How to Be Yourself

Of course you know yourself. Of course you know you. You’re with them all the time. You literally spend every moment both waking and sleeping with yourself. It would be silly. It’d be ridiculous to think that you didn’t know yourself like the backs of your hands, like the back of your hand. But do you really know yourself? Do you really how well do you really know yourself? Probably won’t surprise you that 95% of people, give or take, think that they are super self aware, meaning that they have a really firm grasp on who they are and all that stuff. But some research by Dr Tasha Urich says that only 15% of people are truly self aware. How about that? How about that? So 10 to 15% are actually self aware. 95% people think that they’re self aware. That is a massive disconnect, right there. So where do you think you fall? Where do you think you fall? So 95% think that they are 10 to 15% actually do we’re pretty close to that Paret of distribution, 8020, 9010, so that’s not a surprise. What about this one? Do you think you know yourself? What about this one? Have you ever been told or told somebody else, just be yourself. Just be yourself. That advice, I bet it’s being said by 1000 people somewhere on Earth right now. Hey, just be yourself. Going to meet somebody and just be yourself. First day of school, just be yourself. Job Interview, just be yourself. Make some new friends, just be yourself. Well, we just established that only 10 to 15% of us know ourselves, so that’s pretty tricky advice. We’re in the minority of people that actually know themselves, but we’re always telling people to just be themselves. So it’s hard. That is one of those things that it sounds really easy, but it does hard, kind of like when you tell somebody to just do it, whatever it is. But the reality is, if I don’t know how to do it, I cannot just do it. I can’t do it at all, let alone just do it. Great slogan, so be yourself. So we got it. Then you think about, okay, just be myself. Which version of me, of myself are we talking about? Which one are we talking the version, the version of me that’s with my kids, Dad version of me, or the husband version of me? What about the version of me when I’m hanging out with my college buddies? What about the version of me when I’m hanging off my clients. Which version of me do you advocate that I just be just muddy the water? You familiar with code switching? Code switching? Code switching. This is when a person changes the way that they speak, behave, or present or show up in the world depending on what it is they’re doing, the the people they’re with, the setting that they’re in, if it’s a business meeting, versus you’re at the beach or you’re at the bar, you’re at happy hour, you’re at church, you get it. So that’s what Code switching is, how we change our behavior based on what it is that we are doing so so many different ways you change the way that you speak, or the pace in which you speak, the language that you use, all of it totally be different versions of yourself. So is that good or bad? I don’t think it’s necessarily bad or not even necessarily at odds with being yourself and or being self aware. It might also be a reflection of incredible self awareness, because you’re so aware of how it is that you were showing up. So if you have the ability to be cognizant of if I engage with this person in this way, it’s going to have a certain effect. If I’m really big personality, it could be considered overbearing. I don’t want to run over people. I also don’t want to just be a shrinking violet and a wallflower and not assert myself, but just you need to be able to have a robust toolkit of communication and the way that we handle ourselves and behave and be aware of it. So I actually think that Code switching is of real high expression, maybe one of the highest expression of self awareness. That’s interesting. Time, so not necessarily a bad thing, but when we understand we know ourselves. I like to think about how I try to be aware of the wake that I’m leaving. You know how when you’re on a boat, there’s