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Couple of weeks to the summit of greatness. Healing your past during one recent uber ride in Atlanta, I struck up a conversation with the woman who was driving. As a child, her father had abandoned both her and her mother, who suffered from a drug addiction, and she was left alone to care for her mother. As an adult, she continued this practice of caring for needy people. In her romantic relationships, she found herself drawn to men with drug addictions and tried to heal them. As a result, she endured a string of physically and emotionally abusive relationships. As she shared more details, it became clear that the trajectory of her life stemmed from her childhood trauma. She accepted toxic relationships because her inner child was trying to heal itself by fixing others. Sitting in the Uber that day, however, I didn't hear defeat. Yes, the physical evidence of her past still remained, but the energy she radiated was full of positivity and kindness. Then she said something that stuck with me. It doesnt hurt me anymore. Ive learned how to heal it and turn the pain into wisdom. Wow. So that was it. This incredible woman was in the process of becoming something new, something not determined by her past trauma.

In fact, she was healing her past so she could move forward in a healthy way. She told me how she was now married to a wonderful man. The two of them had a blended family whom they supported together as a team. She had taken intentional action to bring the cycle of trauma to an end whatever your trauma, and we all have past trauma of some sort.

If left unhealed, it will direct your future too.

Trauma perpetuates trauma. To stop the cycle, you have to let your adult self make the decisions instead of the younger, wounded self. My own healing journey has revealed a lot about my inner child and his needs. In the midst of some of my own relationship struggles, I was fortunate to interview doctor Ramani Durvasula, a leading expert on narcissism. She explained that narcissists often go undiagnosed because they refuse therapy. Therapy forces a person to face their decisions and consequences. Narcissists would much rather project their problems onto someone else and play the victim. When Romani said this, something clicked for me in three different relationships. I had asked each girlfriend to attend couples therapy with me, and each of them refused. I was so confused by that, I thought most women would love a guy willing to talk about his feelings and work on their relationship in therapy. Yet even in the instances when the relationship was in total disrepair and I finally convinced them to go talk with someone, they would not listen to the therapist. Now, I'm not saying I was perfect in any of my past relationships. I was far from it. Part of the problem was, of course, me.

I could not set appropriate boundaries in my relationships because I was willing to sacrifice parts of myself just to keep peace and make others happy. Another person who helped me realize this tendency was Nedra Glover Tawab, who wrote set boundaries, find peace, a guide to reclaiming yourself. I realized I was choosing partners who were living in a state of emotional chaos. They had an insecurity or criticism for themselves. So I entered their world wanting to fix them and convince them of their worth. Looking back now, I should have realized I could not force someone to grow when they were not ready. I should have seen that I can accept people where they are, but not necessarily be in a relationship with them. They each had their own trauma involving past abandonment, and their trauma collided with my own like a personalized poison. You see, my father was affectionate with me, but for the first 13 years of my life, I feared his temper. When he came home, the rise in tension was palpable. On the other hand, my mom was passive. She did anything to keep the peace, even giving up pieces of herself. As an adult, I played the part I had seen my mom play, surrendering boundaries for the sake of keeping peace.

I remained in toxic relationships for far too long, thinking I could fix them. I naturally practiced what I had witnessed as a child until I did the healing work my inner child needed. I ended up feeling shamed and wronged in every romantic relationship. Everything would start fine, then my triggers would activate. I could see the relationship was not working, but both my fear of being alone and my commitment to succeed drove me to try anything to make it.

Work, even abandoning myself.

Yet all along I felt I was not being true to myself and resented myself for losing my voice. Only when I started to heal my inner child and the trauma from my past did I finally start to feel like I was acting authentically as my true self. I learned to tell my inner child what he needed to hear. Once I acknowledged that child part of myself, I felt capable of becoming a new person. Now, when I am faced with the trigger, I can say those unhealthy behaviors are not who I am anymore. I do not have to react emotionally or continue the unhealthy patterns of my previous self. Don't get me wrong, it is an ongoing healing journey. I have to continually remind myself that I am a new person and no longer need to react to the fears I held as a child. I had other wounds to heal with my inner child, too. As I wrote about in the mask of masculinity, I suffered sexual abuse as a child. I was teased for being in special needs classes in school. My brother went to prison when I was eight years old. I essentially lost my father after a car accident resulted in severe brain trauma that changed him forever.

All this trauma caused a constant fear within me that I was not enough. Doctor Gabor mate is an addiction expert who also specializes in childhood trauma. He has educated the public on how childhood trauma can lead to self soothing addictions. These addictions go beyond alcohol and drug addiction. If you get the message that you're not good enough, that you're not worthy enough, says doctor Gabor, then you might spend the rest of your life trying to prove that you are. Such children can grow up to be the extreme people pleasers like myself, who sacrifice parts of themselves in an attempt to feel enough. My solution was to become the biggest, strongest athlete I could so no one could make me feel small again. And in some ways it worked. It got me external results. But it also left me even more insecure and ashamed about my past. It wasn't until I started healing the past that I could experience any inner peace. The truth is, most people have a traumatized inner child with unmet needs. Often, like in my own case, this child's coping mechanisms are not healthy. The only way to move on from these unhealthy habits is to reconnect with the inner child and give the child what was needed in the first place.

Maybe you need to tell the child that they are loved, that they are enough, or maybe assure them that they are protected and that you have their back. In short, you need to speak positively to your inner child to make it possible for you to fully embrace the greatness mindset unaddressed trauma living with unhealed trauma made me physically ill. Often I felt suffocated, like my throat was closing up and a massive weight sat on my chest. I was exhausted all the time and I felt like I was living a six out of ten. I felt I had sacrificed integrity because I wasn't being authentic to my values or vision, all just to unsuccessfully make one other person happy. Or so I thought. As it turns out, the one person I was really trying to satisfy was my own inner child. Unhealed trauma can hold us back in so many ways. One way is through victim consciousness. Doctor Shefali, the author of Radical awakening turn pain into power embrace your truth. Live free defines victimhood as a real state in which some people find themselves. If people are raped or physically abused, they are victims. People should feel justified to call their suffering by its true name and unapologetically say, I have been a victim.

