The Growth Mindset Book Podcast: Mindset Mastery Chapter by Chapter

The Power of Being Your Authentic Self

• Michael Fox • Season 2 • Episode 5

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On a scale of 1 to 10, how authentic are you really?

So many of us live with the constant, draining pressure to be someone we're not. We compare our journey to others, hide our true feelings, and chase a version of success that doesn't align with our soul. This disconnect is the number one source of stress, overwhelm, and feeling like you're walking through life on the wrong path.

But what if your greatest strength, deepest confidence, and most profound peace could be found by simply being yourself?

In this episode, we explore the life-changing wisdom from a timeless essay on authenticity. You will discover:

  • The powerful concept that a "piece of God" or a universal power already exists within you.
  • Why trying to be someone else is a recipe for struggle, and how being yourself is the path to effortless flow.
  • How to use gratitude as the key to unlock your inner power and connect with your true essence.
  • The simple steps to stop forcing life and start embracing the perfect, unique person you were always meant to be.

If you’re ready to trade stress for purpose and find the incredible freedom that comes from living as your true, authentic self, then press play now. Your journey back to you starts here.

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SPEAKER_00:

Today, we're going to discuss an essay written by Thomas Troward. It's called Yourself. And the whole meaning of this essay is all about being yourself, being your authentic self. Before we get started, I just want to ask you this question. On a scale of one to 10, 10 being I am absolutely authentic. I say, do, and speak all the words that I believe in my heart. One is I don't really ever do that. I try to pretend to be someone that I'm not. And I live a life that is false and somewhat phony. On a scale of one to ten, where do you fall? Just try to be as honest with yourself as possible. And perhaps after reading this, and then more importantly practicing it, you'll be able to say that you're no longer the number that you are. You've moved up the scale. And the goal is to move up the scale a little bit. We don't have to go from a three to a 10. We want to go to a three to a four, and then maybe a four to a five. Small steps lead to far and big advances over time. And that's been our goal all along. So let's jump in. Let's read this and discuss it so that we can understand it. I'm going to be reading it to you in a version that I already edited myself to make it easier to read because reading the initial version of this is challenging to understand. So I'm going to read my version, my edited easier to understand version, and then discuss it as we go through each paragraph. So it starts off saying, I want to talk to you about the importance of being yourself. It seems simple, but many people constantly try to be someone else. Again, we asked this question on a scale of one to ten, where are you? But what you find is that a lot of people are constantly trying to be like someone else. I want to move to the neighborhood where those people live. I want to drive the car that those people drive. I want to speak more like that person speaks. I want to do things like they do. And the issue with that is God picked you to be here on this earth to be you and no one else. In fact, there's no one else in the world that is like you. There's no one else in this universe that is like you. And so you come here with a gift given by God to be yourself, to be your true self. But unfortunately, what happens is most people are afraid to be themselves. They're afraid to say and do some of the things that they believe in their heart. Not everything, but some things. And the goal is to eventually be able to just be yourself. It's so much easier to go through life just being who you truly are and not trying to be someone else. All right, let's go back to the essay. You think you're not good enough and try to be better than the way that God has made you. This causes a lot of stress and struggle. There are so many people that are feeling stressed, that are feeling overwhelmed. And a lot of the time, that stress and overwhelm is because we're not being authentic to ourselves. We're not speaking up and saying the words that are in our part, in our job with our boss. We want to be able to say something to him, but we're afraid if we say something to him or her, it's going to cause us an impact. It's going to hurt us in some way. And so that fear prevents us most of the time from being who it is that we want to be. And because we're not being who we want to be, it's causing us a lot of stress and struggle. The number one way to start reducing the stress that we feel is to start being yourself more. Let's continue back to the essay. It's good to have high goals, but it's important to remember that achieving them takes time and growth. We see some people out there that have instant success, or at least it appears they have instant success. We don't really know because we haven't seen everything that they've gone through up until this point. However, there's this thought process that other people are getting there faster than we are. They set their goals, they get there faster. Why don't I? And the key is to remember that you're you and they are them. And there are processes that we go through as we're achieving a goal. And there are lessons that we're learning along the way that are super important for us so that we are able to get to the goal and achieve it. There are key lessons that we learn along the road to our goals. So we just have to know that we have lessons that we're learning along the way. And so are other people, but it's not our responsibility