How To Build A Strong Identity

0:04This is the Ed Milet Show. All right, welcome back to the show, everybody. Really excited to share this message with you this week. And what we're really going to talk about is changing our thinking. And I know that that's kind of an overcooked, over-discussed topic in personal development. But like most things I share with you, these will be thoughts that you've not heard elsewhere before. And so I want to first talk about you and how you define you. And when someone says, I am a particular way or me, what is I? Who are you? and really what you are in your life is you're a collection of memories.

0:38You're a collection of thoughts and memories and stories you tell yourself. And that's how we define who I am. When someone says, this is who I am, what they're really saying is, these are the memories and stories of my life. And so that's why I believe when we're children, we're a whole lot happier than we are for the most part than when we're adults. You think about it, when you're a child, you know, is it freedom that makes you happy in life? Probably not because when you're a child, you don't have a lot of freedom. Someone tells you when to get up, what to wear every day, what to eat, when to go to bed, right?

1:07What not to do. Everything you do is being criticized and scrutinized. So it's not freedom, right? You don't have any money when you're a kid. And so what is it that makes us so much happier? You should ask yourself a question. I ask this often lately to people. I say, you know, when was the last time you had an entire 24 hours of bliss? Not like a moment of bliss in a day, but like 24 straight hours of bliss, of happiness in your life. for most people, they can't remember an entire day. What if I asked you, when's the last time you had five days in a row as an adult of just bliss without worry and stress and these other things in life and fears, anger, frustration, depression, anxiety, whatever it might be.

1:51Almost nobody I know can say yes. Yet when I asked you when you were two or three years old, I bet you that was the norm for you almost every single day. And I'm convinced that that's because we had not yet accumulated stories and narratives and memories about ourselves that define who we are. And so as we become adults, this collection of stories become patterns. And these patterns then become thoughts. And when we repeat thoughts over and over again, we get into thought loops. What happens is in our life, our mind moves towards what it's most familiar with. And this is what happens in our life.

2:25And there's a way out of this, by the way, and I'm going to share that with you today. So with that in mind, I had pre-recorded something that I believe is perfect for this topic today that I want to share with you now. And so here we go. You're going to show up 20 years from now somewhere. The question is where? And what I would submit to you is that one of the ways out of difficult times is huge, bold, God-sized dreams. Like what is your huge, the one you're embarrassed to tell people? with a huge, bold, God-sized dream in your life. And the more of it you begin to project into that dream state of what you want in your life, the more it gives you the inspiration.

3:02If your dreams are bigger than the adversity, you'll get through it. But the minute that adversity, those emotions are bigger than where you're going, bigger than your dreams, you're toast. You gotta reevaluate that. You gotta look at it. You gotta say, wait a minute, what's my big dream? What's my big goal? What's that big emotion? What's that thing? What's that place? What's that person? What's that contribution? whatever it might be, and you've got to begin to obsess about it because what I said earlier is true. Your mind moves towards what it's most familiar with. So if you're most familiar with your fears, those six fears, or these emotions you don't want, or your problems, or your setbacks, or the things that are not in your favor, then you're going to move towards them.

3:43Let me say that to you again. You may be right about this adversity. You may be right about your circumstance. You may be right about all that, but does it serve you to believe it? Because the way the mind works is it moves towards what it's most familiar with. And the reason some people are successful and most aren't is the successful people have the ability to begin to program into their mind the things they want, the dreams they have over and over and over because they know this to be true. They belong in their dreams. Their dreams are not some hallucination. They're not a joke. God gave you those dreams as a glimpse, as a preview of what's possible in your life.

4:22And the more you understand, these dreams don't just come from me. How do I have these dreams? Where'd they come from? They come from God in your life or whatever you believe about that. I'm a Christian. I believe they come straight from Jesus, straight from God. But whatever your faith is, the universe, whatever you believe, they come from outside of you and they're not a joke. They're a preview of what's possible. And the more you move towards those thoughts, those dreams in faith, boldly, strong, and not towards the six fears you have or this circumstance. And I'm not talking about don't deal with reality.

4:54I'm not saying, I already said, you need to pivot. You need to course correct. You need a better plan. Clearly, you need a better plan. But what you don't need is to be moving towards the thoughts that don't serve you because you keep getting them, don't you? You keep drawing the circumstances into your life that don't serve you because your mind moves you towards what you're familiar with. Please, sister, I love you. Please, brother, listen to what I'm saying. Begin to feed these thoughts to you regularly and begin to take the actions in congruency with them. And when you begin to think and act in congruency, you become a force in the world that is unstoppable eventually, if you can outlast the temporary, not right away.

