The Identity Shift You Must Make

0:04This is the Ed Milet Show. Hi, it's Ed Milet, and I'm going to give you a strategy today that's going to help you be more positive and contribute in the lives of other people. See, here's the thing. If you're feeling helpless, one of the antidotes to feeling helpless is to get more helpful. And one of the ways you can be most helpful is to raise your own identity. Our identity is the core part of our lives. We're not going to outperform our identity. Our identity, best said, is it's the thoughts, concepts, and beliefs we hold to be the most true about ourselves. It's really the invisible force in all of our lives that holds us back or can accelerate our success, our bliss, our achievements to whole new levels.

0:43If you look at identity, if you think about it, it's almost like it's a life thermostat. See, in this room right now, there's a thermostat sitting on that wall right now. And if it's set at 75 degrees, this room is going to be regulated to 75 degrees. No matter what the external conditions are, it could be 100 degrees outside, But the external factors do not impact the internal thermostat in this room. It's 75 degrees. Consequently, also, if it was 40 degrees outside, the heater will come on. It'll heat this room to 75 degrees. That's how your identity works. It's the internal thermostat of your life.

1:15And that's why very often, let's say that, you know, relationships or financially, you're a 75-degree-er. And if you ever notice in your life, as you start to heat life up a little bit, it starts to go pretty well. Maybe your relationship's blissful and loving and incredible, or financially you've increased your results. You're at 80, 85, 90, 100 degrees of success financially or in business. And then it just seems coincidental, but somehow, some way, the air conditioner kicks on in our lives. You know, a car breaks down, an event happens, we lose an account, something takes place, and all of a sudden we look up and boom, life's back at 75 degrees of relationship, of money, of business.

1:50That wasn't by coincidence. it is the regulator of your life is your identity and so if you you can do all the right things all the activities all of the thinking all of the execution part but if you don't increase what you believe you're worth if you don't increase that identity that thermostat of your life you will find a way to cool your life back down to what you believe you deserve and so one of the keys for me in my life is not just getting better at the mindset of life and the execution of business or strategy but raising that identity so that i'm at 85 90 100 120 degrees so that I believe I'm worthy of, as my execution and my thinking reaches the same level, that thermostat setting, that life setting will change.

2:30It's not the external conditions of our life that dictate the terms. It's that identity. It's that thermostat setting. So we got to get more helpful if we feel helpless. And the way we do that is by increasing our own identity, that thermostat setting. That sounds great, doesn't it? So how do you do that? Well, I call it the holy trilogy of shifting one's identity. and that is faith, intention, and association. That's the three things you must work on in order to increase your thermostat setting. Number one, faith. For me, it's the center part of my life, is that I have a God who loves me, that believes in me, that wants to see me successful, wants to see me prosper, wants to have favor in my life, wants me to feel comfort and peace.

3:11And so I find oftentimes it's interesting, people of faith sometimes, God's in their life Sunday at church when they're worshiping or they're in Bible study or when they're eating a meal, they'll pray over it. But somehow when they walk into a business meeting, a speech, a boardroom, a client environment, they leave God at the door and they think they're on their own. So for me, if you're a person of faith and God is with you all the time and he loves you all the time and he comforts you all the time, that includes business. That includes every area of your life. It includes him wanting to bless you with a great relationship, bless you financially, bless you to the best of your abilities in business and in whatever the other.

3:47If you're an athlete watching this, bless you in that at bat, over that pot, catching that football, hitting that shot. And so number one source of shifting your thermostat setting is reconnecting again with your faith and allowing yourself to feel it inside all the other environments that exist. Then there's number two, there's your intentions. See, I don't think enough people give themselves credit for having great intention. There's a power to intention in our lives. And so what most of us think is I'll feel better about myself or I'll be more confident when, when I get that job, when I get that relationship, when I get this amount of money, when I get that house, when I hit that home run, when I'm hitting a certain average, right?

4:25And so you're always chasing your tail. If your identity and your confidence is contingent upon producing a result that has not yet existed, it's pretty difficult to catch it, isn't it? If you have to have it to get it in the first place, instead of saying, maybe I ought to get credit and I ought to be worthy of more because I intend to do well. As a young man in business, I started to figure out, you know, I may not have all the answers. I may not be the smartest, the best looking, the most articulate. My IQ isn't 250, but I intend to serve. I intend to make a difference. I make mistakes, but overall, I'm a good person who wants to do good in the world and I should be favored because of that.