to understand what they're going through. We just need to be focused on what we're going through. Let me give a very personal example. After my divorce, I was lonely and I wanted to get into another relationship pretty quickly because I just wanted to be with someone. While I knew I needed to do the work, I didn't really want to do the work on myself because that meant looking inside and dealing with pain and upset. But it was necessary for me to do in order to get to the next relationship, a relationship that would be successful. I didn't do it at first, and I tried to get into a couple of different relationships, and they failed miserably because I wasn't doing the work on myself and reaching the goal of finding that person that I really wanted to find. I found myself. I found me and I loved myself. And through that love and through that growth, it allowed me to get into a relationship, not to complete her, but in other words, I complete myself, not her. And I don't complete her. She completes herself. And together we're able to be in a relationship that works. However, along the path to get to that goal, had I not made these mistakes, had I not learned and grown, had I not stumbled, I wouldn't have gotten to the place I needed to be to get to the that relationship with my wife currently that I have. We don't necessarily know all the reasons why we have stumbling blocks on the way towards our goal, but we just have to trust that there is a reason and purpose. And we do not need to compare ourselves to anyone else because our road, our growth, our achievement of goals is very different than anyone else's. So being ourselves through that process is key. Let's go back to the essay. You can't reach your future goals without first working on where you are now. Growth is a continuous process, and you need to focus on each step along the way. Let's continue. This should make you more confident and comfortable. You are not working with a force which is much greater than you believe yourself to be. That power is not separate from you. You don't need to persuade this power within to do what you want. I want to go and talk about one line here. It says that power is not separate from you. The power that it's discussing is that peace of God that you are that exists within you, the soul, the thing that's running your operating system, the thing that's causing your heart to beat, the thing that's causing all the organs to function in your body. We talk about it all the time. That peace of God is existent in you. In all the traditional religions, it says the same thing. There is a peace of God within us. There is that soul within us. And so it's important to again understand that's not separate from you. And when we realize that's not separate from you or me, it gives us power. It gives us the realization that if I can just be myself, then I'm actually tapping into that power that's inside of me, that piece of God that already exists. All right, let's go back to the essay. That power is a part of your own being. You often focus too much on the visible part of yourself without thinking about the true power that you are and are connected to. So, how many times do we go to the mirror and we look at ourselves and maybe we're judging ourselves and we're not real happy? We should lose weight, we could look a little bit better. Whatever the judgments are, we're forgetting that there's this incredible power that's right inside of us, that part of God that's there that we tap into. And we've all connected to that place at some point. We've all felt that connection, that ease, that flow of life. That's the connection to God that exists. And tapping into that place is tapping into our true self. Okay, back to the essay. The visible part of yourself, your external personality is like a plant growing from a seed. The seed is our inner self, which is much more powerful. The inner self is part of God or spirit that exists in everything. So that piece of God isn't just in me, it isn't just in you. It's literally in everything. It's in the plants that we see, it's in any living and breathing thing that exists, has that piece of God inside. Our growth, these stumbling blocks, the things that present themselves, we see as a challenge, are happening for us. They're happening for our growth, they're happening to make us a better person. They're happening so that we can show up in life and reflect out who we are to others. And then that actually will have an impact on them as well. Because when they see you being your authentic self, they want to be their authentic self as well. Have you ever seen someone, a friend, a family member, someone that you just met, a new colleague that is just really honest and vulnerable? And they tell you a story, like a personal story about a divorce that they went through, and you don't really even know them. And you think to yourself, wow, that's incredible how they can be so honest and open and say it like it really is. And many of us can't do that, or we feel that we can't do that, but that's tapping into that place, that strength, that power, and knowing that when we speak from that place, from the truth inside of us, we're speaking from that godly place inside of us, and that gives us strength, and that gives us confidence, and that makes us it makes our life easy because we don't have to pretend to be something that we're not. Okay, back to the essay. Try to imagine what this God, divine intelligence or spirit, this force is like without considering how it shapes all other things around us. This universal life force is the essence of everything that exists, it exists within every living thing in a simple and perfect way, even though we might try to imagine it in more complex ways. This universal life force is a powerful energy that always creates itself and then flows into different forms