a wake, and if you’ve ever done a lot of boating, which I haven’t, but there are areas where it’s a low wake zone or a no wake zone, that just means you have to go really slow, so you go really fast, but gives bunch of waves, which is the wake, and that then impacts the rest of the water and everybody else. So I always try to be cognizant of the wake that I’m leaving behind me, whatever it is that I’m going sometimes I want to leave a wake. Sometimes I don’t want to leave any wake at all. Sometimes I’m just going along to get along, kind of a thing. So I think it’s a negative. Code switching is a negative. If you feel like you have to be behaving in a certain way, and you’re compromising who you are, you’re compromising your integrity. And then then that’s obviously, I think, really, really bad thing. It’s going to create tension. And I think that we all ought to be free to be ourselves as much as we possibly can be. And this is all within reason, because the reason, because the reality is how you present yourself in the world matters. And man, I remember 20 years ago when it was rare to have tattoos. You were an ex con, or you in the Navy, not today. Tattoos are are highly accepted. They are ubiquitous. They are everywhere. But I tell you what, if you’re showing up to get a customer service job and you have tattoos all over your face and you’ve got a non normative hairstyle and a ton of piercings or other things like that, you might not be the best candidate, because that business may not be interested in having you be the face of their organization or forward facing so how you make decisions and how you choose to present yourself, and All the language that you use just because you are being your authentic self does not mean that everybody else has to play along like that. Maybe that’s where we’re going afoul of of this whole program. And me being myself doesn’t mean that everybody else has to get excited about it. You have the right to do that, but we don’t have to all play along together. If you’re playing a different game than me, you know, totally fine. Don’t expect me to go along with what you are doing just because you are being you. We all have our own prerogatives. I think that I said that, okay, you probably understand what I’m saying. Want everybody to be an individual. I want everybody to be their authentic selves and to be aware of the impact that it has on other people. So being yourself, it really ought to be a super easy thing, but it’s not, because from the moment of your birth, the world commences and sets about piling layers of crap on top of you expectations from your parents and your school and your friends and society and all that stuff starts to get piled on layers and layers and layers and layers. And it’s easy to get lost, easy to get lost. Where was that guy? Where was that? Where was me? Where did I go? Was right there. And I can’t even see myself, because I’ve been buried underneath all these expectations and different layers of stuff. And, you know, hey, a lot of that is just life. I get it. And when we’re kids and young people, we don’t have agency, so I’m sort of forced to go along. Don’t have any money, I don’t have a house, I don’t have a I can’t drive when I’m five, so I’m sort of getting pulled along and doing what it is that is getting done and all that stuff. So the work, the work is trying to get back and figure out who that original, authentic version of you was slash is, and peeling those layers back, it’s living an examine life and asking questions, getting back down to who it is that you really are. And I want to talk about some steps for doing that, but a big part of that is trusting your gut, trusting your intuition and your instincts. You can hear it. You hear it. You’re pulled in certain directions. Now there’s an important conversation there that we’re not gonna be able to have today, but intuition versus impulses. Instincts versus impulses. Impulses are sort of those, those triggering events that I’m impulsively angry or I’m horny or I’m really tired our instincts, that is, i.