5:03Not enough of you are giving yourself credit for your intentions. You want to shift your identity overnight? Connect with your faith. You want to double shift it? Connect with your intentions. So when I go into a business meeting or I go into a lunch or I'm going into any type of encounter, even in my golf life, in my sport I play, I remind myself that I've got a God who loves me, who wants me to win, who wants me to be blessed, who wants me to be favored, who wants me to feel peace. Number two, I intend to do good. I'm a decent human being and you know what? Good things ought to happen to good people.

5:33And then third is association. You are who you hang around. See, if you're a 85 degree or a 75 degree or financially, but you start hanging around someone, say like myself, who lives at 140, 150 degrees of finances and wealth and abundance, you will get heated up by proximity to somewhere in between the two of us and a lot closer to where I am than where you are. Same thing in relationships. If you want to have a great, loving relationship in your life, but you're living at 75 degrees in your relationships, you start hanging around people who are in loving, beautiful relationships. Your thermostat setting will increase.

6:05Same within your faith life. If you want to start walking with more faith in your 75 degrees of faith, if you start hanging around people who walk their faith life at 100, 150 degrees, you'll be heated up through proximity. And so these are the three things we do in order to shift our lives. Our identity is the governor on our life. It is the most powerful force in the world. It's the invisible force that governs everything is that thermostat setting. And then if that's true, the way we shift it is always going to be our faith, our intentions, and our associations. And those associations are so huge.

6:36I know you've all heard you're, you know, you're the product of who you hang around the most often, but look at the last 90 days of your life. Okay. And ask yourself this question, other than say your spouse or children, who are the two or three, four people you've spent the most time with? Picture their faces and their lives right now. And then I want you to measure one thing. What's their emotional maturity like? See what I find with all successful people is they have a degree of emotional maturity that other people are absent of. So I always measure what's their emotional maturity. How do they handle success?

7:05How do they handle failure? How do they handle their lives? Then ask yourself this, these three or four people you've been around, can you immediately name two or three things that they have in their life in an area that matters to you? Let's say it's money. Let's just say it was money that they have that you don't have that you wish you did have or in relationships. Can you name two or three things in their relationships that they have that you wish you had or in business or in their physical body. And if you can't immediately go, yeah, they got two, three, four things, man, I would love to have that in my life.

7:37Then I'm not so sure that that's the person you want to spend the most time with. The reverse question is also, hey, can you name two or three things they have that you definitely don't want? When you look at their financial life, if finances are important to you, or do they have two or three things going on in their life financially you definitely want no part of? Or in their relationship life, you know, if you want a better relationship, you look at the relationship, there are two or three things like I wouldn't want that relationship. I don't like the way he or she treats them or they get treated.

8:02You can look at that or their physical body. You want to be in really great shape. You look at them. Do they have two or three things about their health or wellness that you don't think are really great? Well, that's an immediate sign. Maybe they're the wrong people. And so taking an evaluation of who your associations are, are they emotionally mature? Do they have the two or three things you would like to have in your life they have in theirs that you'd like to get heated up and get, or do they have two or three things you want to avoid? These are signs that you should be away from them. So the way we get more helpful is we increase our identity and we increase our identity by working on our faith, our intention, and our associations.

8:36If you do those three things, I believe you're going to live happier. You're going to help other people become happier. You're going to make a contribution in people's lives that's deeper and more meaningful than you've ever made before. And by the way, lastly, that's what you were put here to do. You were put here. You were born to do something great with your life in small ways and big ways. You were made to do something awesome with your life. Maybe not all of it's going to get limelight or notoriety, but you were born to make a difference in the world. And the more you realize that, the more you step into your intention, the more you step into the person you're capable of becoming, the more you just decide, I'm raising that thermostat setting.

9:10I'm no longer this other character I was playing. At any point, you and God are the authors of your life. You can grab the pen and start to write a new chapter and say, I'm stepping into this new character. Their identity's higher. They're more faithful. They focus on their intentions more often. They improve their associations and they help people. Well, I hope I'm doing that for you, quite frankly. That's why I exist. And so if you're not following me on Instagram or my podcast on iTunes or Spotify or one of those platforms or YouTube channel, subscribe to all of those and follow me. Every day I create content that I hope improves your life, helps you max out your life.

9:43And today is one of those little snippets for just a few minutes that I hope helps you help more people. God bless you. Max out. This is the Ed Milet Show. We'll see you next time.