to express itself. Since you are part of nature, you do not need to go further than yourself to find this power at work. You do not need to go further than yourself to find this power at work. All you have to do is allow it to rise to the surface. You do not have to force it. This power within us is never ending and continually increasing. So again, let's pause. This power, this strength, this confidence that we're searching for is already inside of us. It's that peace of God inside of us, again, that's in complete control of everything. And when we realize, just have the realization and awareness that power is in us, just that realization alone gives us strength, gives us confidence. When we're starting to feel insecure, all we have to do is go back to the awareness that this power exists right inside of us. Every single person on this planet is powerful, every person on this planet is confident and loving and caring and has all these things in its essence. However, because of programming in life, because of this belief that we have to be something that we're not be like someone else, I got to be tough like them. I got to be tough like my father was or my parent was. If I don't, people are going to see me as weak. No, that's not true. It's not true because if you're being your true self, no one will ever see you as weak because they're gonna see the authenticity that you have that you're expressing. And that authenticity, it exudes confidence at such a high level. Again, just think about other people that you know who are truly authentic and real, that are vulnerable, that share things that you might not share because you're afraid to share them. What would they think of you knowing that you are not perfect? And actually, they'll feel more connected to you, they'll feel more close to you, they'll feel more love for you because all that everyone out there is really searching for is to be more authentic, to be their true self. And when we get to that place, it's the best gift that we could ever have. All right, let's go back to the essay. The power is not another's, it is your own. It doesn't require you to study, work hard, or go on a journey to find it. You don't have to attend lectures, read books, or have teachers to get this power. This power is right inside of you. The person that's listening to this right now, let me read that one more time. This power is not another's, it's your own. It doesn't require you to study, work hard, or go on a journey to find it. You do not have to attend lectures, read books, or have a teacher to get this power. It is right inside of you. You are the power, you are the strength, you're the confidence. The only thing that tells you that you're not is the belief that you're not good enough. But we now know that we can prove that to be false because if this power exists inside of us, it would be impossible to define ourselves as not being good enough. Because no matter how we show up in life as our authentic self, that's perfection. And us being ourselves is going to have an impact on other people that we can't even comprehend. Most importantly, ourselves. Back to the essay. It is right inside of you. The universal life force is the core of who you are, it is the source of everything you do and everything you are. It is the foundation of who you are. This universal life force, which is incredibly vast and powerful, is enough to fulfill all of your wants and needs. You don't have to go searching out there. Every single answer that you'll ever need is right inside of you. When you tap into that power that already exists inside of you by closing your eyes, taking some deep breaths, asking a question to that power that's inside of you, you will get the answer. It might not be in that exact moment, but when you ask for it, that power will deliver a person that comes into your life that tells you something, that gives you that answer. You'll watch something, you'll read something. Something will come up to help give you that answer. You'll have a random thought, you'll have a dream. Something will occur that will give you that answer when you turn to the power inside of you. You can go outside to other people all you want, but their answer may not be your answer. Your answer exists from within, and God will give you that answer if you trust the source within. Let's go back. It's not this universal life force that has to grow as it is perfection. However, your recognition of this power within has to grow. The growth can't be forced. It must be natural, it must be a natural process. So it's going to tell us now if our recognition of this power within, this peace of God within us, is so important, it's going to give us the steps on how to actually connect to this force, to this power that's within us. So back to the essay. The first step of the process is don't force yourself to be something that you're not ready for or isn't natural to you. Let me stop there for a second. If I wanted to be like someone else and I wanted to make a lot of money, and I wanted to be this entrepreneurial salesperson, but inside who I really am is someone that's just this caring and loving and kind person who is meant to be here to share my love and to share my wisdom and share my growth and to share the gifts that all these other people have and remind them that they have these gifts within. If I were to go and try to be that entrepreneurial person, I'm trying to be someone potentially that I'm not, because who the true essence of who I am and the true gift that God gave me to bring into this world was that gift of sharing with other people, sharing and reminding them of the power that they have within. So if I try to be something I'm not, it's going to be a very challenging path for me because that's not the path that I'm truly meant to take. So sometimes when you're running into struggle