5:35See, there's two things people lack. The Bible says where there's no vision, the people perish. People lack vision, but oftentimes when they get a vision, the other thing that they suffer from is depth perception issues. They think it's further than it is. They think they're further away than they really are, and so they pace themselves, and they act like it, and they don't let their mind go there regularly, and so they constantly stay in a perpetual state of being far from it. The premise of my book, The Power of One More, is very simple when you get it, and it's this. You're a lot closer to your dreams than you think.

6:04You're a lot closer to these emotions, these feelings, that life, that other self than you think you are. Let me tell you what you are. You're one decision away, one possible meeting, one relationship, one thought, one emotion, one strategy in my new book away from changing it. You're a lot closer than you think. Stop thinking it so far away and stop thinking about all the things all the time that don't serve you. By the way, what is thinking? How do I think better? What's a thought? A thought is the process of asking yourself a question and answering it. So ask yourself better questions, and you will have better thoughts and better answers.

6:42So if you do have this detriment, that's this thing that's a hindrance, and you know it's a hindrance, and it's a challenge, or you're going through something, that's okay. The question is, ask yourself a better question about it. Instead of saying, that's why I'm going to lose, it's, hey, how can I overcome this? What are the answers to this? Who are people like me that have won? What is my story going to look like when I win? How's it going to feel when I get there? What's the tactic or strategy that I need to implement to overcome this that other people don't, but I'm going to because I deserve to get there because these dreams are a preview of who I'm supposed to be.

7:14So get these familiar thoughts, get these familiar emotions, know that all pain is temporary, outlast the temporary, right? And remember this, you're going to arrive to this place in 20 years. You're going to arrive there. The question is, who are you going to be when you get there? What's your life going to look like? What are you going to look like? Who have you have helped? What will you have achieved? What will the memories be you had? And most importantly, what will the emotions be that you get to possess at that time? And by the time you get there, who is that other self? I'll submit to you, there's four characters for the most part you could show up as in 20 years.

7:51There's four characters most people show up in their lives as. I'll give you who I think they are. Number one person they show up as in 20 years is invisible. They're invisible. No one knows them. No one knows anything they've achieved. No one's kept a record of their life. And I'm not talking about big things. I'm talking about small things. It's that kind phone call that you make in the morning to a friend you haven't talked to in a long time. You're no longer invisible to them. it's that helping somebody in need when no one will see you doing it when it's an invisible gesture you're no longer invisible because you're making deposits in this other self you're making deposits in this dream version of you you are reaping what you sow but many people show up in their lives their entire life is invisible that's one person you could show up as ask yourself am I willing to let whatever I'm going through right now or what's ever going on in the world what's ever going on in the economy, what's ever going on in my mind, what's ever going on in my family caused me to show up 20 years from now invisibly.

8:58No one knows me. I've made no difference in other people's lives. Is that what you were born to do? Is that that glimpse of the dream in your life? Absolutely not. Remind you of something. You were born to do something great with your life. I am no different than you. No man or woman is different than you. We're the child of the same God. We were all born to do something great with our lives in big ways and in what most people think are small ways. These quiet gestures you do every day for other people that the rest of the world doesn't see on Instagram and it doesn't get you on YouTube and it doesn't get a million views, but you're not invisible to them.

9:33You were not born to be invisible. Second person you could show up as in 20 years as a victim. You could have this story in 20 years. I was a victim, victim of people, a victim of my life, a victim of my circumstances, a victim, a victim, a victim. And if you believe that about yourself and you keep moving towards those thoughts, you will surely repeat them and you will show up 20 years in your life. And as an example to your family, people who believed in you, your children, your grandchildren, your parents, your grandparents, your parents, your ancestors, and you will show up in 20 years as a victim.

10:06Something tells me that's not what you were born to be. Something tells me you were born to do something great, and you are not a victim, and you're going to rise above. And the fact that you rose above whatever you have to rise above, that divorce, that setback, that lack of education, that whatever, that marginalized group, that setback, that bankruptcy, that bad decision you've made, you're going to have one heck of a story, and you are not going to be a victim. And you're going to inspire a bunch of people who are invisible, who feel like victims, aren't you? That's the power of what you're going through.

10:40What if you were given this because there's an other self of you that's even greater than most people could imagine? Remember, the extent to what you have to overcome is the degree of who that other self is. The extent to what you have to overcome is in direct correlation to the degree of that other self. So the more you overcome, the greater that other self is. third person you could show up as is a hero and that's a pretty good thing you show up people you're not invisible you're not a victim people know you you got whatever it is you got the great body you got the great relationship you got the big jet you got the money you show up as a hero many people in life aspire to be the hero of their story so you're always telling ourselves a story about our lives aren't we we're the lead character in the story of our lives and so many people keep telling the story from the past and they repeat that story because they move towards it or they tell the story of the victim or the story of the invisible, and they repeat this character over and over again.

