When we live congruently with our highest values, we excel.
When we live by lower values, we decel, decelerate.
What makes us do that? Well,
let's say we walk in a mall and we meet somebody and we see somebody that
is, we perceive to be more intelligent than us,
or we perceive them to be more high achieving and successful
than us. We perceive that they have more wealth, or
more financial security than us.
We perceive that they have a more stable relationship, more attractive spouse.
We perceive that they have more social savvy or connections or network or
Facebook leads or something.
We perceive that they're more physically fit or more attractive.
We perceive that they're more spiritually aware, more inspired by their life.
Any time we compare ourselves to another individual and
we are too humble to admit what we see in them inside us,
and we exaggerate them and minimize us and put them on a pedestal and put
ourselves in a pit, we automatically
inject some of their values that we imagine they live by,
and cloud the clarity of our own highest value, where we excel,
and dilute our potential.
That's why we're not here to compare ourselves to others.
We're here to compare our own daily actions to our own highest values.
When we compare our own actions to our own highest values and live by priority.
If we fill our day with high priority actions that inspire us,
we raise our self worth and gain momentum. But if we live by lower values,
we lose that. We dissipate that.
Because anytime we're living by our lower values and we devalue ourselves,
that is not a bad thing,
it is a normal physiological response to let us
know, because we're unfulfilled,
to let us know we're not living congruently with what our highest value is.
Our highest value is what our life's identity revolves around.
And this is where we excel with knowledge.
This is where we excel with clarity of purpose. In fact,
our purpose is an expression of our highest value. Epistemologically
we learn most in our highest value area.
And so anytime you compare yourself to somebody else and put them on a pedestal
and inject some of their values into your life and try to live in those values,
which are lower than your own, you devalue yourself and self depreciate.
So limited beliefs are simply the injected values of
others that you've chosen to subordinate to.
And you're attempting to live outside your own highest values.
And any time you attempt to live outside your own highest values,
the probability of you achieving goes down.
The probability of you having self-confidence and self deserve goes down.
And that's not a mistake. That's not a weakness. It is a normal biological,
psychological response to let you know,
as a feedback that you're not living authentically,
according to what you value most.
People with the positive thinking movement wants you to think that you want to
get rid of that, but I'm not here to tell you to get rid of it.
I'm here to tell you that it's a gift.
It's a guidance feedback to let you know that you're trying to be somebody
you're not.
Albert Einstein said that if you are a cat and you're trying to expect yourself
to swim like a fish,
and you're looking up to a fish because their ability to swim,
you're going to beat yourself up.
And if you're a fish expecting to climb a tree like a cat,
you're going to beat yourself up.
But if you honor yourself as a cat and have an expectation matched on your own
highest value as a cat, you'll climb magnificently or you'll swim,
if you're a fish, magnificently.
So the moment you're authentic and setting goals that are congruent and aligned
with what's authentic to you, your self-worth goes up, your confidence goes up,
your achievements go up, your leadership goes up, your willingness to wake up
your genius goes up and you maximize your potential as a human being.
But the moment you compare yourself to others and try to live in other people's
values and try to be somebody you're not,
you are designed to self depreciate.
You are designed to have quote "limited beliefs" because you're expecting to
live in something that's not really important to you. You just think it is.
Most people don't know what their values are.
I've been doing value determinations for 42 plus years.
And I'm certain that the majority of people,
if you ask them what their values are, they'll tell you social idealisms.
They'll tell you the things that they think that society expects.
And conformity is not what's going to lead to enormity.
You're not going to have an enormous life of achievement when you're conforming
and fitting in, because you're trying to be somebody you're not,
and it's called a lost soul to theologians. You've lost yourself,
your individuality.
We have a yearning to want to make a difference in the world.
We're not going to make a difference fitting in.
We're going to make a different standing out.
And our own hierarchy of values are unique to us.
No two people have the same hierarchy of values.
So the most unique you can be is to live aligned and congruent with what you
value most,
and giving yourself permission to shine in that area instead of shrink by
conformity. Ernest Becker in his Pulitzer prize, winning book,
'Denial of Death', talked about the collective hero versus the individual here,
the collective hero is the one that thinks they're going to get some extra
points by fitting in and losing their identity and being part of the group,
the herd instinct, and the fear of rejection and fear of banishment,
the fear of loss of you know, support by other group,
and this is what clouds the clarity of a human mission.
