The Mindset Mentor - Ready For An Identity Crisis?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dylan. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button since you never miss another podcast episode. Today, we're going to be talking about the person that you are. Who you are is not even close to who you actually think that you are. That might sound a little bit weird to you, but I promise you this, 99% of the people listening to my voice right now, which is hundreds of thousands of people, your perception of yourself is completely false. Who you think you are is not the person who you truly are. And let me explain what I mean by that. One of my favorite quotes is by Charles Cooley. And the quote says, I'm not who you think I am.

Starting point is 00:00:47 I'm not who I think I am. I am who I think you think I am. Let me say that again because it's a little bit deep. I'm not who you think I am. I'm not who I think I am. I am who I think that you think that I am. And so what exactly does that mean? What it means is that most people, who they are, the role that they're playing,

Starting point is 00:01:10 the personality that they have, and their own perception of themselves is based off of what they think other people think of them. So the person that we are tends to be who we think that we are through other people. What's crazy about that is that number one, we don't know what other people think at all about us, and number two, that means that we're basically playing a role that is not even close to who we truly are. And we'll go really deep into this, but really what happens is we start off as children and we become who we think that we are based off of what we think that our parents think of us, how our parents react to us, what they do. And that's

Starting point is 00:01:51 why you have to be so careful when you have kids, what you say to your children and also what you say around them. You know, I've been around people before and been in a restaurant and the grandmother's like, well, Charlie's just a little bit slower. And I'm like, do you know what that could happen? What could happen to Charlie if he hears that and understands what it means and literally takes that onto his identity? It could completely change who he thinks he is. I know people who have dropped out of school when I was in high school simply because they just thought that they were stupid because they were told they were stupid their entire life. I remember when I was younger, my mom told me this, is that we moved away from part of

Starting point is 00:02:29 my family when I was younger that lived in a different state because of the way that they treated their children and talked to their children. My mom did not want me at three, four years old to hear these people, part of my family that I don't really talk to anymore, that is on another side of my family and I don't really talk to anymore, that is on another side of my family and how they would talk down to their children. Because my mom, number one, didn't want me to be an influence by that at all. But number two, didn't want them to speak to me that way as well. So that therefore they wouldn't influence what I thought of myself. Because children become who they think their parents think they are. Children become who their parents think they are.

Starting point is 00:03:05 And the thing about this that makes it really challenging, and I'll be honest with you, is that you can sit there and you can say to yourself, well, you know, what I'll do is I will be the most affirmative with my children. I will tell them how beautiful they are. I will tell them how amazing they are, and they will never feel bad about themselves. And I think that's beautiful, but that can also really hinder you as well. One of my best friends, he had a struggle when he was growing up because his parents would always say, yeah, everybody loves him. Everybody, oh my gosh, everybody loves him. He's such a great kid. Everybody loves him. And then he would come around and be like, everyone in the room would be

Starting point is 00:03:39 like, oh, everybody loves him. He's such a great kid. And as he grew up, he realized that he put on this persona of everybody loves me, which sounds like it would be good until you realize it put too much pressure on him. And he stopped wanting to go out because he thought to himself, well, what if people don't love me? Then what did I do wrong? And so what happened was his amazing parents that I know that are very affirmative actually kind of hindered him in a little way because he thought, I can never live up to everybody loving me. What if someone doesn't love me at the party, then I don't live up to who I'm supposed to be. And so, you know, you have to realize this when you're around your children, the way that you speak to them, you know, the affirmations you do and don't give if you,

Starting point is 00:04:22 you know, not speaking down to them, all of that stuff. And, you know, some poor kids are verbally abused when they're younger and a lot of people never get over it. Why is that? Because even though they become, they go from children and become adults, they may not have consciously actually made the transition in their own minds to realize that what other people said of me is not actually truth. And when you're a child and you see someone who's bigger than you and older than you, you just, for some reason, we just automatically think they're smarter than us and they must know because they're older than us. But the problem with us living our lives through what we see in other people is that other people have skewed perceptions based off of their childhood. So now I'm filtering myself through