But victim consciousness happens when people tie themselves to that perpetration. People with victim consciousness begin to live by and define themselves by that event, unintentionally leaving the power with the perpetrators. True empowerment, says doctor Shefali, is to take all power back, including blame. This does not mean the perpetrator is free of blame or that you necessarily have to forgive what happened. The perpetrators are always to blame for their injustices, but no one needs to live a future defined by blame of another person. Instead, people can choose to live a future worth taking credit for, and the first step towards that is to do the healing work. Even if you are free of victim consciousness, your unhealed past can hold you back in other ways. Often we develop coping mechanisms to help us survive immediate trauma. This natural ability for self preservation is a biological gift. However, these temporary solutions can become an unhealthy pattern. What worked as a defense mechanism in an emergency when younger can become an unhealthy coping habit when older. Doctor Nicole Lapera, author of how to do the work recognize your patterns, heal from your past, and create yourself. Shared an example of someone who did not feel accepted when they displayed sadness.

This person might learn to avoid similar trauma by bottling their emotions in the future. The appeal of these coping mechanisms is the relief they give in the moment. With enough repetition, unhealthy coping can become second nature. For doctor Lapera, stress loops became her familiar coping mechanism. At one time she did not have the tools to combat the stress in her life, so she found solace in the excitement of stress.

Stress gave her an adrenaline rush, a.

Hit of cortisol, and that was the best she could do at the time, she told me. She now sometimes finds herself seeking negative reviews for the agitation they create.

Why?

Because it is a familiar state. Our subconscious, says Nicole, operates from the familiarity principle. Our subconscious convinces us that the familiar is always better than something unpredictable. Even if and this is important, taking a new approach might turn out better. My own familiar state often held me in toxic relationships. I was afraid of hurting the other person and couldnt bear the thought of hurting someone that I cared about. Plus I was afraid of others judgment since she might talk badly about me afterwards. Over the course of a year, I engaged in therapy to intentionally find peace. At the beginning of the year, my therapist asked me an empowering what is your intention for therapy? I said, I want clarity, peace and freedom. In every session she asked me the same question, what do you want?

I gave the same response, clarity, peace.

Freedom. At the end of the year she asked, have you found this? And here is what I realized.

I didn't find these things.

I had become them. I am peace. I am clear. I am free. I tell you this because before you chase anything in the world, you have to be your own peace and joy. The key to being peace is to set relationship boundaries in alignment with your meaningful mission with people who share and support that mission. This applies not only to romantic partners, but work relationships, family, friends, or anyone close to you. When you take back the power, heal your past and start aligning with your vision, you will feel unlimited. Your confidence will grow because you will be showing up in a positive loop instead of a negative loop.

Coach or critic?

Let's return to the idea I mentioned earlier, that everyone has an internal coach and critic. I experienced firsthand the difference between a demanding yet encouraging coach versus a purely negative critic. A loving coach will challenge you to become your greatest without degrading you. Life works the same way, except you are your own most effective coach or critic. You get to intentionally choose to be the inspiring coach who accepts yourself as the work in progress that you are. You can accept yourself while you improve yourself, compare yourself to a past version of yourself rather than to others, and celebrate how far you have come. Through his research on Alzheimer's doctor David Perlmutter, a board certified neurologist, has established himself as an expert on the brain. According to him, the brain has two parts, the fear based part and the compassionate part. The fear based part is reactive. It urges us to seek immediate gratification and creates the fight or flight sensation. The compassionate part is future thinking. This part of the brain is responsible for bringing the adult into the room when you feel triggered. The adult makes conscious, clear minded decisions as investments in the future.

According to doctor Perlmutter's research, it is impossible to make conscious decisions when the fear based part of your brain is activated because you cannot calm down enough to make a conscious decision. That is not what that part of the brain is for. It is for making quick survival decisions. What doctor Perlmutter calls the fear based state, I call negative state. Often the negative state involves heightened emotions, which in turn can cause you to react in a way that does not align with your authentic self. The opposite, the positive state, allows you to say, I don't like this situation, but I'm going to make a conscious decision not to be triggered by irrational fears. This kind of control requires monitoring your emotions. When I went to India a few years ago, I studied meditation at one World academy. For two weeks, we did nothing but meditate. The academy uses another set of terms for these positive and negative states of mind. The beautiful state and the suffering state. A beautiful state is all about living in love, joy, abundance and appreciation. A suffering state is living in anxiety, stress, jealousy and doubt. What I learned there is that being limitless is about discovering how to live in a beautiful state of being.

This means fostering enduring relationships, conquering challenges, consciously finding fulfillment and becoming a more compassionate leader. So weve got the beautiful state and a suffering state, the positive mind and the negative mind. The fear based mind and the compassionate future based mind. The coach and the critic. At the core of all these concepts is the need to learn to love yourself and heal a thought, a memory, a traumatic experience. What if we could always lean into love and positive coaching? The beautiful state. For that to happen, you must practice disassociating yourself from the past in order to heal it. As you do so, your journey will still be challenging, but those challenges won't hold you back. Instead, they will give you more power to lean forward because you won't be living in fear of failure, success or judgment. The fear based critic will tell you, I'm not enough. The love based coach will reinforce, you are enough. I love you for where you're at. And let's also improve and grow. Growth in healing will be an ongoing process. A hero says, this adversity is not going to define the rest of my life. It is a roadblock.

It is not the end of the road. And this hurdle is going to make me so much more powerful when I learn to get over it. If you want to create a greater future, it's not going to happen by accident. It's going to happen because of intentional actions based on a clear vision, and you simply will not have a clear vision as long as you live in a chaotic state of mind.

