So you have to look at what your life demonstrates is truly inspiring to you,
that you can't wait to get up in the morning and do that you're just doing,
and your life is demonstrating it. And you're basically building momentum in it.
And that's where it's going to be.
There was a great.
Economist named Ricardo,
who is the one that most people associate with
the term competitive advantage.
And what he basically stated is that every country has
resources that give the individual country a competitive advantage
with other countries in trade. For instance, when you think of Houston, Texas,
you may think of oil or Calgary, Canada, oil. In the Midwest in America,
you might think of corn and wheat.
In South Africa or possibly in Australia, you might think of mining.
Because there's an abundance of resources in those areas that allow it
to have a competitive advantage because it's of like a spontaneous value
system that allows them to produce the greatest amount of value with the least
amount of effort. And just as countries have that,
so do cities and States.
Oil was Texas and cattle,
but other areas have maybe intellectual property and
education. Others may be resources and population.
But whatever the competitive advantages for that individual
country or state or city, that occurs also for the individual,
each individual has a competitive advantage based on their
resources.
And that resource is what they have in their structure of values.
Now almost every seminar that I've done and every webinar that I've done
has revolved around values.
And the reason being is that after 46 years of studying human behavior I've
distilled it down to one of the most significant things a person can master and
learn, which is their value structure, their hierarchy of values,
because that's what gives them the competitive advantage,
when they live congruently, according to what they value most.
So part of what I'm going to be sharing tonight is about that or today,
depending on what time zone you're in.
And so I'd like to start by re iterating some
basics. And even though you may have heard some of these before,
maybe you've done the Breakthrough Experience where I've gone in and we've
actually done it live, or maybe on another seminar, live presentation,
that every human being, regardless of their age, or gender or culture,
lives by a set of priorities, set of values,
things that are most important to least important in their life.
And whatever's highest on that list of priorities or values,
in my case researching and teaching is highest and cooking and driving is
lowest. Whatever's highest on your value,
you automatically spontaneously are inspired from within to act
and to fulfill those values, whatever they may be. Now,
some of you may have family as highest on the values, some may be business,
some may be wealth building,
some may be be social contribution and political things,
and some may be fitness, some metaphysical and spiritual quest,
some intellectual pursuits,
but mine is basically educating and teaching and learning.
And so if I have that as my highest value,
when I set sail as captain of my ship and master my fate to go and pursue
that, I will have my greatest competitive advantage. So it's,
you're giving yourself permission to pursue what you spontaneously are
inspired to do that you can't wait to get up in the morning and do is going to
automatically give you an advantage. Because otherwise you're requiring,
as you go down the list of values,
greater degrees of extrinsic motivation to get you to act.
And if you have to have external motivation to get you reminded and re motivated
to do things,
you're no way you're going to compete with somebody who's spontaneously inspired
from within to go and do it.
So I recently worked with somebody who absolutely loves music and their
life is about music. And they did music every single day.
They sang and they performed and everything else.
There's no way I could compete with them because that's not highest on my
values, but it is on theirs.
And they no way they could compete with me in professional speaking and
research, because that's so low in their values, they just don't do it.
They get creative and they write music,
but they don't sit there and research and share about human behavior.
So if they do what they are best at, and I do what I'm best at,
we have the competitive advantage. I can compete with them because,
if I would try to do music, I couldn't compete.
And if they were to try to do research and teaching, they couldn't compete.
But the second we're authentic, the second,
because our identity revolves around what we value most.
The second we give ourselves permission to pursue what is truly meaningful,
inspiring, fulfilling, and highest in our priorities,
we have a competitive advantage.
That's where we are most authentic and being authentic is the key to
competitive advantage.
In life and in business or in any area that we're pursuing.
We have a competitive advantage, whether it be raising a family,
if our highest value is that we can do amazing jobs at raising children,
et cetera. Or if our highest value is political, you know,
there's no way, I don't have a high value on political leadership that way,
maybe leadership in my area, but not political.
And so there's no way I could compete with somebody who has that and their life
is demonstrating that for decades. Your life demonstrates what you value.
And if you're not showing any evidence in your daily life objectively
of pursuing something, then that's not it.
Because your life would already be demonstrating it. When I ask people,
what is it that gives them a competitive advantage, I ask them,
what do they do every single day that nobody has to remind them to do that they
just do like clockwork automatically and they just, they get it done.
And what's interesting is,
is when they get onto that and they structure their life according to it,
and they figure out how to get rewarded economically for that,
being of service to people in that area, whatever that may be.
If you're a mother it may be being a service to the spouse,
who's then going into having a value of working as you're taking care of the
kids. And as long as you're providing a value to them,
they're getting and they're paying,
and that allows you to then delegate and have people to help you there.
But if you're not doing something that you're inspired to do,
and you're not figuring out a way where it's basically producing an income,
so you can delegate the lower priority things, you'll have difficulty competing.
Because anytime you're doing things lower on your value system,
you're de-valuing yourself, you're diluting yourself,
you're distracting yourself,
defracting yourself into parts instead of a wholesome,
whole focused being. Now,
what's interesting is people are constantly saying, 'I want to get an advantage.
