To My Kids: Identity Is Something You Choose, Not Inherit

[00:00:00]All right, kids. Today I got a I'd call it a really powerful lesson. You know, there's a tremendous amount that you can do with what I'm about to describe. So, your father back in the day probably took until I was in my early 20-somethings to realize this. Identity and your personality is technically a choice in its entirety. I wish I would have known this when I was a teenager.

[00:00:18]What you end up doing as you grow up is you seek different identity traits and characteristics >> [music] >> to start describing yourself to others.

[00:00:28]You know, as an example, at a very young age people start to ask you questions like, "Oh, what do you want to do? Like, what do you want to be?" And your answers will change, you know, a ton relative to your interests and status and how you think other people look at you and what you actually may end up finding genuine fulfillment in at that specific age. [music] But, what people generally don't realize is that they start to inherit different personalities and characteristics and identities from all kinds of stuff. And these [music] things shape the opportunities that you find in life. They shape who you're probable to be friends with and who you're not probable to be friends with.

[00:00:58]They shape environments that you'll have access to and that you won't have access to. More importantly, they'll shape you and how you are and how you behave and how you're probable to think and look at the world. As an example of that, one of the more funny ones to me as I've continued to age is astrology. Astrology is kind of like an identity in a box that you can just at any point in your life say, "I'm going to listen to the characteristics and the traits and the identity that this random person writing about how I am on the internet says I am because of the stars and the planets."

[00:01:28]You know, there's a lot of people who deeply believe what I'm saying. And it's a perfect example for that exact reason.

[00:01:34]Whether it [music] is true or whether it is untrue, it is a set of like characteristics, ways to think, ways to behave that just you get a bundle of them, you know? It's like a It's like a DLC. It's like a downloadable pack of just traits and characteristics that you all of a sudden become as a result of like inheriting that set of beliefs.

[00:01:52]That's as simple as it is. When I was born, I'm a Taurus, something like that, one of those words. And you know, there's a whole bunch of different characteristics I can go look up about you can literally listen to listen to this. You can literally be told just based on that alone, supposedly, what kind of like diseases you're probable to have is how some truly how hard some people go on that. A lot of people's belief systems define who they're probable to be compatible with and who they won't be compatible with. You know, there's no business deal, >> [music] >> there's no personal relationship that I've ever had that's founded on oh, you're a [ __ ] whatever. Oh yeah, I'm this. Like dude, we're homies. Like >> [laughter] >> But to be clear to the people who inherit that set of characteristics and traits to be true, like dude, it's true.

[00:02:34]And there's plenty of people who literally do what I just said. Where they're like, oh, you're a this or that.

[00:02:39]Like oh, we should be best friends. And like bam, they they literally become best friends. Under different characteristics and traits and identity characteristics, I've had that happen.

[00:02:47]Like I've had people where I'm like just similar [music] to me. Like oh, you spend a certain amount and you make a certain amount and you make it from this particular way of making money. It's like boom, you know, let's be friends.

[00:02:56]Or oh dude, you like this video game?

[00:02:58]Like oh, I love that video game too.

[00:02:59]Bam, we're friends, you know? So, that can happen in all ways. There's nothing there's nothing wrong with the becoming friends part of it. It's just important to understand that the reason that occurs is because of the inherited set of personality traits. You understand?

[00:03:12][music] So, I call these handy-down traits or handy-down identities to expand it a little bit. And you want to be extremely careful with this. When I was growing up in school, right? You watch movies while you are in elementary school that teach you that there are cliques in middle school or cliques in high school. Like dude, when I was a kid in elementary school, there wasn't [music] a single clique. Like everybody was just homies. Everybody was friends with everybody. I'm sure you might have had a kid or two that like you didn't like or that was weird or something, but like you didn't think in terms of oh, that guy's an athlete. That guy's a nerd, you know? Oh, that person's in band, you know? So like [ __ ] them. Or oh, this person does math really well or did a spelling bee. Like, you know, it's like you don't think of that stuff.

[00:03:55]Everybody's just a kid. But, through TV shows and through movies, mainly, you get exposed to the idea that there's cliques. So, all of a sudden, when I was in middle school, it's like there are absolutely visible cliques that are all of a sudden forming [music] where, you know, kids who play sports are with the kids who play sports and the kids who are in band are with the or with the kids who are in band and the the [ __ ] weird kids are with the weird kids, you know? And like there's just, you know, all of a sudden there's fractions. And there's not a lot of intermixing besides, obviously, when you're in classes with these different people. So, that carries through to high school and then, you know, the point I'm trying to make is is while you're in middle school, you watch how high school's supposed to be on TV shows, movies, friends that you may know, older kids, older brothers and sisters, whatever.