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Psychiatrist Paul Conti, MD, author of Trauma the invisible epidemic, studies mental illness from a treatment standpoint, specifically societal prevention of trauma. He advises us to imagine a disease that has only subtle outward symptoms but can hijack your entire body without notice, one that transfers easily between parent and child and that can last a lifetime if untreated. According to Doctor Conti, this is exactly how society should view trauma, as an out of control epidemic with a potentially fatal prognosis. The bottom line is that it is treatable. We can make changes as individuals and as a society to ease traumas effects and prevent further traumatization. If we embrace one critical realization, trauma is both treatable and preventable, engaging greatness to help you discover the trauma in your own story and begin to heal your past, here are some activities that you might find helpful. Exercise one your coping mechanisms. Everyone has ways to numb pain, cope with disappointment, or process triggered trauma. These can be everything from the extreme like drug addiction, to more acceptable ones like workaholism. Whatever they are, we've all got them. In this exercise, we will take a deeper look at our coping mechanisms and what we gain or don't gain from them.

Step one identify your numbing devices it's time to get even more personal. Get out your trusty journal or the notes app on your phone and take an inventory of your coping mechanisms. You can use the following questions to help get you started. These questions are not meant to incite self judgment. They are intended to help you identify the powerful things in your life that help you numb your pain? Do you drink alcohol? Do you binge eat? Do you smoke? Do you smoke weed? Do you watch porn? Are you a workaholic? Are you an extreme people pleaser? Do you binge television at night? You can see the types of questions I want you to ask yourself. When I was younger, I was willing to negotiate anything, even my own boundaries and desires, to manufacture peace and clarity. Because I wasn't at peace with myself. I was an extreme people pleaser who would do whatever it took to find peace. When we experience pain or trauma, we often find comfort in our coping mechanisms, like I did. It is part of how we soothe ourselves. Spend some time in reflection to identify your own if you find yourself at an impasse or unable to identify your own, ask a trusted friend or partner to share with you how they've noticed you cope in difficult circumstances.

Step two what do I get from these addictions? Next, I want you to investigate what you receive from these coping mechanisms. You may note that I've called them addictions because that is what they can become. When we have tried and true methods to numb our pain and avoid feeling our feelings, we have given something else control of our well being. Take a moment to review your list of coping strategies. How are they providing value to you? When you work too much? Are you able to stop intrusive thoughts when you drink alcohol? Are you able to feel like you can laugh easier when you smoke weed? Is that the only way youve been able to find enough calm to go to sleep? Are you dependent on any of these activities? There are no wrong answers here. I want you to take an honest look at your coping strategies and identify their appeal. If they werent serving you in some fashion, you wouldnt keep turning to them. Make sure to write down everything that comes to mind. Step three is my highest self served by these addictions. At this point, you've discovered your sweet spot. You've done some work around your purpose, and you've identified your path of growth.

To get to where you want to go, you will need to become the highest version of yourself. I want you to take a moment to visualize your highest self. We'll do some more work around this shortly by imagining yourself on your meaningful mission, living out your legacy. Does this version of yourself numb the.

Pain, or do you do whatever you.

Can to face your pain? Coping mechanisms serve us well. Until we are ready to move from numbness into the fighting zone. To become the highest version of ourselves, we have to take conscious steps into the ring of life. We've got to lace up our metaphorical gloves and fight through to healing.

What do you need to do to.

Get yourself ready for a fight? If you were to stop cold turkey with any one of your dependencies, what would you need to help you do it? A therapist? An accountability partner? A doctor?

A coach?

Spend some time thinking about the emotional, spiritual and physical equipment you need to move away from your dependencies and into the realm of healing. When you're ready, write them down. You are amazing. This exercise might have been challenging for you. It took me years to identify my dependencies and gain the ultimate courage. I needed to leave them behind to embrace healing. I want to remind you that you are good enough. You are worthy enough. You are enough. You have what it takes to live a life of purpose and meaningfulness. Everything you need to succeed is already inside of you. Part of the path to greatness is finding the tools you need to excavate your integrated self. Exercise two mind and body check in up until a few years ago, my nervous system was the master of my thoughts, relationships, my body. I was constantly reacting with my body and thought patterns to situations or conversations that I found stressful.

I would get sweaty.

I would feel panicked or raise my voice in situations that didn't seem to call for that kind of response. It seemed I was always in and out of fight or flight mode, but I wasn't quite sure why. It wasn't until I was able to create awareness around these reactions and trace them back to their origin that I could start the process of healing. When it comes to painful or traumatic memories, being conscious of our bodily reaction and why it's happening is the first step to a more whole self. In this exercise, we will do a little work around our triggers and check in with our bodies. Reactions step one reactions inventory the first step to becoming conscious of our bodily reaction to being triggered is to take a step back and assess things when we are no longer feeling those reactions. Dont do the first part of this exercise. If your emotions are heightened, you will want to do this exercise when you feel grounded so you can take a fair assessment of your own reactions.

Get your journal or a sheet of.

Paper and spend some time reflecting and answering these questions. When do you get angry? What annoys you about people? When do you feel the loneliest? What happens right before negative self talk happens? When do you feel the saddest? When do you feel reactive? What are the situations in which you feel out of control? What situations bring on anxiety or panic attacks? The key here is to get you thinking about your physical and emotional reactions from a conscious place.

We want to get to a place.

Where we can be in a positive energetic state even when we are triggered. When we are in this empowered state, we can better create abundance and opportunities and set out our own meaningful missions. Step two identify your bodily responses next, lets take an inventory of our bodily responses to triggers. Write down what you know you feel in your body when you are in the situations youve detailed in the previous step. For instance, when you get angry, do you clench your fists? Clench your jaw? When you feel sad? Are you also very tired? Here's another set of questions to help you discover some of your physical reactions to emotional triggers. What makes you sweat outside of physical activity? What makes you want to roll your eyes? What causes your fists to clench? When do you raise your voice outside of sleeplessness? What makes you feel tired? As you go through your triggers and assess your bodily responses, write down every reaction you can think of you want to bring as much as possible out of the unconscious and into the conscious. Step three commit to a new pattern now that you've identified your triggering situations and your bodily responses to them, it's time to commit to a new way of handling your responses.

