(lively music)
- Hi, my name's Marisa Peer
and I've been a therapist for over 30 years,
which seems like a long time
and it is a long time.
But it's also gone by in a flash
because I'm very lucky in that I do what I love.
And I love what I do.
And I've never wanted to do anything else.
And I know I'm going to be still doing this
when I'm 92 'cause I really, really love being a therapist.
And what I love about it is how I can turn people around
and change people, sometimes in just one 90-minute session.
And many, many people come to see me
because they have extraordinarily low self-esteem.
They may be beautiful,
they may be talented, they may be successful,
they may be married with four gorgeous children.
They can be men or women, young or old,
rich or poor, beautiful or not.
And yet they all have the same issue.
They have very low self-esteem.
Now, self-esteem means how much I like myself.
If I said to you, "I hold you
"in the highest esteem,"
I'm talking about much I feel about you
but self-esteem means
what I feel about me.
And we live in a very funny world
where we judge ourselves
and what other people think of us.
"Am I thin enough, tall enough?
"Have I got the right labels?
"Am I wearing designer?"
And we kind of now worship stuff
that is not real
and it's a great shame
that we're all about the packaging.
And because we're all about the packaging,
people go through life
with this belief, "I'm not good enough,
"I'm not interesting enough or funny enough
"or smart enough or attractive enough.
"And even though I'm successful,
"I'm not successful enough."
And that simply isn't true.
But often, we pick up these beliefs
at a very, very early age.
We tend to learn what we live
and if our parents say, "Look, I know you got B,
"why couldn't you get A?"
Or, "Look at your sister,
"she never had any problem doing maths."
Or, "Look at your brother,
"he's always been really good at English.
"Why can't you do that?"
Then these children start at a very early age
to feel bad about themselves.
They don't feel good about who they are.
They feel like a fraud.
They feel they can't accomplish stuff.
They feel that they're not enough.
That everything they do isn't enough
and so these things start at a very, very early age.
As a therapist, it's a bit like a movie going backwards.
A client comes in and they tell me their story
and I like to unravel it to see
what's going on, so I'll give you an example.
I worked with a trader
who made a lot of money
and he was very good looking.
And he said, "I just have no luck with women
"and I'm unhappy and I drink a lot.
"And I drink a lot
"because my life is empty.
"And everyone thinks my life is great
"'cause I'm a city trader
"with all the trappings
"but I have no wife, no kids, no luck with women.
"And I just sit in a bar every night alone."
And to me I was like yeah, that's interesting.
Why would he be like that?
So we started to look at his story
and it was a funny little story
'cause it wasn't like a really deep, painful story.
His parents had two girls and then they had him.
And he would sit with his Tonka toys
and smash them together
and they go, "Why do you do that?
"Look at your sisters,
"they're just brushing their dolls' hair
"and they're so quiet and they're so good.
"What's wrong with you?"
And then he'd break something and they'd go,
"Look at you, you break everything.
"Why can't you be like your sisters?
"They're so good.
"They're so quiet, they're so sweet."
And I said, "Look,
"that's like getting a dog
"and going why can't it be like a cat?
"Look at the cat.
"It's just sitting in the sun,
"why can't you do that?
"You're a boy, you're not meant to be like a girl."
And it was so interesting
for him to kind of unravel his life
and see, "Yeah, even at the age of two,
"all I heard was, 'What's wrong with you?
"'What's wrong with you?
"'Why can't you be like them?
"'Look how good they are.
"'Look how bad you are breaking stuff,
"'making a noise.'"
He said, "It's so weird.
"I went through my whole life thinking
"what's wrong with me?
"Something's wrong with me,
"and that's why I don't have a girlfriend or a wife
"'cause I have this belief."
Well, like a good detective,
we put it all away and said nothing's wrong with you
except you're a boy
and if you were older,
you'd say to your parents, "Look, I'm not a girl, I'm a boy.
"Boys learn to do stuff.
"It's like having a dog.
"They need to run and jump and play
"and make a noise."
And so for him,
just being able to see there's nothing wrong with me,
I'm just not a girl.
Exactly, if your parents were meant to have a girl,
they'd have had a girl.
But they had a boy
and of course, the opposite of that
is many people who have a boy
and then a little girl
and the little girl is a tomboy
'cause they want to be like the brother
and if you're a little boy with sisters,
you often want to be like the sister
and play with Barbies
and smart parents just let that be.
And one's who don't know better go, "What's wrong with you?
"Why are you trying to be like a boy?
"Or trying to be like a girl?"
But the good news is that he understood
that there was nothing wrong with him
and in fact, everything was right with him.
Within a week of that session,
he was going out
and women were talking to him and chatting to him
and praising him.
And he met a great girlfriend.
He's still with her.
And it's really amazing what you can do
in a session.
It's like watching a film unfold
and thinking, "I'm watching this client's story
"but I am going to change the ending.
"I'm going to give someone a better ending,
"a happy ending."
And you know, we can all do it.
People think I've got a gift.
I haven't got a gift, I've got a formula.
It's what I call the formula for success.
I created it, I invented it.
I did it for 30 years
and now I teach other people to do exactly
what I do.
And you can do it.
It's not hard, it requires a skill
but it's a skill that you can learn,
just like you can learn to drive a car.
It requires you to do certain things,
in a certain sequence, at a certain time.
And if you do that,
you can get the results I get.
And there's nothing better than waking up
in the morning knowing
I'm going to change someone's life today.
Make them feel better.
There's nothing better
than going to bed at night thinking, "Wow,
"I really helped someone today
"to find love, to grow their self-esteem."
Because here's the thing,
when you increase your level of self-worth,
self-value, self-image, and self-esteem,
everyone around you simultaneously increases their sense
of your worth and value and esteem.
So that city trader, who thought, "What is wrong with me?"
Met people who thought, "What's wrong with you?"
And when he changed one word
to, "What's right with me?" Everything.
People met him and thought, "Yeah,
"everything's right with you.
"I want to be your friend.
"I want to get to know you.
"I want to have you in my life."
He changed one thing.
"What's wrong with me?"
To, "Everything is right with me."
And here's one other thing to think about.
When you raise other people's self-esteem,
you actually raise your own.
When you make people feel so good about themselves,
in the process, you start to feel even better about yourself
'cause you're making a difference.
You have purpose and meaning,
give other people meaning and purpose
and you cannot help having it yourself too.
It's a great world.
Come onboard. See you soon.
(lively music)