Starting point is 00:05:05 my perception of somebody else's view of me, who also has skewed perceptions of themselves in reality based off of their childhood as well. And so when you're looking at somebody, if you're looking to someone else for information of who you are, it's literally like looking into a broken mirror to see what you look like. You'll never see the true picture because they're only filtering the world through their filter of the world based off of everything that they've seen, everything that they've done, the way that they were raised. You know, the way I like to think of it and the way I like to explain it is if I came up to you and I gave you red colored glasses and you put them on, everything that you would

Starting point is 00:05:42 see would have at least a little bit of a red tint. If something was white, it would still be red. If something was black, it would still have a red tint to it. And so some people have these red colored glasses and some people have blue colored glasses. Some people have yellow colored glasses. They have these glasses that filter the way that they see the world. The same way that when they grow up, they filter the world through the world is a tough place. The world is a hard place. The world is a beautiful place. Everyone's out to get me. People are going to fuck you over. People are amazing. Whatever it is that they were built through and whatever it is they were raised through from their parents. So when you're

Starting point is 00:06:15 looking to somebody else for information about who you are, it's like looking into a broken mirror to see what you look like. You'll never see the real picture, the true picture of who you are. Everyone has different paradigms and different perceptions of the world. Imagine this. Imagine this for some, for just give you a quick example, right? Let's say that, you know, you're a guy and ladies, let's say you're a guy for a second. And let's say someone sees you and they loved their dad. And for some reason, you remind them of their dad. They had this amazing dad. He was loving. He was an amazing man. Then when they see you, they're naturally going to have amazing feelings towards

Starting point is 00:06:59 you. And they're going to show you those amazing feelings because that's how they felt towards their dad. There's going to be a natural magneticism towards you because of the fact that you just remind them of someone that they absolutely love. And it will make you feel good about yourself to have somebody just react to you in such an amazing way without you having to really do anything. And let's say that you don't know that you remind them of their dad. Let's flip it on the other side now. Let's say that somebody's dad was a terrible man. He was just abusive mentally, physically, emotionally, and you just happen to look like him. You're just a guy with a beard, and you have the same length hair, and you just happen to look like him. There's going to be a part of them that is going to be extremely resistant towards you. Even if they're trying to put on a face of nothing's wrong,

Starting point is 00:07:50 they're still going to be extremely resistant towards you and probably not like you in some sort of way. And that alone might make you feel worse about yourself, not because of anything that has to do with you, because you remind them of somebody in their life, which could have been an amazing person or could have been a terrible person. It has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with their perception of the world and you just happen to be in it. And so that's why when we look to other people based off of how we should feel about ourselves, it's ridiculous. But most people don't realize that we're doing this. Neither one of those things has anything to do with you. That's why it's so dangerous. And it's so important for us to find out, for you to find out who you actually truly are and to decide who you're going to be.

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Starting point is 00:10:00 many books have great content in them, a lot of them have what I like to call fluff stories. Stories that are put into the book to hammer a point home. But if you already understand the point, what's the reason for five stories about the exact same point? With Blinkist, you have all of the most important ideas and key takeaways from the world's top nonfiction bestsellers, all in 15 minute reads or listens. Use these blinks to get inspiration, learn more about the books that you like to read, broaden your knowledge, and to get new perspectives. They have books like Atomic Habits, The Power of Habit, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. And right now, Blinkist has a special offer for just our audience. Go to Blinkist.com slash mindset

Starting point is 00:10:34 to start your seven-day free trial and get 25% off a Blinkist premium membership. That's Blinkist, spelled B-L-I-N-K-I-S-T, Blinkist.com slash mindset for 25% off and the seven-day free trial, Blinkist.com slash mindset. And if I ask you, come up to you in the street and I say, hey, who are you? Tell me who you are. Tell me all about you. I want to know who are you. You might say, oh yeah, your name. You might say that you're a mother or father, you're a boyfriend or girlfriend, you're 35 years old, you're from Florida, you're a brother, you graduated college, you went to the University of Florida, and you got your master's degree in business. But none of those are actually who you truly are. That's what's crazy about it. All of those are based off of

Starting point is 00:11:22 the external. Those are basically accomplishments or things that have been given to you. So if you say your name, did you come into the world? And like, when I came into the world, my name was not Rob Dial, right? That was given to me at birth. If I become a father, that's not something that I came into this world with. If I say I'm 35 years old, I wasn't 35 years old when I came into this world. If I'm from Florida, that's not something, that's just a random place and people made imaginary lines. If someone says that I'm a brother, went to school, graduated with this, any of those things, none of those are actually who I truly am. All of those are based off of the external. And I'll give you an example. Let's say, you know, I drive a 2018 Ford Raptor, right? But I am not a