[00:04:31]And again, the point I'm trying to make is handy-down beliefs, handy-down perspective, handy-down views, handy-down identity trait. They're things that without even questioning them, you'll inherit to be true for you and for your circumstances and for how you are likely to be. When I was growing up, there was a whole wave of kids that were emo is what it was called. So, in the generation prior to that, those same kids would have been called gothic or goth kids. In my generation, they were called emo kids, e m o. Who knows what they'll be called when you guys are kids? Um, but here's all I got to say is they listen to a particular type of music that encourages them to dress a particular way, it encourages them to potentially get like tattoos or piercings, it encourages some of them to start hurting themselves and like cutting themselves and all this kind of crazy stuff. There again, there's a whole set of like behaviors that come along with your downloadable personality that you get. Vice versa to rap music or to country music. Like, when I grew up, the kids that listened to rap, they had a particular vocabulary that the kids who didn't listen to rap were like, "What the [ __ ] you saying?" The kids who listened to country, they behaved a particular way, they viewed the world a particular way, they went out and they did certain things. I like to think in terms of the There's this car brand called Jeep and if you drive a Jeep, then you may find that there's people who drive Jeeps around that have like rubber ducks on their dashboards. Again, my point is is like there's nobody when you were just born that's like, I have an inherent bias towards putting rubber ducks on my dashboard in my car. It's like the only people who do that are Jeep owners. Do you see what I mean? So, if you buy a Jeep, it's like all of a sudden you're essentially permitted the ability to behave a particular way cuz the people who already own Jeeps already behave that particular way. Here's the thing that I'm trying to articulate to you in kind of a full circle way, so you guys don't get [ __ ] by this in life.

[00:06:10]When you finally come to the level of self-awareness that's required to really execute on this lesson, the first thing you're going to want to do is an identity audit. You're going to want to see like who you currently are in the eyes of yourself and in the eyes of others from this perspective of identity traits, characteristics, [music] behavior patterns, beliefs that you've inherited. And the first thing is just kind of line by line, just belief by belief, perspective by perspective, just ask yourself where it came from. You know, did you choose intentionally to think and behave that particular way? To believe that things are that particular way? To act a particular way? Or did you potentially inherit this as something that came from somebody else? And can you even recognize where or when that somebody else was that handed it down to you? Was it just a random piece of content? Was it a show? Was it a movie?

[00:06:57]Was it a conversation? Was it somebody you look up to? Was somebody you hate?

[00:07:01]You know, there's there's a surprising amount of things where you'll get it from. You can you can pick it up from anywhere. Kind of like a piece of gum being stuck on the road. You could step on it, you could drive over it, a bird could come down and eat it. It can get picked up in a lot of ways. A street sweeper could come along and grab it.

[00:07:14]There's a lot of ways to pick up identity traits. The first thing is you got to do an audit. You got to try to see what you're potentially carrying now that just makes no sense to continue to carry through. The reason something would make no sense to continue to behave through is because you're not getting the outcomes and results you want from that identity or that set of characteristics that you've inherited as a result of the hand-me-down beliefs.

[00:07:35]Now, regardless of whether it's from a hand-me-down belief or not, even if you can audit and identify and say, oh, I picked that up from here. You know, one of my staff when I very first met him, it was [music] like I could tell with 100% certainty that this guy watched The Office a thousand times. There's this TV show, it's a long-running series. Maybe maybe it's still popular when you guys are older. It was a good show, to be fair. It was a good show. But like I could tell that this particular guy was working with, that was like the show that he probably watched who knows how many times over. And whether he was even aware of it or not, he behaved just like one of the characters on that show, like almost to the T. a majority of his personality at the time. And then as time continued to pass, and I could tell he was no longer watching that show, it's like he was getting exposed to more content, more personalities, more media, you know, more conversations, better people, better cultures, and like the guy's personality was totally different.

[00:08:23]So again, the first step is awareness.

[00:08:25]The second step is asking yourself whether you're aware of where it came from or not. Do you want to carry it forward? Okay? That's the most important question is, do you want to carry it forward into the next identity? The next identity becomes very important to intentionally craft for the sole benefit of getting better outcomes with the new identity. So, [music] as an example, I'll give you some specific ones. If let's say you are terrible with the opposite sex, like you just find yourself not getting what you want when you go talk to somebody that you want to be with romantically, okay? In that context, you may just have the wrong identity. You may have the wrong personality. And if you want to get better outcomes and better results, it may require a change in behavior to get the outcome you're after. And a change in behavior can be easily done if you have the belief system and the identity to back it up. That's the foundation to behavior. There's this simple way to look at it in terms of what creates the actual actions and like thoughts that we have, and it's this underlying thing called identity. As a great example of this, what you believe controls and dictates how you behave. There's this concept in life, it's called a prepper.