Learning to do this is a long journey and you will need to practice your responses over and over until they start to feel more natural. Committing to a new pattern may look something like this. When I start to sweat or feel panicky, I will excuse myself and take a break for a moment. When I feel triggered, I will take deep breaths and relax my jaw, fists and shoulders. When I raise my voice or yell, I will immediately apologize for my tone and speak at a calmer level. If I can't, I will excuse myself and continue the conversation later. When I lose my temper or can't get a hold of my emotions at a particular moment, I will commit to journaling about the experience. I will identify what made me feel so angry and write about how I can do better in the future. As you think about your responses, take your meaningful mission into account. As a person with a meaningful mission, how do you want to respond in triggered situations? Is there a way you can respond that gets you closer to your mission? How can you be consciously responsible in your responses? We all have bodily responses to triggers because we live in some pain from our past.

Bringing our reactions out of the unconscious and into the conscious is one way we nurture and love ourselves better. Life is long and sometimes brutal. Regardless of healing and changes in behavior, we will still react physically to stressful or scary situations. It's one of the gifts of our bodies. Of course, we will still get triggered, but we will be aware. Take time to journal new patterns you will try to establish. Take your list from step one and write out sentences that start with the reaction healing is a journey the goal of healing our triggers isn't to never be upset or triggered. The goal is to understand the things that hold power over us. Our goal is to acknowledge the things that cause our bodies, minds, and spirits to react, either by fighting, freezing, or fleeing. What kind of person do you want to be? Do you want to be a reactive person or a person who understands yourself so well that you can pull yourself out of a reactionary phase either before it happens or very quickly after it happens? When you create awareness around your triggers, you will start healing, allowing yourself to feel safe and better.

Care for yourself.

Have patience with yourself.

Healing doesnt happen overnight. Its a journey exercise hash three your trigger origin stories. Depending on the source of your trauma, you may want to consider doing the next few exercises with your therapist or counselor. If this exercise starts to feel overwhelming to you in ways that feel unsafe, stop and come back to it with your therapist or counselor when youre ready. One of the most significant steps we can take to heal past trauma is to find the origin of our pain. I've had to do this several times in my life to move forward with my business, take chances in relationships, and learn how to communicate better with the people I care about. Step one write down your memories. Do you have a list of regrets or a list of memories that cause pain every time you remember them? For instance, do you remember being bullied in school or having a memory of feeling humiliated in a group of people? In this exercise, I want you to take as much time as you need to dump out every memory, event or problematic person from the past that you know still has a hold over you in the present.

Youve already cataloged your bodily responses and your coping mechanisms. Now its time to find what drives them. Get out a sheet of paper or your journal and write down every past event that has caused bodily reactions and triggers in your present. It may help to go back to your list of physical reactions and use that as a guide to trace them back to your original trauma. Here are some guiding questions for this exercise. One. What are the memories or events that have caused triggers? Two, who are the people who have caused triggers? Three, where, who, or what are the sources of your pain? Four, what painful memories can you write down that connect you to this feeling? This exercise may take a few attempts over the few days feel free to stop if you seem overwhelmed or triggered just by recalling the memories. Healing is not a straight path, it is a journey and this stop on the line might take a few days. Step two write your younger self a letter in the second part of this exercise, I want you to write your younger self a letter for each memory or event you wrote down.

If you dont want to do it for every single one, make sure to do it for the ones you feel are the most powerful in your life. The point of this exercise is to give yourself agency in your painful moments and thank your younger self for their strength and resiliency. Here's an example of what I mean. Dear Becky, it wasn't easy when Katie started the I hate Becky club in 6th grade because she was mad at you. It was mean and wrong. No young kid should have to go through that. It took a lot of strength to endure that. I know it was a lot of pain to handle at eleven years old.

I'm so proud of you for still going to school every day and doing.

Everything you could to have fun with your friends. Even though it was so hard every day to deal with your bullies, you were so strong. I'm so proud of you for never being mean back and still helping others when they needed it. You didn't deserve to be treated like that and I'm impressed that you could still be kind. I wonder if there's anything you need now to let go of that pain. We are older now and we have more skills and more power than we did at eleven years old. How can I help you let go of this pain? After you're done with your letter, take a moment to see what your younger self inside of you needs to move away from the pain like we've done before. Check in with your body as you write the letter. Are you starting to feel sweaty or are you relieved, sad, or angry? None of these feelings are wrong and it's good to take an inventory of how you feel as you write each letter. Remember to give yourself agency in these letters by asking your younger self what they need. This kind of exercise can be potent, as it can help integrate parts of us into a more whole person.

Step three decide to stop running one of the biggest reasons our trauma continues to cause us pain is because we keep trying to run away from it and not feel the feelings as they rise to the surface. When I decided to confront the pain of my past, I was able to move forward in leaps and bounds. It can be scary to face past trauma, so we need to make an agreement with ourselves to face it, accept it, and write a new future. The pain that has happened to us may be unfair, wrong, or even illegal, but it happened. The sooner we can say, I accept that this happened to me. It wasn't right. I didn't deserve it, and I accept it. The sooner we can embrace meaningful missions and walk a new path of growth. This doesn't mean you need to be friends with the people that hurt you or keep them in your life, but holding on to the pain of the past will only cause you more pain in the future. Today, as you sit with your list of painful events, take a moment to accept what you have experienced. Commit to yourself that you will face your trauma and heal from it, whatever it takes.

Donald Miller said to me, I would not be so grateful for my life if I had not had my heart broken. I just wouldn't. Pain serves us tremendously. Like me, I'm sure you've endured much pain and disappointment. When we face our trauma, we are walking a new path. We are walking the way of a hero on the path to greatness.

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Finding your identity for many years, I felt like something was missing inside. No matter what level of success I obtained or how many goals I accomplished, I would feel let down. Afterwards. I expected to feel fulfilled, but instead I felt empty. Don't get me wrong, it felt good to check something off the list. But deeper fulfillment eluded me after years, even decades, pursuing a goal, I felt like now what? As I shared in my book the mask of masculinity, in the early years of building my business, I was succeeding on the outside, making money and growing my brand.

But I didn't feel fulfilled because I.