Starting point is 00:12:05 2018 Ford Raptor. And you might be like, well, yeah, no shit. That makes sense. I bought the Ford Raptor. I'm not the Ford Raptor. It's something that I have done. It's something that I drive, but it doesn't make me who I am. The same way that my name doesn't make me who I am, who my parents are doesn't make me who I am, my age doesn't make me who I am, whether I'm a father, brother, sister, mother, whatever it is, doesn't make me who I am. Who my parents are doesn't make me who I am. My age doesn't make me who I am. Whether I'm a father, brother, sister, mother, whatever it is, doesn't make me who I am. I am the thing that is behind all of those things. So if you think that you're a mother or a father, well, what you're actually doing is you're basing something off of external. Do you have children? Sure. Yeah. You birthed another human into this world, but it's not who

Starting point is 00:12:43 you are at a core level, right? I bought a Ford Raptor. That doesn't make me a Ford Raptor, right? But it's just something that I've done in this world. You have children, but it doesn't mean that that's who you were when you came into this world. And so what's important is not to look at our accomplishments or what we've done or how many children we brought into this world or our name or any of those things, is who are you behind all of that? When you get real quiet, when you meditate, when you close your eyes and you're sitting there and you're paying attention to your thoughts, who is paying attention to the thoughts? What is that thing that is behind all of the thoughts? What's the thing behind all of the things? Because that's who you

Starting point is 00:13:21 truly are. And that's why it's really hard for people when they have children sometimes is because a lot of times people lose themselves when they have children. And then when their children move out and they become empty nesters, they're like, I don't know who I am. It's because they base their perception of themselves off of the external world versus being strong in who they are. And then the external world was just something that they did. And I hope I'm not losing too many people who are really screwing up your thoughts of yourself. But what I'm trying to do is make you understand that you're the thing that's behind all of those things. We tend to base who we are though off of who we think that we are off of other people's perception of us in everything external. But none of those things is who you truly are.

Starting point is 00:14:02 You know, you weren't a parent when you were four years old. I wasn't the driver of a Ford Raptor when I was four years old. So you have to stop basing yourself off of the external. I understand this might be really messing with some people in your minds, but when you really get it, you really start to understand how powerful all of this is. And if you're looking towards the external to tell you who you are, you're going to be really lost. You know, you are a, you know, not to get too woo-woo-y, but you're a spiritual being or a soul or whatever it is that you want to call yourself inhabiting this meat suit that you're in and you're just doing things. But when you look to other people for the example of who you are or to tell you who you are, that's when you're going to get lost. You know, like the great example I always love to give is, let's say that you're, you know,

Starting point is 00:14:51 in third grade and you study really hard for this test and you try so hard and it's an English test and you're writing down all these answers and they're long form answers and you're writing them down, you're doing your best, you studied so hard for this. And the next day you get the test back and it's just like red all over it. And the note from the teacher says, I know you can do better. Right? And you look at this and you're like, man, I tried so hard. I studied so hard. I put so much effort into this. And still this teacher doesn't think that I'm good enough. Man, what the hell do I have to do now? Well, maybe you weren't saying that when you were in third or fourth grade, but maybe you were. Hey, but you're sitting there and you're like, man, I tried so hard and I still didn't get it

Starting point is 00:15:34 right. My teacher marked this entire paper off. You know what? I just must be stupid. And you think that based off of a piece of paper that was given to you that had a lot of red on it. And let's say you walk out of the class and that's the thing that you think about yourself. That is the moment for a lot of people where people go, I'm stupid. And then they play the role of stupid the rest of their lives, just simply because of someone that happened to write a bunch of red stuff on top of a paper. Now, let's go ahead and try this for a second. Let's say the exact same thing happens. But this time when you're walking out of the school and

Starting point is 00:16:11 you're walking out of the room, your teacher stops you and is like, hey, hey, come here real quick. You walk over to the teacher. They say, hold on a second. Wait, just wait till everybody leaves. Everybody leaves and the teacher says, hey, I want you to know you did really well on this exam. But the reason why I marked it up so much is because I think you're the smartest kid in this class. And I want you to, I want to get the best out of you. So I might be a little bit harder on you than the other kids, but it's only because I see how much potential you have. You would then, now number one, you have to realize it's the exact same circumstance, a red piece of paper written. Now is it, she just wrote some red stuff on your