[00:09:28]So there's a type of person that genuinely believes at any time the world is going to end. They could believe it from all different kinds of perspectives, just as an example of this. Somebody might have religious views that the world is going to end based on a particular set of circumstances that they see happening in the news. And then as a result of that, they will start taking a particular set of actions based on the fact they think the world is going to end because of the religious views. That's going to dictate how that person behaves. Somebody else could equally believe that the world is going to end, but for a completely different set of reasons, not for religious views. Maybe they view it because of political tension. Or maybe they view it because of, you know, something related to nuclear threats or whatever, a war that could escalate.

[00:10:05]That person doesn't take the same action because of their religious views like person type number one, but they ultimately still both take the same type of action. They both might end up prepping for the end of the world. One might [music] end up praying and just really devoting their life to whatever their specific God is and trying to make right with things or whatever they do to prepare. On the other hand, the guy who thinks the world's going to end but isn't as religious, that person specifically might go buy infinite clean water systems and water and beans and canned foods and ammo and guns and like build a bunker in their backyard or some desolate piece of property. You get where I'm going with this? The beliefs cause the actions. It's not like you and I can't get exposed [music] to the exact same data and can conclude something completely different than those people.

[00:10:53]The reason we all conclude and then behave differently relative to being exposed to the same data is because the filter that the data comes through is identity. The filter that the data gets sifted through is our beliefs. And our beliefs and identity are what then are the springboard. [music] It's the foundation that everything else in terms of action and thoughts follow with. There's people during like this specific time while I'm sitting here talking to you. There's a lot of like little I call them kind of micro wars.

[00:11:24]You know, they're not nearly comparable to like a World War II or a World War I level of death and, you know, chaos.

[00:11:30]They're like micro wars. They're like regionally specific things that are happening here on planet Earth while I sit here and film this. And [music] one of those particular countries is a So, technically actually in this situation both both the countries that I'm sitting here thinking of have completely opposing religion. They literally believe in different gods. They believe different things. To be clear, they both take completely different actions that lead to the same outcomes. They both go to war with each other for essentially [music] differences in views and conflict and friction that rose tension [music] and they needed to battle it out instead of just doing normal things. Meanwhile, people like me, [music] I can sit here and I can observe these active wars happening and I don't have to action it at all. I don't have to be like, oh, let me go jump into the war, you know? I don't have any kind of action that I need to take because when that same piece of data comes through my senses, I can [music] sit there and I can filter it from a completely different view.

[00:12:23]It's not actionable for me, okay? It's not actionable for me. As an example, I don't really participate in politics. To be clear, I'm exposed to the ideas of politics mainly through social media platforms. Very rarely, if ever, do I get exposed to political things like in my real life through random people in conversation. Quite literally, the only time I get exposed to that conditioning is from a specific data source. So, I've curated my newsfeed to try to [music] scrub as many things that just aren't beneficial for me as I can. I try to scrub things that relate to wars. I try to scrub things that relate to political cycles. I try to scrub things that relate to specific upcoming election cycles. Like, none of that stuff has any specific [music] effect on me cuz I live on planet Earth.

[00:13:07]If at any point the political stuff that's happening in my region or where I live starts to impact us in negative way, we just leave. We'll just go do something else. We'll just literally go somewhere else. We operate with that belief. That's an example of identity. I don't identify as political. So, when I get exposed to political things, they aren't actionable for me. You understand? Versus somebody who is highly political as an as an example of a trait or a belief system, depending on what their political views are, they may see something that is super minor like a bumper sticker and decide to ram their car into the back of a guy. You understand? The difference there is you and I can see the bumper sticker and think that has nothing to do with me. We might not even literally see the bumper sticker because we don't have it as a as an identity characteristic or trait or a belief system. The other guy sees the bumper sticker and is like, "I'm going to ice that guy." You know, like that guy's got to go. Point I'm trying to make, when you are crafting the next identity and when you're trying to consider who should you be, it you should think in terms of outcomes, behaviors, and reaction, okay? Now, I'm not very for being reactional. I'm actually very for productivity, but look, I'm a human being, you're a human being. We have situations that put us into a reactive position where, you know, we will no longer be able to proactively do stuff. Something will feel like randomly as though it happened to us and it'll force us to do something as a result of that random thing happening. If and when that occurs as an example, the way you reactively behave.

[00:14:27]Do you want to be a person that has chaotic things happen to them that acts [music] calmly still and that is very well put together under pressure? Or would you rather identify as the type of person that when a high-pressure situation comes, your world collapses and you become like hyper-emotional and like you become really high-stress and, [music] you know, all your attention gets sucked out of everything else and just goes to that one thing? Or, like I said, are you the type of person that if something happens to you and it's a reactive thing, like let's say you're driving, you go through a stop light.

[00:14:55]It's a green light for you, it's a red light for somebody the other way.