11:35But then a lot of people start to tell the story of the hero. I'm going to be a hero. I'm going to win. I'm going to make something great with my life. And that's a powerful time in our lives. And a lot of people can get there. You see them on social media, see them on television, you see them at your church, you see them in your community, you see them as the coach, you see them as the teacher, they become a hero in their life, you could show up as a hero. And that's a darn good life. And it's an option you could pursue. See, a lot of times in families, when you look at families that have won in your life.

12:01You go, man, that family's rich. You see this house living on, these people living on the beach or they're traveling here. So then you go, man, who are these people? I say, who are these people? You just remember this happy and successful families, eventually rich families. Eventually they came from someone who wasn't rich, who wasn't happy. All people that you see that are rich, happy, or successful. Eventually there's someone way back in their family who wasn't. And then the one showed up, then the one I've talked about this before. The one person shows up in a family says, Nope, I'm the hero.

12:32I'm the one I change our family tree forever. I make my family proud of me. I change our generational wealth. I change our emotions. I change the example people in our family are going to want to be like me. I'm the one. And then guys, I'll tell you in my family, I'm the damn one. And you know what, not only about getting rich, not only about making a difference, but people in my family now think differently than they used to think. They don't think the same like they used to. They think bigger thoughts. They think about serving people. They think about making a difference. They believe their life can be great because I refuse to be invisible.

13:04I refuse to be a victim. Yeah, I'm the son of an alcoholic. Yeah, I had a difficult upbringing. Yeah, nobody knew my family. Yeah, we weren't rich. Yeah, not a lot of education in my family. Yeah, well, I'm not invisible. And well, I'm not a victim. And I became a hero in my family. And so can you. You could be the one. You can be the one. When you start hitting that wall, you start thinking, no, I'm the one. I'm the one who doesn't quit. I'm the one who doesn't give in. I'm the one who keeps growing. I'm the one who keeps dreaming when everyone thinks I'm crazy. I'm the one. And you hold on to that being the one.

13:35You become the hero. That's an amazing life. You change your family tree forever. It's not the wealth, although it is. It's not the options and the choices. It's the memories. It's the moments. It's the contribution. But most importantly, it's the identity of your family. They don't think the same anymore. They got different thoughts. They operate differently. Their view of the world is different. Who they think they can become is different because of your example. See, I'll give you the fourth one in a minute, but let me tell you, there's four stages of people in life. There's the people that are just kind of, you know, they're just going through life, unaware, not concerned.

14:11Then there's people who become motivational. Motivational people achieve things. They play to motives. Motives like get a car. You know, if you do this, you get a car, you get a house, you get money, you get a body. Motivational people are awesome. The level beyond that, though is inspirational. Inspirational people move people like I hope I'm doing with you today. The root of inspiration is to be in spirit, to move people spiritually, to touch their heart, to move their emotions, to lend yourself, to move them with their higher other self, not just their motives of stuff, but things in spirit, making a difference in people's lives.

14:46Inspirational people are very, very rare. See, most people are that dead stage that is drift through life. Then there's a very small percentage that are motivated people and they achieve things and they have a good life. Much smaller group is inspirational where they inspire, they move people. You can't feel it. It's an energy you feel. You can't describe it, but you feel it. It's inspirational. And then there's a really small group that's reserved for the highest level, which is aspirational people. Aspirational people aren't just motivational or inspiration. They're aspirational, meaning that you want to be and aspire to be like them.

15:24Those are the people that change the world. The people that change the world aren't motivational. They're not quite inspirational anymore. They've moved past that. They do motivate. They do inspire. But they aspire. People aspire to be like them. That's who I want to be like. That's who I want to act like. That's the kind of person I want to be. And I would challenge you to move through these stages. If you're not motivated, become motivational and inspirational and eventually aspirational. And when you become the one for your family, when you become the hero, which is level three, you've moved into an aspirational space in your life.

15:58And then the fourth level is awesome. And that's called servant leader. And that's when you get to a point in your life where you're no longer invisible. You've moved all kinds of people in their dreams. You've become the hero for your family. And then you determine you want to dedicate your life in the service of other people exclusively. You want to aspire, inspire and aspire people to be like you. And this is where I would challenge you to want to move, become an aspirational person and eventually become a servant leader in your life. That's the highest level of the other self. This is the Ed Milad Show.