Hadn'T healed a lot of different things in my life. I actually felt frustrated because I was out of alignment with my integrity, values, and vision. I was more focused on how to make more money, get more influence, and prove people wrong than on serving others and fulfilling my meaningful mission. What I have come to realize is that for most of my life, I was accomplishing things just to prove people wrong. Whether the bullies from my childhood or the people who picked me last to be on their teams. I was focused on trying to heal scars from the past and prove I was something other than what they thought I was or something other than what I thought they thought I was. My fuel to succeed came from my wounded inner child, but it wasn't meaningful or sustaining fuel. It led me to pursuing goals for self centered reasons and not from a place of pure love. In short, I let other people define my identity. I tried to be someone I was not. Through getting clear about my identity, through my journey with the school of greatness, I transitioned into becoming someone who focused on serving others.

My fuel became how can I collect wisdom from experts to improve my life and deliver it to others so they can become better versions of themselves? The process of healing your past is essential to you being able to ask one of the most important questions you will ever ask.

Who are you?

And only you can answer that question. Cultivated or pruned as a child, Payal Kadakia, class pass founder, artist and author of Life Pass, lived two lives. Around her american friends. She was all american. Around her indian friends, she was a proud Indiana. In addition, she is an MIT business graduate who also studied dance. No matter which community she found herself in, she felt pressured to feel ashamed of the seemingly opposing other part of herself. In truth, she was authentically a part of both. Now older and equipped with more insight, Payal says, when you live to please others, you don't know what success looks like anymore. She calls it plan B success. Its not the success path you chose for yourself, but one you sort of fell into accidentally. And no wonder it doesnt feel fulfilling to you because its not yours. I think we could all benefit from Payals reminder that we are allowed to grab from different types of our identity. As she looks back now, she told me she can see how it is the combination of her identities that gives her the ability to solve problems she was meant to solve, and she is grateful she got to experience both the business and the creative worlds so she could explore different thoughts and processes.

Who or what has shaped your identity? Did you cultivate it yourself, or did someone else choose to prune you to grow into a particular direction? Often this pruning happens unintentionally and is the product of the environment in which we live. You have to nurture your own growth in the direction of your own meaningful mission or it will flow wherever other people take it. This nurturing process is both a self directed and open minded journey. You should intentionally choose your path, but be prepared to explore new directions. Organizational psychologist Adam Grant shared with me an interesting psychological term called identity foreclosure, which is what happens when people commit to a single identity, even one they're excited about, before exploring other options. Adam has seen this story play out with college students who commit themselves to one career before really testing out any other options. Such students often reach a point when they think they chose incorrectly, but feel trapped because their identity is then firmly tied to their work. Maybe you can relate to that close connection between identity and work, or maybe you define who you are more by the community you associate with. In that case, you need to be careful not to place your membership in this community ahead of your own values.

Social psychologist doctor Amy Cuddy spoke with me about this temptation. She reminded me that our values make us who we are, so compromising those values for a group means giving up agency over our lives. It can be tempting to conform to peer pressure and adopt the same beliefs as the people closest to you, but hold true to what is right for you and your mission. See yourself clearly. To live out your own greatness and not someone else's idea of it, you have to be intentional about crafting your identity. Part of this intentionality might mean rejecting some old parts of yourself and visualizing the new you that you want to become. While speaking with me about the need for change, Leon Howard, South Carolina state representative, shared a story he read about two men who decided to quit smoking. One of the men, when offered a smoke, responded, no, I'm trying to quit. He still visualized himself as a smoker, one who was trying to quit, but a smoker nonetheless. The other replied, no, I don't smoke. He was fully invested in a new identity by taking off his old self and claiming a new identity.

It goes back to the reality that you are enough and are becoming more not either or, but both. And as Leon shared with me, I appreciate where I am at now, but more importantly, I appreciate where I'm going to. The reality is that your identity will continually evolve and include diverse elements, so you must be careful not to limit yourself. You are a combination of all your experiences, communities and beliefs, and that one of a kind combination is what makes you the best person to pursue your unique, meaningful mission. If you hold a clear image of your ideal self as your north star, you will make incremental life changes that will bring you closer to the meaningful success that you find fulfilling. Research shows that the most successful people are ones who try on multiple identities. Herminia Ibarra, a professor at the London Business School, has been studying how people build careers. She discovered successful people try on and switch out many identities and do not simply accept identities to please others. They take the initiative to explore different roles, to find the combination that feels right for them. Sometimes, as was the case for Adam Grant, your experimentation may involve taking off identities that you have worn for a while.

Adam wanted to share his ideas on public stages, but he had long worn the identity of an introvert who feared public speaking. To help him adapt his identity, he listened to other introverts who delivered powerful speeches, people like Brian Little, Susan Cain and Malcolm Gladwell. He decided to let go of his past identity as a self conscious speaker and tried on a fresh identity that served his mission. Now you can find his inspirational speeches all over from YouTube to TED talks. Doctor Benjamin Hardy, an organizational psychologist, also acknowledges the importance of having a flexible identity. He shared with me that having a flexible identity does not mean it is out of your control. You should always be the one directing the changes to your identity, but your identity will inevitably change. Your past self had different approaches for meeting a different set of goals, which is why Ben warns us to always work with goals and beliefs that serve the present you, not a previous version of you. He encourages you to ask what you should be focusing on right now without holding yourself to old standards. This current focus mindset, he says, will help you selectively put your attention on the things that will help you achieve the next great thing in your life.

When life coach, inspirational speaker and entrepreneur Tim story joined me on my show, he shared this wisdom. When you find out where you came from, who you are, and what your purpose is, you cannot be stopped to pursue greatness. You have to first know yourself. No one else can do that for you. There are problems you are meant to solve. Dont miss out on knowing yourself and feeling completely fulfilled by the success meant for you.

Hero or villain? Donald Miller gives us a good way of looking at how our identities get shaped. He told me that identity is everything because we will operate out of how we see ourselves living our identities. In stories, as Don describes it, there are essentially four primary characters in every the victim, the villain, the hero, and the guide. The victim believes they are doomed and have no way out. They are looking for a rescuer.

The villain is the one who makes others small.

They demean others in order to feel powerful.