[00:14:57]Somebody comes through the red light, clips your bumper. You were in the middle of going somewhere, you no longer obviously going there, and your car is in trouble. Do you A, get out of the car and immediately start freaking out, like punch the other guy, you know, start crying, you know, start acting like all hell just broke loose? Or are you just super calm and super chill? You know that the insurance companies are going to handle it. You know, yeah, you're technically inconvenienced now relative to wherever you were going. And even if you were going somewhere super important technically because of your financial position in life, you get the opportunity to just pay. You can just [music] literally in that exact moment be like, "Hey man, I'm actually on the way to a really important thing. I don't want to minimize this even if it's the most important thing that's happened in your life to date, but I really got to go to this thing. I'm going to get my assistant to show up. I'm going to give you a couple hundred bucks or a couple thousand bucks just to sit here and chill the [ __ ] out in the meantime.

[00:15:44]Watch my car, you know, I'm going to get somebody who's available to come over here and look at the you know, I got to go on to this other thing. I'm going to call an Uber." It's like you could be literally however you want to be, but you have to really think of more so specific situations like reactive situation. Um if you got blessed with the opportunity to have something really awesome happen that's really going to progress your life in the direction you want. In that example, do you want to be the person who like celebrates and is like, "Yeah, this is [ __ ] awesome."

[00:16:06]Would you rather be more stoic and more like, "It's exactly what I expected."

[00:16:09]You know, that's a choice. It's not random. Everything I just described is a choice. You see what I mean? All the way down to how you choose proactively to do stuff. [music] So, what you think, how you behave under all circumstances reactive or proactive, all come down to this foundation of what's your worldview, you know, what's your identity. How are things in your specific worldview, and how do you you define what's done based on XYZ? And because there are so many different situations and circumstances that will happen to you and that you'll come across in life, a lot of people aren't equipped in like a broad way with their identities to just have a like a static behavior across the board for almost all thing. They think more so in like highly specific ways. So, as [music] an example, you can have a death occur and be stoic, but if you had a death occur of a pet, [music] maybe you're highly emotional, right? In that example, there's no flat behavior across the board. You have an isolated behavior that you defined to two specific scenarios that are technically the same, death, right? So, do you prefer isolated personality types and identity traits, or do you prefer more of a broad like blanket of ways to behave and think.

[00:17:19]When you really proactively do this, I got to be very honest in saying it's going to be tough to act like you're going to define an entire identity in one sit-down [music] session. It's better to choose how to behave in real time. If you have the self-awareness to do what I'm saying, what you'll actually learn from this lesson is that your identity, your reactions, your proactive thoughts, your thoughts in general that come into your head, your behaviors, 100% of them are a choice. That's the key in this lesson. And when you inherit the truth of this lesson, you can go out in the world and you can behave and you can think how you'd choose to behave and think, instead of thinking that you've just inherited a personality and that you are the way you are. That is the farthest thing from the truth.

[00:18:00]Genetically, you are the way you are.

[00:18:02]But even that, while I sit here in this day and age right now, I've seen some crazy videos of people even editing their genes, >> [laughter] >> which is kind of crazy. But to be clear, genetically and the things that you inherit like hereditarily from your mother or not, those are the things that realistically are the things that are more static. But like quite literally, everything else about how you are, who you view yourself as, your behaviors, your thoughts, those are all choices.

[00:18:24]And that that foundational trait being inherited as an identity trait has been awesome in people that I've observed it in in life. Those people always get much more out of life. They feel much more in control of their life and who they are and what happens to them. They feel more like they make things happen in their life than just reactively have things happen in their life. That's one of the biggest things I've noticed from that characteristic. And most importantly, if something that they've noticed as time goes on just isn't serving them, they can just detach from it easily and just move on and become better to whatever version of them they want to be next that suits them best for that next thing they want. Don't ever conclude, ever, that you are the way you are. That is the farthest thing from the truth. You are what you think you are. You are what you repeatedly do. You are how [music] you think things are, and you are going to behave in the context of your worldview, which is where I'll close it out. Your worldview would be the example of like those two people I gave, the religious one and the person who just thinks the world's going to end. They both think the world's going to end, but they both have different behaviors for what they're going to do if the world ends. Meanwhile, a majority of the planet could just be moving on throughout their day without thinking the world's going to end at all. The reason that those people think the world's going to end is because of their worldview. You must master [music] picking the right worldview because that's what's going to help define the opportunities that you can see and that you can take advantage of. It's what's also going [music] to help define your identity, your characteristics, and make it all the easier to behave in a very particular way. Be super mindful of this. This lesson's very powerful and profound in terms of what it can do for you. Choose your identity. Remember, it's fluid, it's a choice, it's not [music] static. You are not who you are.

[00:19:56]You chose to be who you are and you can choose to be someone else if who you currently are doesn't make much sense for you. Okay, talk soon.