The idea of contentment versus happiness, I think it’s really, really similar to that. Contentment is like my resting heart rate. Happiness is little spikes. Ice cream makes me happy. Dropping my ice cream on the ground makes me sad, doing work that I find to be meaningful makes me content. Okay, so I think that that’s good way to think about that, but let me take a big step back. So how do we do it? How do we get closer to becoming and living our real, authentic self? And a big part of that is talked about living an examined life. So it’s self reflection. It’s it’s accepting who it is that we are. I think when you are a self aware person, you will be critical of yourself, because you’re aware of a lot of your faults, which we all have. And the idea is that we want to be as aligned with what’s important to us as possible. So I like to think about understanding my purpose. That’s really why I do things, my goals, that’s what I want, my beliefs, values, that’s that’s who I am. And my habits are how I do things. And we want to line those things up. So when I really drill down into each one of those areas, why I do what I do, what it is that I want, who I am, and then how I do them. That I think doing that whole full examination and then constantly working to to try and line those up, get everybody moving in the right direction, I think that that is a big key to it. So to do that, we have to understand what our values and our beliefs are. What is most important to you. Keep those top top of mind. There’s a lot of talk about values these days, and I talk and think a lot about values. I think a lot about beliefs. So our beliefs, so many of those, were given to us from the age of our birth to about age seven. That’s when the majority of our core beliefs we experience through our lived experiences and our loved ones and our families, your beliefs about success and relationships and money and and and work everything. That’s where we got that stuff. So if you’re happy with everything that was going on, you maybe don’t have to change anything. But if you’re like the rest of us, there’s probably some issues, some limiting beliefs, negative beliefs, you might have around what’s most important, like those areas I was just talking about, the good news about our beliefs is that we get to decide how we want to feel about things, and once you recognize you have a limiting belief or a negative belief about something, you can consciously go back and override that and replace negative limiting belief with a positive or beneficial belief. So I’ve talked a lot about that. But second thing is practicing self awareness. So think that being self aware. There’s probably people who are innately self aware, but I think that being a good self manager means that I’m taking responsibility for my life, and that just means that I’m paying attention. Think about what you’re thinking about. Think about your thoughts, your feelings, think about your actions, and think about in the context of this is when I feel like I’m being really true to myself, and this feels good. And these are the times that I don’t feel good, and that’s without question, evidence that what you are doing is aligned to that authentic, real version of you, versus man, I’m really forcing this. This is not coming easy to me at all. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it, but these are just when we’re paying attention to how I’m thinking and feeling about different circumstances of my life that is giving you evidence on what your preferences really are. Next. It’s important to accept that we are imperfect. We are fallen people. Fallen beings. Just means we’re flawed, gonna make make mistakes, and being ourselves, being our authentic selves, does not mean perfect. I am. I am such a believer in the phrase, don’t let perfect be the enemy of good, because we’re never going to be perfect. Time will the the timing will never be perfect. Circumstances are never going to be perfect. Just means being comfortable with who we are, and also doesn’t mean that I accept that I am deficient or flawed in a certain area. I’m not trying to improve it, but just understanding that changing anything requires incremental progress towards it. So being compassionate, giving ourselves a little bit of grace, is a really, really important thing. We people, many of us, want to be liked. We want to fit in, and that is hardwired into us. We don’t want to be the odd man or woman out. We want to be accepted into different tribes, into different. Groups, all that being said when we are trying to please everybody, never going to make everybody happy. It’s just not going to work out. And if we’re trying to make everybody else happy, there’s a good chance that we are foregoing our own happiness also. So it’s being cognizant of this is who I am. This is what I do. This is what’s most important to me, and then recognizing when it is that I’m doing things that are contrary to that Well, I want to honor myself and take care of myself, and when I’m overly trying to please others that I’m not doing that. In order to do this, I think it’s important that we’re around people that care for us, that are positive, that are supportive, that care about us, that are accepting of us. So that’s a really, really important thing, lining everything up. Kind of been talking a lot about making sure that I understand the individual aspects of who I am, and then consciously working to make sure that my actions are aligned to my beliefs. My actions are in service of my goals, and it’s all in service of what it is that I’m doing, also known as your purpose. Being honest with ourselves. This is a really, really important thing. I never want to engage in self deception, even though my brain allows me through the rationalization process to really BS myself, if I want to, but that’s not serving anybody. I don’t mind telling some white lives or BSC other people every once in a while, but the last thing I want to do is BS myself. I don’t want to lie to myself. So when we rationalize things, what we end up doing is we end up messing our screwing ourselves over, because it oftentimes means that we’re we’re settling for less. We’re opting for what we have versus what we really want. So being able to embrace discomfort and to step into it and to recognize that there’s a need for it if we’re interested in growing and getting to where it is we want to go. We have to be able to do that. Finally, I think that understanding and knowing that there are a weight that there is massive weight in expectations that are on us at all times and balancing, I want to be myself with societal expectations. It’s talking about tattoos and piercings or whatever, whatever, however you want to express yourself. Understand that not everybody is going to go along with you, especially if you are an extreme outlier, you cannot necessarily get everybody to bend to your will, unless you’re Steve Jobs or an Elon Musk type character. So just understand that we do that the sum of our lives is the interactions with other people. And I need to be aware of, again, my wake and the impressions that I’m leaving on other people. It’s possible to thread the needle. It is we do it. We see it all the time. We see people that are are highly artistic or eccentric, that succeed greatly in every avenue of life. But for every one of those people, there’s plenty of people that that fail to do that. They’re bulls in China shops. They’re just running around crashing screaming at everybody to accept them for who they are. But we’re not making it easy to do business. You got to make it easy for people to do business with you. So respect, honor yourself and your authentic self, but be self aware enough to recognize that that other people are going through the same thing. So, so important to just always be checking in with ourselves, to be as conscious and intentional as we can be about all these things. So, so that’s a little bit about how we can be more of our authentic selves, and now it’s a question of, how do we become more self aware? And this is a really such an important thing.