The hero is the one who really doesn't have what it takes, but accepts the challenge and transforms until they can get the job done. The guide is the one who has.

Played the hero for so long that they have the expertise to turn around and help somebody else. The key point Don makes is that these four characters simultaneously exist in every story because they simultaneously exist in you and me.

At any moment, you and I are playing the role of one of those.

Characters, and that role can and will change many times throughout the typical day. We may not be able to choose what happens to us, but for the most part, we can choose the role we play in the story. The more you identify as the victim, the worse your story will go. Don told me victims do not transform. They are only bit parts to make.

The hero look good and the villain look bad.

When we play the victims, our stories go nowhere. We never get what we want. We don't build a legacy. We are not remembered. To put this in the perspective of the previous chapter, victims don't work to heal the trauma in their past.

They let it define who they are.

But there is another subtle, yet more important distinction to be made about what we choose to do with the pain of the past. Don puts it this villains and heroes actually have the exact same backstory. Both the villain and the hero backstory are painful. At the beginning of the movie, the hero has pain of some sort. Likewise, the villain has a painful backstory. So the difference between the villain and the hero is one thing, how they respond to pain. The villain says, the world hurt me, I'm going to hurt it back. And the hero says, the world hurt me. I'm not going to let this happen to anybody else. How you decide to react to the pain that has come your way in life causes you to be the victim, villain, or hero of your identity story, and you may well serve as a guide to others along the way. As Don pointed out to me, often the learning takes place as the hero takes action, going to therapy, engaging in a relationship, learning from past mistakes, or helping someone else. Healing is a journey, one you must take to discover who you are. Engaging greatness if you are ready to uncover your identity so you can see yourself clearly, I encourage you to engage in the following exercise to help identify who you are and want to become.

Exercise one your current identity if you don't love yourself for who you are, it's hard to pursue a meaningful mission and carve out the life you are meant to have. I truly believe that you are a gift to the world and you deserve an abundance identity. Even if these things don't feel true, I know they are true for you. The best place to start building a stronger, non limiting abundance identity is to figure out who you are right now and chart a path to who you want to be. This exercise will get you started. Step one take inventory of your current self. Self awareness is key to cultivating a new identity. You can't get to the finish line if you don't know where to start. Rate yourself on a scale of one to ten on the following statements. Be sure to record your answer here or in a place where you can review them. In a few months, you'll want to be able to track your progress. I am happy with the identity I have. Again, rate this from one to ten. One being I strongly disagree. Ten being I strongly agree and agree is in the middle.

I want to attract opportunities, abundance, and meaningful relationships. Rate one to ten. I want to feel much better about.

Myself than I currently do.

I have bad habits that need reshaping. I know the new behaviors that I need to create for myself. I know what I need to do to become who I want to be. I understand what my identity needs to be to support my meaningful mission. I know what my meaningful mission is. I may not have clarity on my meaningful mission, but I want to take steps to discover it and build an identity to support it. Again, rate these statements from one to ten. These statements are only meant to gage your starting point. They are not a reflection of how powerful and abundant your new identity can be. Remember, this is only the beginning of an incredible journey, and don't get discouraged if any of your ratings were lower than what you want them to be. Instead, take a minute to reflect on any answers that you want to explore further and write down your thoughts. Step two, write a meaningful mission manifesto. Humans at one point or another, all experience feeling like we are nothing enough. It's part of the human experience for our confidence to ebb and flow. When our identities are limited and built on negative experiences, the feeling of not being enough can be crushing.

People can work 60 hours a week, get every promotion they want, and still feel like they are terrible at their job if their identity is not built on a solid foundation, or if their actions are not aligned with their truest selves. If you feel like nothing you do is good enough and that you are constantly stuck, it might be because the actions you take are out of alignment with your true purpose or because you haven't healed the wound that is driving you to feel this way. No matter what you do, what you achieve, or how many allegedly good actions you take, it will feel empty if you are not on the right path to free yourself from a prison of negativity you must understand who you ultimately want to become and chart a path to that person, that purpose, and that identity.

In this step, I want you to.

Take a few minutes to review your answers from the previous step. Reflect on a few of them, and get concrete with the outcomes you want. Consider these statements.

These are the behaviors I know I want to change.

My highest self no longer spends time doing what my highest self wants to.

Spend time doing these things.

Instead, my highest self wants to help others by when I picture my highest self, these are the characteristics that I have.

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Now that you've written these things down, take a minute to put them all together in a meaningful mission manifesto I your name and committed to ending the behaviors that are inconsistent with who I want to be I will stop doing what. I will no longer spend time doing what. Instead, I will spend time doing these things because I want to help others in these ways. I will spend time becoming the kind of person who does these things. When I move through the world aligned with my truest and highest self, I can achieve my meaningful mission, help others attract abundance, and create positive opportunities for myself. Here's an example. I, Anthony Cooper, am committed to ending the behaviors that are inconsistent with who I want to become. I will stop procrastinating when it's time to meet a deadline. I will be kind and loving to myself. When I fail, I will stop getting angry over minor infractions and learn to be more forgiving. I will no longer spend hours binging tv or playing video games. Instead, I will limit my time on those activities, spend time with friends, find a business coach, and learn how to journal.

I want to help others by teaching them how to write for corporate success. When I move through the world aligned with my truest and highest self, I can achieve my meaningful mission, help others attract abundance, and create positive opportunities for myself. This manifesto will help guide you as you build a new, more positive identity. If you are out of integrity with who you want to be, the way you think about yourself and the actions you take, you are not going to feel whole. You're going to feel a profound sense of lack. This is harmful to your identity. Your meaningful mission manifesto is a commitment to yourself to take the actions that confirm an abundance identity, support your growth, and ultimately assist you in your meaningful mission. There will be days, weeks and months where you won't feel like taking the actions that support your desired identity, but you must press on. The last statement of your manifesto tells you why. Step three hone new skills with your meaningful mission manifesto written, it's likely some new skills will need to be learned and developed to support your new path. Reshaping your habits, new skills and new.

Growth are all things that will help.

