because of the fact that she wants me to be better because she believes in me. But when I get that piece of paper back with all of the red marks, what do I think? I could possibly think, oh man, I'm not as smart as I thought I was. My teacher must not think that I'm as smart as I was. I thought that she thought I was smart, but now I'm getting this paperback. And what happens is I look at it

and it's completely marked up. And I say, oh man, this isn't, I'm not as good as I thought I was. I actually might be stupid, right? And this is why a lot of people, why it's really bad that, you know, it's good that we take tests, but it's also bad that we take tests because we don't actually guide the emotions and the perceptions of the children. So if I were to get this piece of paper back, I could think to myself, I am a dumb kid, right? I could think that some people fail their first math test and then they're bad at math, quote unquote, bad at math the rest of their life. And so if you think about it, if I get this piece of paper back and it's all marked up, I think to myself, I'm stupid. And that's the thing is now I am putting this perception of what the teacher thinks of me onto myself. So if I leave the class and don't

have a conversation with the teacher, I can think to myself, I'm stupid. But if I'm walking out of the class and the teacher stops me and she says, Rob, I just want you to know that I really believe in you because I think that you have a lot of potential. I think that you're a really smart kid. And I graded you a little bit harder than everybody else because I wanted the best from you. And I know that you have a lot of potential. What happens in my perception of myself at that point of time? It changes again and it changes based on someone else's perception of me. So I could have left the class thinking that I was stupid because of the way that my teacher graded me. But now I'm actually leaving the class because of the conversation that I'm

actually smarter and that's why the teacher was so hard on me. So I'm not who I think that I am. I'm not who you think that I am. I am who I think that you think that I am. And that's what happens is we, we have, like I said, in the beginning, we have our true self, which is who we are, you know, five, six, seven years old. And we have the false self that we start to build when we realize what society wants of us. Because see, in society, in the way that we're supposed to be, we have boxes that we're supposed to fit into. There's certain ways to act. You can't do that. You can't wear that. You're not supposed to say that. You're not supposed to do those. We have all of these different boxes of what we are and are not supposed to do, right? We can all agree on that, that we all have these perceptions of what we are and we're not supposed to do. That's what we're

told. We can all agree on that, correct? So what happens is we have our true self and now we're starting to build this false self so that we can fit in with society. And a lot of people, they get to the point, not a lot of people, some people get to the point and you know, you may have thought this to yourself, but at some point we wake up when we realize we're not happy and we realize that we're not the person that we want to be. We don't have the job that we want. We went to college and got a degree and a freaking degree that we didn't even want. And we're stuck in this box that we realized society told us that we were supposed to be in. And then we have this thought in our heads,

man, I hate myself, or I hate the life that I've built, or I dislike a lot of things about myself. And I want to go get really kind of meta on you, right? If I say the phrase, I hate myself, let's break this down real quick. There's the I that's there and there's the myself, right? There's the I, which I would call is my true self, which I was talking about. And there's the self, the myself that I have built myself into to fit into society's box, which I am now realizing is not the person that I want to be. So if I say the phrase, I hate myself or something along those lines, I don't like myself or I don't like the person that I've become. There's the I, the true self-talking and the myself, which is the person that I have built myself into. I hate myself. I hate the person that I have built myself into. I hate myself. I hate the person that I've built

myself into. And the good thing about this is that the myself part of it is the false self. That is our personality that we have built. And personality is very moldable. Personality is based on behavior. We can change our personality a lot based on the behavior that we take. So if I hate myself and I'm trying to change the myself part of it, I have to realize that's my personality. And the word personality comes from the Latin word persona and persona was the mask that characters would wear on stage. So the personality that we have built that we no longer

like that we want to change is the mask that we have made for ourselves based on what society tells us that we should be. Is this making sense to you? It's really deep. I understand that, but just think about it for a second. There's the true self and there's the false self, right? The true self is who we know we really are. And the false self is who society tells us we should be. And we fit into a box for a little while. And then most of us, we've all heard of the midlife crisis or the quarter life crisis. We wake up one point and we say, no, I don't want to do this. I don't want to work this job. I don't want to get this degree. I don't want to have this life anymore. This is not what I wanted. This is not what I signed up for. And now I need to change it. And at that point in

time, it is now our job, our duty to realize that what we need to do is we need to blend ourself from our true self. We went from our true self into our false self. And when we have that realization that I no longer like the person that I am or the person that I have become instead of, you know, and it's sad that a lot of people commit suicide. There's a lot of issues with suicide, but it's instead of going, you know what, I'm just going to kill myself off. We go, okay, there's my true self. There's my false self. I have become this false self based on the society of boxes that I've been put into. Now my job is to try to figure out again who my true self is and to blend myself as much as possible into this true self that I actually am.