I mentioned this Dr Urich a minute ago, and she talks about how self awareness is the ability to see ourselves clearly, to understand who we are and how others see us and how we fit into the world. So that’s a really succinct way to put it, the ability to see ourselves clearly, to understand who we are, how others see us, and then how we fit into the world. So that has external components as well as internal components. So recognizing what’s going on, what time it is, and then checking in with ourselves. So we’ve been talking about knowing who we are, our values, that’s such an important place, our beliefs, our motivators, our goals, our wants, all these things, and then understanding how other people are perceiving and seeing. Between us. When we are self aware, we are able to more, I think, fully accept other people’s perspectives and to therefore be more empathetic to people. When you are an empathetic person, I think that that is going to give you a lot more room to be yourself. If you are a hard line my way or the highway, people are going to be turned off to that. So we need to give other people the space that we want them to give to us. We want to be empathetic towards them because we want them to be empathetic towards us. It’s a it’s, it’s, it’s a question of reciprocity. And, you know, in a lot of ways, it is a function of, I want you to get what you want, and I want me to get what I want. So it’s, it’s compromise. We’re making deals all the time. So a couple of different tips for actually doing this from Dr Urich that I really like a lot, she says that it’s valuable to ask, what, not why. So this is a really, really, really powerful thing, such a simple thing. So to immediately improve your self awareness, start asking, What, not, why. So for example, question like, Why did I do this? Why did I do this? That sounds like a fine question, but there’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s pretty heavy, right? It’s, it’s accusatory, it’s, it’s, it is casting doubt. I don’t think that it’s a healthy question, versus if you were to say, what happened here, and what could I do differently? What? What? What are the circumstances that led to this? What was my role in it, and what could be done differently? That is a much less personal attack on ourselves. We’re still getting to the same place. So I think that that is such a simple thing. So here’s a couple when we are checking in with ourselves, you can think about what went well today, what didn’t go quite as well as I wanted it to, and what can I do differently? So why did I screw all that up? Is a heavy, damning question, versus what didn’t go well today. What could I have done differently? So you get the idea. So swapping why for what is a really, really, really simple thing, and that is strengthening your muscle. Talk a lot about how we have to know what, how, how to do something. So just do it. Just be more self aware. Okay, well, how do I do that? Well, right there, there’s three questions, what went well today? What didn’t go so well today, and what can I do differently tomorrow? It allows you to do a post mortem on your day, so that just means the day is over. I can reflect back what went well, what didn’t go so well, what can be done differently tomorrow? What can I do differently tomorrow? Going through those questions allows you to self assess, look back on what happened, all the different interactions you had, what went well? What didn’t go so great. What can I do tomorrow? Better? What can I improve tomorrow? So that being said, we also are human beings with blind spots. So being able to get ask for and to get input and feedback from other people is an extremely powerful thing. So doesn’t mean you should be asking everybody. You shouldn’t ask the barista at your favorite coffee place to assess you. I would say that anybody that you would take advice from is probably somebody that you can listen to their opinion on. Essentially, it’s kind of the same thing. But is this somebody that you would take their advice on? And if yes, then probably somebody that you can ask for some feedback on what you can be doing differently or better. If it’s just some Yahoo at the coffee shop or that you meet in traffic or on the subway, probably wouldn’t bother asking them for feedback. Okay, so keep the circle tight. A big part of improving your self awareness is not just trying to figure out what you can do better. It’s also identifying where your strengths are and really building on those. Our lives are really short. I know some days feel really, really long, and sometimes feels like it’s never going to end. But life is really short, and so while I do think that it’s important to be aware of our shortcomings, I don’t stress out on those quite as much as I want to really double down or focus on what I do really well. I could just do what I do well and figure out how. How to Get the other stuff done without spending a lot of time, energy, attention on it, or money. Even then, I think that that’s, that’s that’s for the best. So being able to handle our strengths and our weaknesses, I think such an important thing, checking in with ourselves, just making that simple shift from saying, Why did I do this, to what what went well, and what didn’t go so well and what could be done differently. Those are incredibly powerful, but becoming self aware, understanding who it is that we are becoming more self aware. These are skills. These are skills that must be learned, and then skills that must be developed, just like our muscles. We have to train them. We have to nurture them, give them time and attention, give them right nutrients, all that stuff that’ll help us to be more successful. So takes effort, takes a lot of work, but I know you’re not a person who’s afraid a little bit of hard work, and at the end of the day, unexamined life is not worth living if you like what I’ve been talking about, get a copy of the purpose book. It’s free, and get it on my website. I’ll link in the in the notes here, you can go to money alignment Academy, com, go to Courses, and the purpose book course will allow you to get a free download of the book. And that is purpose, goals, beliefs and habits, really, to lining all those up, it’ll take you through the process of how to figure out each one of those individually, but then how to actually make it all work together. So as always, do your part by doing your best.