You build a new identity. In addition, the new behaviors and skills will help you feel better about yourself, attract meaningful relationships, and become aware of good opportunities. Based on your answers from the above step, take a minute to list any new skills you may need to develop next to them. Write down how you can achieve them with a coach, a course, a book, etcetera. I've provided a few examples so you can see what I mean. Complete your own list on a separate piece of paper or in your journal. Here's an example. Skill I want to build frugality and how I can build it find an online course or book I can work through. Skill I want to build resiliency and how I can build it find a self talk therapist skill I want to build not procrastinating and how I can build it. Look for people online who share skill.

Building in this area.

Find a person to help with accountability in this area. Get ready for greatness. Appreciate the strength it took you to get from where you were to where you are now. If you had feelings of inadequacy or dissatisfaction during this exercise, I want to remind you that you are building a new YouTube. You are creating an identity that isn't based on trauma, criticism or lies about what you can accomplish. Take this moment to breathe deeply. Your innate strength will help you get to where you want to go. Greatness awaits. Exercise two identity celebration when I set out on my own path to greatness, I was a little reactive, fearful and anxious. I had built my identity from a past that was mired with trauma and challenging experiences. I had to intentionally pursue healing from my traumas, work through my fears, and create a new identity for myself. One big step in my healing path was acceptance. I had to decide to love myself for who I was, who I would become, and every step in between. I had to stop beating myself up for not being perfect and take specific steps to protect myself from harmful inner thoughts.

Our inner thoughts shape our identity.

We have to view ourselves in a.

Loving, positive light so that we can build the identity we want. Take some time today to clean your inner house of negativity and celebrate who you are right now. Step one, replace your negative thoughts. Negative thoughts are energy vampires and can affect your meaningful mission, your work, performance, and most important, relationships. One of the best ways to stop negative thoughts is to identify them, bring them to the surface, and acknowledge them. It's counterintuitive not to suppress negative thoughts, but they are the villains of our identity and they get stronger and bigger every time we stuff them down or put them on a shelf for later. In this step, I want you to spend some time identifying the thoughts and feelings that cause you to shut down, react, get defensive, or isolate yourself. Get out your trusty journal or a new sheet of paper and one, identify your chronic negative thoughts and feelings. Two, ask yourself, does this thought or feeling support an abundance identity? Three, reframe your intrusive thought with an abundance mindset on your piece of paper.

Or in your journal. Put a line down the middle of the page. On the left side of the page.

Put invasive thought slash emotion.

On the right side of the page.

Put reframe your thought. Here's an example that you could put on the left side, I am so messed up. There is no way I can help others. And on the right side you can put I am well prepared to provide empathy and help someone who has had negative experiences. On the left side, I am too.

Old to start something new. I've lost my chance.

On the right side because of my age. I am equipped to help younger people avoid the pitfalls I experienced on the left side, the invasive thought or emotion. I will never measure up to my peers.

They are all so much farther ahead than I am.

And on the right side, the reframing your thought section the only experience that concerns me is my own.

I am walking a new path of growth that will take me to where.

I want to be. So many times, the thoughts and emotions we experience don't belong to our true selves. They were created through our trauma or imagined through our fear. When a painter sits down to paint, if they were to imagine what someone might say on an instagram photo of their artwork, they would never paint a thing. If a runner sets out to run the Boston Marathon, they would never complete it if they kept hearing their college.

Coach calling them a loser.

Our most authentic identity is not self critical or disappointed with who we are. Our truest essence is loving, kind, and encouraging to ourselves.

When we bring our not worthy and.

Not good enough thoughts into the light. They cannot survive. Step two, celebrate you. You are worthy. You deserve to live a big life. You matter. You are a gift. Take some time to celebrate the wonder that is you. It's time to make a list of the things we love about ourselves. List anything you love about yourself. Anything. You do not need to use a lot of words, but be specific here. Instead of I am great at deadlifts, go deeper into why you love this about yourself. I'm great at deadlifts because I am never intimidated by the weight on the bar. Then take a moment to reflect on how these celebrations can help you on your journey to heal and pursue a meaningful mission.

Here's an example again. Take out a piece of paper.

Put a line down the middle. On the left side put I celebrate.

This about myself on the top.

And on the right side, put how this can apply to my meaningful mission and abundance identity. And on the column where I celebrate.

This about myself on the left, I.

Am great at deadlifts because I am never intimidated by the weight on the bar. And on the right side, if I.

Look at obstacles as just another plate.

On the bar, I can summon the part of me that is never intimidated and move forward with confidence. Back on the left side, I am a good friend because I am very encouraging and I always show up when I am needed. And on the right side, I can look at myself as a friend, encourage myself, and work to give myself what I need when I am in crisis.

On the left side, I love that.

I am kind to everyone I meet, even when I feel cranky. And on the right side, when I am feeling angry with myself for imperfections, I know I have the strength to be kind to myself. If I can find the strength for strangers, I can find strength for myself. When you are done, post this list somewhere you can refer to it often. Take a picture with your phone so you can carry it in your pocket. Put it in the pages of your journal or hang it on the fridge. Put it anywhere you can see it. When you feel chronic negativity creeping in, this list will remind you of your worth and help you recenter your thinking. Step three, write a letter from your future self. Next, take all the positive feelings you have from step two and channel them into a letter from your future self to your current self. Imagine yourself just a few years into the future writing a letter to the present you right in the middle of the work of healing and growth. You can say anything you want in this letter and in case it's helpful.

Here are a few ideas to get started.

Thank yourself for doing the daily actions.

That helped build a stronger identity.

Mention how proud you are of your younger self for doing the hard work of healing. Talk about why you're proud of your present self. Thank yourself for showing up. Mention the obstacles that you had to overcome and celebrate overcoming them. Mention the addictions or destructive behaviors you conquered. Say thank you for your routines you established. Encourage yourself to stay the course. Mentor yourself by revealing the consistent behaviors you need to embrace to build a new identity and celebrate the fact that your younger self supported your meaningful mission. Follow your intuition as you write this letter. You are celebrating yourself in the now for getting to where you want to go. You are amazing. You are the one. You've probably heard me say this before. If you want to find the one person who can change your life, look in the mirror. You are the only person who can give yourself what you want and you must be willing to do the work every day. That's why it's so important to accept yourself, celebrate your work and reprogram your negative thoughts. You are on the path to greatness now. Develop your skills, own your insecurities and celebrate your abilities.