Starting point is 00:16:44 paper, exact same circumstance. But the only difference is when you walked out of the room, a red piece of paper written. And that was it. She just wrote some red stuff on your paper. Exact same circumstance. But the only difference is when you walked out of the room, the teacher stopped you and said, I think you're the smartest kid. That might spark something inside of you. Be like, oh my God, I am the smartest kid. I'm so smart.

Starting point is 00:16:54 I'm going to try harder. I'm going to actually study instead of go play with my friends. Both of those situations, based off of just one conversation, could completely change the trajectory of somebody's life. And so you have to realize that. You can be whoever you want to be in this world.

Starting point is 00:17:09 If you want to be the stupid person, you could be the stupid person. You can play that role the rest of your life if you want to. Completely up to you. If you want to be the smart person, and you can play that role and be the smart person, study and do what smart people do, you can play whatever role you want to because all it is is a role. If you want to play the role of, oh, the world is, you know, everything just kind of sucks and everything's happening to me and woe is me and I'm a victim all of the time. You can play that role if you want to. It's going to suck, but if you want to play it, you can play it.

Starting point is 00:17:43 Or you can play the role of, hey, I'm going to make my life whatever it is that I want it to be. You decide which one that you want to. It's going to suck, but if you want to play it, you can play it. Or you can play the role of, hey, I'm going to make my life whatever it is that I want it to be. You decide which one that you want to create. That's the beautiful thing about it. What role do you want to play in this world? Because you can be whoever it is that you want to be. Meaning, you don't have to worry about the external to influence the internal. The internal should never be influenced by the external. But the problem is, we don't know that. We're not told that. So what do you want to be? What if you took a pen and paper and said, what do I want to be in my life?

Starting point is 00:18:10 If I'm just playing this role, I'm not going to base it off of other people's perception of me. What I'm going to do is I'm going to play a role that I want to play. I'm going to be loving. What else do I want to be? I want to be kind. What else do I want to be? I want to be humble.

Starting point is 00:18:23 What else do I want to be? I want to be sweet. I want to be generous. I want to be a person who just makes people feel good. If that's the role you want to play, just decide to play that role. You don't need anybody's permission to play that role. You don't need anybody's permission to change who you are. You just put that shirt on, put that mask on, and you just play that role for the rest of your life if you want to. You can keep playing the role, which is a role of what other people, you've been basing your perception of what other people think of you or what you think other people think of you,

Starting point is 00:18:51 or you can just decide, I'm going to be somebody different today. One of my favorite quotes by Alan Watts is, you're under no obligation to be who you were five minutes ago. You can change and go, you know what? I'm going to be that sweet, kind, generous, loving, hardworking, badass that I've always wanted to be. I'm going to be the perfect version of a superhero in human form. Just decide to be that person. You don't need anybody else to tell you who you can or can't be. And then what you do in the morning is you look at the list of all the things you said you wanted to be, and you set your GPS the same way that you get in your car and you set your GPS and say, hey, I'm going from here to here. You wake up and you say, okay, today I'm going to be sweet,

Starting point is 00:19:28 kind, humble, generous. I'm going to be a badass. I'm going to work my ass off. I'm going to make people feel amazing. And that's the role that I'm going to play today. I'm not going to play the role of what I've always thought that I am. Oh, I'm a shy person or I'm outgoing or I'm an introvert or I'm an extrovert. You just decide whatever it is that you want to be. And when you decide what you want to be, you become so firm in who you truly are that other people's perception of you doesn't change you. Outside circumstances do not change you. So what you have to do is decide who you want to be, make a list of all of those traits that you want to have, and then wake up every single morning, set your GPS, and decide that you're going to step more into that role

Starting point is 00:20:05 of who you want to be every single day. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories and tag me in at RobDialJr, R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And as always, I'm gonna leave the same way I leave you every single episode, make it your mission to make someone else's day better.

Starting point is 00:20:23 I appreciate you, and I hope that you have an amazing day.

The Mindset Mentor - Ready For An Identity Crisis?

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