george grombacher 16:00
So if I want my iPhone, and my Tesla and my Bitcoin to work, we need to get the metal out of the ground.

Pierre Leveille 16:07
Absolutely. Without it, we cannot do it.

george grombacher 16:13
Why? Why is there a Why has production been going down.

Pierre Leveille 16:21
Because the large mines that are producing most of the copper in the world, the grades are going down slowly they’re going there, they’re arriving near the end of life. So and of life of mines in general means less production. And in the past, at least 15 years, the exploration expenditure for copper were pretty low, because the price of copper was low. And when the price is low, companies are tending to not invest more so much in exploration, which is what we see today. It’s it’s, it’s not the way to look at it. Because nobody 15 years ago was able to predict that there would be a so massive shortage, or it’s so massive demand coming. But in the past five years, or let’s say since the since 10 years, we have seen that more and more coming. And then the by the time you react start exploring and there’s more money than then ever that is putting in put it in expression at the moment for copper at least. And what we see is that the it takes time, it could take up to 2025 years between the time you find a deposit that it gets in production. So but but the year the time is counted. So it’s it’s very important to so you will see company reopening old mines, what it will push also, which is not bad, it will force to two, it will force to find a it will force to find ways of recalibrating customer, you know the metals, that will be more and more important.

george grombacher 18:07
So finding, okay, so for lack of a better term recycling metals that are just sitting around somewhere extremely important. Yeah. And then going and going back to historic minds that maybe for lack of technology, or just lack of will or reasons, but maybe now because there’s such a demand, there’s an appetite to go back to those.

Pierre Leveille 18:33
Yes, but there will be a lot of failures into that for many reasons. But the ones that will be in that will resume mining it’s just going to be a short term temporary solution. No it’s it’s not going to be you need to find deposit that will that will operate 50 years you know at least it’s 25 to 50 years at least and an old mind that you do in production in general it’s less than 10 years.

george grombacher 19:03
Got it. Oh there we go. Up here. People are ready for your difference making tip What do you have for them

Pierre Leveille 19:14
You mean an investment or

george grombacher 19:17
whatever you’re into, you’ve got so much life experience with raising a family and doing business all over the world and having your kids go to school in Africa so a tip on copper or whatever you’re into.

Pierre Leveille 19:34
But there’s two things I like to see and I was telling my children many times and I always said you know don’t focus on what will bring you specifically money don’t think of Getting Rich. Think of doing what you what you like, what you feel your your your your your, you know you have been born to do so use your most you skills, do what you like, do what you wet well, and good things will happen to you. And I can see them grow in their life. And I can tell you that this is what happens. And sometimes you have setback like I had recently. But if we do things properly, if we do things that we like, and we liked that project, we were very passionate about that project, not only me, all my team, and if we do things properly, if we do things correctly, good things will happen. And we will probably get the project back had to go forward or we will find another big project that will be the launch of a new era. So that’s my most important tip in life. Do what you like, do it with your best scale and do it well and good things will happen.

george grombacher 20:49
Pierre Leveille 21:03
Thank you. I was happy to be with you to today.

george grombacher 21:06
Damn, tell us the websites and where where people can connect and find you.

Pierre Leveille 21:13
The it’s Deep South resources.com. So pretty simple.

george grombacher 21:18
Perfect. Well, if you enjoyed this as much as I did show up here your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciate good ideas, go to deep south resources, calm and learn all about what they’re working on and track their progress.

Pierre Leveille 21:32
Thanks. Thanks, have a nice day.

george grombacher 21:36
And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.