after struggle, obstacle after obstacle, perhaps that path that you're on might not be the best path for you. Maybe there's another path that you're meant to go down. Even though it might not look good in someone else's eyes, you might not want to step away from the path that you're currently on because what would my parents think? What would my friends think? What would my family members think? Who cares? The most important thing is the peace of God within you that's guiding you to the place that you need to go. And you following that gift will always bring you to a way better place than trying to figure it out by looking out there and being like someone else. Back to the essay. Your path to growth is determined by the opportunities and abilities you have right now. You need to use these to the fullest to continue developing. If you do your best today, it will make it easier for you to do even better tomorrow. This will help you grow and improve at a faster and faster pace. It's much easier to do work with what you have than to try to force things to be something they're not. This approach also leads to better outcomes. That's exactly what we were just saying before. Following the gift that we have within and following the path that has the least resistance usually takes us down the perfect path. If I'm rowing my boat in water and the rapids are going down and I'm following the water down, if I try to row backwards and push myself up the rapids instead of down, it's going to be very challenging to do that. And there is a flow to life. And when we're on the right path, and when things are meant to be the way they are, things flow easily and effortlessly. A lot of the time, if we just notice how challenging that situation is, doesn't mean give up on your goal, but maybe there's a better way to get to your goal. Let's go back to the essay. It's important to be active and think about things, but your thoughts and abilities come from a powerful force that creates everything. Your thoughts and abilities don't create things on their own, but they help guide you. We have 65,000 thoughts per day. Our thoughts are on a specific frequency. Again, what does this mean? Just like a radio station, whatever we tune into is what we're going to hear more of. If I tune into rock and roll music, a rock station, I'm guaranteed that I'm going to hear rock music. There's no chance that I'm going to hear classical music on a rock station. The same is true of our thoughts. If I tune into worry, doubt, fear, anxiety, depression, what will my thoughts be on that station? They're going to be things that are thoughts of worry, fear, doubt, and they're going to be in line with that feeling. So instead, what can I do easily and effortlessly? Go to gratitude. If I'm just grateful for everything that I already have, that's going to put me on a frequency that's going to be filled with grateful thoughts. The thoughts that I'm going to get on the gratitude station are extremely different from the thoughts that I'm going to get from the worry, the fearful, the doubtful station. So if we're going to have 65,000 thoughts per day, what we want to do is to get on the frequency of God, that power that's within us. And the way that we do that is by getting onto the frequency of gratitude. Because as we learned last week, the way that we connect to that source of God is through gratitude. The more grateful we are for every single thing that happens in our life, good and also what seems to be bad, if we can find gratitude in it, we will have way more things to be grateful for. We will have way more thoughts to be grateful for. Okay, let's go back to the essay. The real core of who you are is the powerful force that drives your thoughts and abilities. If you understand that this inner core is connected to your outer self, if you understand that this inner core, this God, this power that's within you is connected to your outer self, you'll realize that you already have everything you need to grow and develop as much as you want in the future. If you just realize that you have this powerful piece of God within you, that's all that you need to do. Your goal is to keep getting the awareness and reminding yourself that's who you truly are, is this power within. Every baby that has come here into this world is perfection in our eyes. And the only time that they start not being themselves is when they get programmed to believe that they're not good enough. They forget the essence they came here with, that powerful voice that they have as a child. When we say everything that we think and feel, we share all the loving thoughts that we have with others without the worry of what they will think about me. Okay, let's continue. Living your life fully means being true to yourself and embracing who you are. By understanding this, you can stop putting so much pressure on yourself to be something that you're not. Instead of feeling stressed and overwhelmed, you can enjoy life with a sense of purpose and confidence. You'll know that you always can create good and beautiful things. It doesn't matter where your path takes you. If you focus on what is beautiful and good, you will create more beauty and goodness in this world. Let's repeat that. If you focus on what is beautiful and good, you will create more beauty and goodness in this world. If you focus on the people out there and the loving that you see within them, if you focus on all the good things that exist in life, you will have more to be grateful for. That's just the way it works. Because again, we're putting ourselves on that frequency on the radio station of God. And when we're on that frequency, we're going to get a lot of good things coming our way, good thoughts, good feelings, because our focus is on gratitude. Back to the essay. You limit yourself when you try to decide exactly what good