Fitting in is what clouds the clarity, standing out is what doesn't.
It's an unborrowed vision as Ayn Rand describes.
An unborrowed visionary is somebody who lives congruently by their own values,
creates original ideas that serve and follows a pathway and blazes a
new trail that's been unblazed before. And what's interesting,
if you are living by other people's values and trying to live in their values
you'll self-defeat.
So we automatically live in a phobia when we try to live by a philia.
A philia is a fantasy of an assumption that if I
live and be like them life's going to be better. Emerson warned against this,
the transcendentalist, envy is ignorance and imitation is suicide.
We're not here to be somebody we're not.
Why to be second at somebody else when we can be first at being who we are?
I'd much rather be first at who I am than not.
When I got asked by Vogue magazine a number of years ago in an interview,
they interviewed me for 17 questions. And the last question is 'Dr. Demartini,
if there's anybody in the world you could be,
who would you want to be?' And I go,
'Why on earth would you ask such a question?
I have no desire to be anybody but me.' Why would you want to be second at
somebody else, when you could be first at being you?
When you live congruently with your highest values, you honor yourself.
You are able to make wisdom decisions.
Your heuristics of decision-making is at the highest level because you
spontaneously are inspired from within to act.
And so you are able to gather information,
the pulvinar nuclei in the thalamus is a filter and gating mechanism for all the
sensory information, and when you live according to your highest values,
it maximizes its potential to be able to gather information and have a selective
information source and allows us to actually synchronize the events
in our life and be able to take actions without hesitation.
That's why when we live by lower values we procrastinate, hesitate,
and frustrate. We live by higher values, we're disciplined, reliable,
and focused.
Another thing that interferes with us is when we compare ourselves to others,
not looking up to them, but looking down on them.
Whenever we actually put somebody in a pit,
instead of infatuating and putting them on a pedestal,
instead of putting them in our heart, and we put them in a pit,
we tend to project our values onto them and try to get them to live in our
values. And if you're married, you know that that's futile,
not going to get fruitfulness out of that.
And if you try to get them to live in your values, they can't.
Because every decision they make is based on what they value at the time and
what they believe will give him the greatest advantage over disadvantage to
their own hierarchy of values. So if you expect them to live in your values,
you're going to have frustration.
So anytime you try to live in somebody else's values and inject other people's
values and get the superego as Freud would call it, trying to run your life,
you'll hear yourself saying 'I should', 'I ought to', 'I supposed to',
'I got to', 'I have to', 'I must', which is an imperative language,
which is a sign of an injected values of some outside authority,
which Freud called the superego,
which then causes an internal moralization of ourselves.
And we're judging ourselves thinking that we're making mistakes.
We never make mistakes in our own highest values.
We only make mistakes when we compare our actions to somebody else's.
And we only think other people make mistakes when we compare their actions to
our values. Putting people in pits and putting people on pedestals,
instead of putting people in hearts, in a sense causes a devaluation of you,
a devaluation of them, instead of reflective consciousness,
which allows you to maximize your and their values,
to help you respect another individual,
to be able to communicate equitably with equanimity.
And that is the most powerful, sustainable, transactional,
fair exchange state you can be in. So we're not here to put people on pedestals.
We're not here to put people in pits. We're here to put them in our hearts.
And when we respect them, which is what we call that,
we communicate most effectively what inspires us in terms of what's inspiring to
them. When we do,
we don't try to change us relative to them or them relative to us.
And people don't want to be changed.
They want to be loved for who they are and so do you.
So if you're basically comparing your actions to your own highest values and
filling your day with the highest priority actions that inspire you,
instead of comparing yourself to other people,
you automatically maximize your potential. And when you do,
you don't have the limited beliefs that are injected,
which are you trying to live in somebody else's values.
And anytime you try to live in other people's values, that's a fantasy.
And every fantasy creates a phobia. A nightmare.
A phobia is an assumption that you're about to experience in the future more
drawbacks than benefits, more negatives than positives,
because you're expecting a fantasy of trying to live outside your authentic
self, in somebody else's values. It won't work.