Do the work every day. Build yourself into a force. You have everything you need right now to triumph. Exercise three, your inspiration finder inspiration is a word we throw around and it's easy for it to get cheapened. But authentic inspiration is vital on your journey to build a new identity. Inspiration can give you wings to rise above the fold, help you learn more and live a better life. When we have people in our lives who inspire us, both personal and virtual, for example, online coaches, I genuinely believe.

We have more joy and can make.

A more significant impact. This exercise will help you find what inspires you, identify what you want from it, and make a plan to achieve it. Step one, write an inspiration list.

In this step, identify the people who.

You admire and from whom you get inspiration. It can be anyone, parent, sibling, friend, teacher, online coach, author, celebrity or well known figure. Feel free to list anyone who comes to mind, even if you think it might seem a little bit odd. If they inspire you, write them down.

Write a list of people who inspire you. Write one to two sentences next to each name about why they inspire you.

Understanding who you admire and why can help you identify what you yourself want to embody. Step two, visualize next, get more concrete by listing actual characteristics you want to develop for yourself. It might help to look at the first line from step one and dissect which admirable qualities these particular people possess? Visualize who you want to become.

What qualities or characteristics do you have? How do these qualities or characteristics help.

You in your meaningful mission? As you visualize your future self, take an assessment. Are you doubtful or confident? What do you think about yourself?

Are you fearful or fearless?

What other emotions are you feeling? Do the same with the people you listed in step one. How do you imagine they feel about themselves? Do they pursue their goals even when.

They don't feel confident?

How do they tackle problems or obstacles? How do they motivate themselves? When you're ready, get out a piece of paper, journal notes app, you know the drill by now and record the characteristics you want to have. Step three meditate with these prompts. Now that you've identified the qualities and.

Characteristics you want to build, take some.

Time to meditate on them. It is in the quiet moments of meditation that we can center our thoughts and begin healthy thought patterns around new goals. Meditation can also help us discover the concrete steps we want to take to achieve our goals. A lot of magic can happen in the quiet to get ready for meditation. Find a comfortable position. Many people report that meditation is most effective when their feet are flat on the ground. But find whatever position is most comfortable for you. And if you're driving, please don't do this while driving. One. Start your meditation with several deep breaths. You may want to bring focus to your breathing by counting the beats of your inhales and exhales. Inhale for seven beats and exhale for eight. Two. Take a moment to check in with your body. Scan yourself from head to toe. Feel your arms. Become aware of your feet. Take notice of your back and placement of your hands. If any part of your body is tense or tight, like your jaw or shoulders especially, spend a few moments trying to relax that part of your body. Three. Check in with your energy, your thoughts and feelings.

Are you feeling positive or negative?

Tired or energetic?

Hungry or fool? There are no wrong answers here. It's just time to observe. Four. Take some time to be grateful. Find three things in your life for which you are grateful, and take a moment to focus on each one. Five. Choose one of the following prompts and meditate on it for three to five minutes. As you reflect, try to consciously open your mind so that new ideas can come in. You may find your mind wandering, and that's okay. Just bring yourself back to the prompt and keep meditating. What has inspired you this week and why? What are some ways having these qualities or characteristics will enhance your life or bring you more joy? What are some ways these characteristics will help you create an abundance identity? How can these new characteristics or qualities help you in your meaningful mission? What's one way you can begin adopting these new qualities and how can you practice it? Meditate on this phrase from your meaningful mission manifesto by repeating it over and over. When I move through the world aligned with my truest and highest self, I can achieve my meaningful mission, help others attract abundance and create positive opportunities for myself.

Meditation is calming to our nervous system and it trains our brains to come back to the present moment over and over again. And this is a good skill to have on hand as you battle negative thoughts and get rid of your limiting beliefs as soon as you feel triggered or overwhelmed. As you continue to build your new identity, make sure you make time to meditate. You'll find it to be inspiring, peaceful and beautiful. You are the inspiration. When you have the courage to heal, get rid of toxic thinking and build a new identity, you will inspire others to do the same. Your inspiration will ripple throughout everyone with whom you come in contact. It's hard work building a new identity, but the quiet persistence with which you set and achieve your goals will inspire others just as you have been inspired. There are no mistakes in who you are, what you are up to, and where you have been placed in life. You are here to be an inspiration. So keep going. Bonus exercise your mantra creator I have.

A thing I like to do when.

I'm going for a run and I want to quit. When I want to stop or feel fatigued, I repeat to myself a mantra and this mantra is I'm fast, I'm healthy, I'm free. With each running step I repeat, I'm fast, I'm healthy, I'm free, and as I run, my fatigue seems to disappear, my pain diminishes and I start to run a little bit faster. Our thoughts and output are closely connected. This exercise will help you to create mantras that serve you as you build your abundance identity. One, write down the things you most desire. It can be anything from business success to a loving relationship to becoming the world's foremost lemon expert.

Whatever it is, write it down.

Two, next to each one, write a declarative and positive statement. Three, imagine that you already have what you want most. So if you wrote down I want to find the love of my life, next to it, write down, I am lovable, I am loved. Four, whittle your statement down to a few words to create a mantra that.

Is short and easy to remember and repeat. Here are a few tips for writing.

Your mantra keep your mantra in the first person. Begin with I or my make your mantra specific. Make your mantra positive with no negative words. Using this formula, create mantras for any part of your life where you need to overcome an obstacle, deal with a difficult situation, or steer your mind away from negative thoughts into positivity. And as I do, repeat the mantra anytime you need it with every step or every breath you take.

Nothing is more powerful than changing your.

Negative thinking in the present moment.

I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness.

Make sure to check out the show.

Notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you, and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward.

And I want to remind you of.

No one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter, and now it's time to go out there and do something great.

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