I want to be able to compete'. Well,
there are people out there that are greater in sales than I am. I'm an educator,
but I don't try to compete with them in sales.
They may not try to compete with me as knowledge and information and breadth of
information. So I stick to what I do best. They stick to what they do best,
and we have our competitive advantage that way. Now, if you go through life,
any time you are comparing yourself to somebody.
This is the number one thing that blocks people from having their competitive
advantage.
Number one thing is to subordinate to somebody on the outside
and look up to them and envy them and try to imitate them and get away from
your own highest values to try to do something you think you 'should be' doing
'ought to be' doing, 'supposed to be' doing that matches them.
And what you do is you inject their values into your life.
You dilute and confuse who you are. You lose track of your authenticity,
and then you end up diluting yourself.
And anytime you're pursuing goals that are not really yours,
you automatically have a feedback inside your psyche called self depreciation.
Self depreciation is a by-product to pursuing goals that are highest on your
values and trying to go and compete in areas that aren't really highest on your
values and actually trying to be somebody you're not.
You lose your authenticity and you've lost your power of competition.
This is why Ricardo said that every human being and every culture, et cetera,
should be focusing on what their greatest resources are.
What my greatest resource is the breadth and depth of information that I have in
human behavior. Outside that, that core competence,
I'm not going to compete, but in the area of human behavior, I can compete.
And the era of presentations and even travel I can compete.
So you have to look at what your life demonstrates is truly inspiring to you,
that you can't wait to get up in the morning and do, that you're just doing,
and your life is demonstrating it, and you're basically building momentum in it,
and that's where it's going to be.
But the moment you envy somebody else and try to imitate somebody else and try
to live in the shadows of any human being,
you just diluted and just disempowered your competitive advantage.
And I see this constantly. I
watch people and I noticed that I did some of this in my twenties.
I'd go and I'd go to a presentation by somebody else. And I'd go, 'Wow,
they've done amazing things.' And then I'd end up finding myself,
being swayed by that and try to be them instead of me.
And then I would sidetrack for days or weeks,
and then I'd eventually go and realize, 'Nope,
I'm humbled.' Get back to being who I am and stick to what's working.
And I found myself eventually realizing it's not about subordinating to anybody
else. It's not about comparing.
It's about comparing your daily actions to your own highest values and sticking
to what's really important in your life. That's why my website,
I do the Value Determination process, and I offer anybody who's listening here,
please go on the website, please do the Value Determination process.
Do it again multiple times, if necessary,
until you're really clear about what you're really committed to,
and take the time to do it. If you need help,
there'll be somebody there to help you.
That's why I do the Breakthrough Experience,
every Breakthrough Experience I do around the world,
which is my signature program,
I've done 1060 something times 63 or 4 countries.
I do that every single time I make sure people start there.
Because if they don't know what their highest values are,
they're going to lose their competitive advantage.
They're going to lose their momentum and their drive.
And they're going to try to be, as Emerson said,
envying somebody else and trying to imitate somebody else.
And that's like trying to imitate Elvis.
There's been many impersonators of Elvis but there's still only one Elvis.
You don't want to have to be a second of somebody.
You want to be a first of you. And the real you,
the magnificence of who you are as far greater than any fantasies you'll impose
on yourself trying to be somebody you're not.
So the first thing you do is to look carefully at what your life demonstrates is
really valuable to you. And I go into my Value Determination.
How do you fill your space? How do you spend your time?
What is it that energizes you? Where do you spend your money?
What are you organized the most at? What are you a disciplined at?
What is it you think about,
visualize and talk to yourself about most about how you want your life,
that shows evidence of coming true? What is it you're inspired by?
What is it you converse with other people about most,
when you're talking in conversation?
What are the most consistent goals you have that are coming true?
And where do you want to automatically go and learn?
And what do you love studying about, reading about, learning about,
listening to, and watch videos on? If you look at that,
that tells you what your life is demonstrating as really valuable.
And be aware of trying to put in artificial idealisms by society.
People come up with these fantasies about, 'Oh,
I want integrity and truth and honesty and peace and this and that.' Great,
but let's look at your life demonstrates.
When you're actually living according to what your life demonstrates is really
important to you, you'll have integrity. You'll be honest with yourself.
You'll have more inner calmness and centeredness and resilience and
adaptability, and so-called inner peace.
You'll be more objective in your view.
You'll have your executive center coming online. You'll be more inspired with,
by vision. You'll be more strategic in planning.
You'll be more likely to execute it with less distractions and more
self-governed and you automatically have competitive advantage.
Because when you're not living by your highest values and you're trying to live
by other people's values, you go into your amygdala, the desire center,
where you're distracted by trying to avoid things instinctfully that have been
pain in the past that are stored in the subconscious mind and impulsively
searching for fantasies and quick, immediate, gratifying fixes.
And those are distracting from giving,
that's automatically guaranteeing you a loss of your competitive advantage.
So if you don't fill your day with high priority actions that inspire you,
your day is going to fill up with low priority distractions that don't.
Thank you for joining me for this presentation today.
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