thing you want to create. Instead of focusing on a specific goal, you should focus on expressing everything that you are. Let's read that again. Instead of focusing on a specific goal, you should focus on expressing everything that you are. If you just express the amazingness that exists within you, everything else will work out in life. If you tap into that healthy, incredible place within you, that peace of God within you, you will attract beautiful people coming into your life. Because that's what will attract to the peace of God that's within you. And you can share that essence with people that aren't seeing the fact that they have this incredible power within themselves. You can help them see the peace of God that exists within themselves. And what a gift you could give to someone if you did that. Can you imagine if your whole all that you did in this world was show one person how incredible that they truly are on the inside? Haven't you really done way more than making a billion dollars or that money in the end is non-existent? It's not going to help you. You're not taking it with you. But you leave a legacy behind when you influence the life of another human being. We're all connected. We think we're not. We think there's a separation, but we're all connected. So when you see someone reflecting back to you of something that you don't like, maybe they're being judgmental, it's reflecting back a piece that exists with. Within you, that judgmental peace that you have within. And when you give them a blessing to have more peace and acceptance in their life, you're going to have more peace and acceptance in your life. Let's go back to the essay. We're almost there. You'll find yourself expressing yourself more fully by recognizing the wonderful things you already have within you. Focus on the positive aspects of who you are without letting negative thoughts or self-doubt get in the way. And if those negative thoughts or self-doubt get in the way, what is it that we do? We go back to gratitude. Gratitude will connect us to God. That will give us confidence. That will make us feel loving. That will make us feel caring. That will make us feel connected. All good things come from gratitude. Back to the essay. When you do this, you'll be surprised at the potential you have within yourself and in your current situation. Even if you don't like it right now, start focusing on the positive things around you and stop thinking about the negative ones. This will lead you on an amazing journey, helping you to discover abilities you never knew you had and experiencing happiness you never imagined. How do we have this happiness that we've never imagined? How do we discover these abilities? Because we just start focusing on the positive things, all the things that we can be grateful for, and stop thinking about the negative ones. Are you going to still have negative thoughts? Of course you are. You're going to become aware of the negative thought. And then what you do then is you're going to turn it to something that you're grateful for. Okay, let's continue. You've never been on the wrong path. You've just been walking backward instead of forward. Now that you started walking in the right direction, you'll discover that it's the path of peace, joy, and eternal life. You can achieve these things simply by being true to yourself. And here is the last paragraph. When you try to be something you're not, you feel tired and stressed. Instead, focus on activities you love and you'll find them fulfilling and joyful. When you discover how to live naturally, you'll find it's everything you've ever wanted and more. Your daily life will become a constant source of joy and you'll spread positivity wherever you go. So to wrap this up, it gets into what we spoke about on the last podcast as well. The way we can connect to that piece of God within us is the same way we connect to God, which is through gratitude. And when we're grateful, we will then start focusing on the beauty that already exists inside of not only ourselves, that piece of God, but we'll start focusing on that beauty that exists in all the other people around us, including those people that we have judged in the past. What we'll realize is that our judgment on them was only really truly a judgment of that trait that they have and that they show within ourselves. So the way that we heal ourselves inside is by saying a blessing to remember who we truly are inside, and that have that same blessing go out to the person that we were just judging. Because when we do that and we are coming on a level of blessing and gratitude and love, what do you think is going to follow? So I hope that your takeaway from today is this that you are so powerful that this incredible peace of God exists right inside of you. And whenever you're feeling down, whenever you're doubting yourself, whenever you're wanting to be someone other than yourself, the easiest way to flow through life is to be who you are. And God created you, so that's perfection. You are perfection, you are a piece of this perfection. Don't ever try to be someone that you're not, because the beauty is that you are who you are. And by being yourself and expressing yourself and being authentic and being real and being true to yourself, the rest will take care of itself. I promise you. I love you. I appreciate you. I am so grateful for you. I hope from the bottom of my heart that this is having an impact in your life. I know it's having an impact on mine. And I know that when I speak this over and over again, it's influencing my own subconscious mind. So I know that you hearing it over and over is influencing your subconscious mind. May you tap into that incredible power that you truly are inside.

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Michael Fox

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