This is really deep for me recording this on a Wednesday afternoon now, but this is what I was thinking about this morning. And I've been thinking about this for a long time because we've always, I've been thinking about it for a long time because we always have the thought of, man, I really miss being a child. And of course we miss being a child because of the carefreeness and lack of duties and stuff like that. But we also miss being a child because we never felt like we really cared what people

thought of us. We never really cared what people thought of us. We never really cared about the fact that we are being judged. So maybe what we need to do is to make our mission of our lives to take this false self that we have become and blend it back into the true self, become the true self. And there's a really, really good movie. If you have not seen this movie with Jim Carrey, it's called Andy and Jim. I think it's on Netflix. And it's where Jim Carrey becomes a character. And the character's name, it's actually used to be a real life person. His name is Andy Kaufman. Andy Kaufman died a while ago. I think it was in the 70s or early 80s. And Andy Kaufman passes away. Jim Carrey's playing his character in the actual

documentary, Andy and Jen. What happens is it shows you behind the scenes look of Jim Carrey and Jim Carrey at this point in time was what they called a method actor. A method actor is somebody who doesn't break role. They become that character and they stay that character for the entire three to four months of their shooting. So even when the cameras turn off, there's still that actor, there's still that person. So when the camera shut off, Jim Carrey is still quote unquote, Andy Kaufman. He never becomes Jim Carrey again for those three or four months. And then what happens is, is what he, he literally in his mind becomes Andy Kaufman. So when the end of the movie comes

and they stopped shooting and the shooting is completely done, what happens? He thinks to himself, okay, I'm no longer Andy Kaufman. I'm supposed to be Jim Carrey, but he thinks to himself, wait, who the hell is Jim Carrey anyways? If I'm trying to become Jim Carrey again, I need to think about my religious beliefs, my political affiliations, my thoughts of what I think people should and shouldn't do. And what he realized is that he was just playing a character of Andy Kaufman. But when he broke the character of becoming Andy Kaufman, he realized his entire life he was playing a character of Jim Carrey. And so if it's that hard for some, if it's that easy for someone to forget who they are and to completely break out of the quote unquote character, their persona, which is once again, the Latin root for the mask that we wear

on stage. If he's able to forget his own personality, his behaviors and the person that he is, well, then it must be pretty easy for us to figure out that we need to break the character of the person we become. I am the Rob Dial that I have built based on what society told me I should be. And I realized this a while ago and I'm like, you know what? I don't want to be society's Rob Dial anymore. I don't want to be the false self, the false Rob Dial anymore. What I want to do is I want to be the true self, the true Rob Dial. And my job is to ask myself, what do I want to do? Who do I want to be? What do I want my life to look like? And to release myself from the judgments of other people, to release myself from the thoughts of I need to fit in and do what society tells me that I need to do. So what I've got for you on this episode, and I want you to ask yourself is who in the hell

am I? What the hell do I believe in? What do I want? Because am I just trying to fit into some religious box because I've been told that I just trying to fit into some religious box because I've been told that I'm supposed to fit into a religious box? Or am I fitting into some political box because I call myself a Republican or I call myself a Democrat or I call myself a libertarian? And therefore, since I fit in this box or since I say I'm in this box, I then have to think the same way that everyone else does to fit into this box or since I say I'm in this box, I then have to think the same way that everyone else does to fit into this box. So the way that everyone else looks at me is the way that I want to be perceived. Because what happens is we're conditioned to think, act, and be a certain

way. It's our job once we wake up from this that we say, you know what? I've realized I've been in this sleep for so long. I've been just trying to fit in. I've been somebody that I don't want to be. So our job at that point in time is to release ourselves from the way that that is, the way that we think, the way that we're told to be, and to become our true selves again. So ask yourself what you want to do, who you want to be, and get out of the box that society tells you that you need to fit in and become the person that you want to be.

We went from our true self to our false self from the age of zero to six, seven years old. Around there is when we become our false self. We start becoming it and it becomes really strong. Now it's our job to mold it back into our false self. We start becoming it and it becomes really strong. Now it's our job to mold it back into our true self. Well, that's it for today's podcast. If you want the show notes for this episode, they can be found at mwfmotivation.com. Also, if you liked this episode, please spread the love and share it with a friend because it's our mission to help as many people as we can. And to keep in touch, you can follow us on Instagram and Facebook.

Both handles are at MWFMotivation with no spaces. Now you know what time it is. So go out and make your dreams a reality. you