Lessons
Class Introduction
03:56 2The 3 Sets of Conclusions
05:37 3Personal Conclusions
05:48 4Social Conclusions
08:40 5Life Conclusions
07:19 6Life Perspective
04:38 7How Your Conclusions Shape Your Personality
08:32 8You Are the Saboteur
07:37Lesson Info
How Your Conclusions Shape Your Personality
Well, here you are in the midst of all this bad news. What is it you've concluded about yourself? What is it you've concluded about other people, that is, your Social Conclusions? And what is it you've concluded about life itself? And as we've seen, all of these together gives you a certain point of experience. You see life in a very distinct and you kind of way. But as I said earlier, it can't all be bad news, Mr. Scottish Man, there's gotta be some good news in here somewhere. This is where we bring in the good news. Well, what seems like the good news. Haven't you ever noticed you've got a personality? Haven't you ever noticed there's certain components to you, why you do what you do? You might be analytical. You might be hard-working. You might be kind. You might be diligent. You might be detail-oriented. Or you might be organized, and no, they're not the same thing. You'll notice there's very specific ways that you are. And that those ways combine to form your personality. Alright...
, now back to the bad news. The bad news is, your personality is in a constant dance with what you've concluded. You see, your life is like a series of peaks and valleys. In your life, the valleys are given by those moments and times in life when you're present to and being impacted by what it is you've concluded. The peaks, that's when your personality comes along and rescues you from those terrible valleys. Now, the news is about to get even worse. What?! Because they need each other. So, the peaks of your personality must have the valleys of your conclusions. You see the valleys, that is, what you've concluded about yourself, others, and life itself, requires saving. And those first 25 years of life is when your personality came into being. It started to get a shape and a form. You'll notice between the ages of 25 and up personality doesn't change that much. Pretty much the same personality. In fact, if anything it's become a more polarized version of that. As you age, you become more and more and more like the personality you are. So, for instance, my personality is driven by a fundamental group of characteristics, if ya like. One of which is being hard-working. So, one of my answers to the conclusions of my life is hard work. I will overcome what I've concluded: life is hard. I'll overcome that with hard work. Another one is being independent. Being independent for me overcomes that people don't care. Therefore I don't need them, so I'll be independent. So, whenever I'm reminded that people don't care, I'll be independent to overcome it. Does that make sense? And that's what I want you to start to understand. I want you to start to see your life in terms of these peaks and valleys. The valleys are when life isn't quite going the way you want it to go. The peaks is when it seems like it's heading your way. And that's what your persona does. Your personality leaves you with the illusion that you're getting somewhere. The problem is that when you get there you fall off the edge of it, you're reminded of those conclusions again and some circumstance or situation. And that's the life of a human being: the peaks of your personality, the valleys of your conclusions, over and over and over. You see, you're like a radar for your conclusions. You're constantly seeking evidence for them. You're constantly finding validity in the circumstances around you that point to your conclusions. Why would one do that? Because it justifies the myth of your own personality. Now, there's a reason why that's really important. Your self-expression in life, your accomplishment in life, is completely governed by your personality. If you can't get beyond that nothing new will happen. I mean, you might put yourself in new situations but you'll be the same way you've always been in those situations. In other words, you're very much hard-wired to be the you that you've become. And it's actually evident in just about everything around you. I mean, if you look in your life you'll see you like things done in a certain way. You'll see you like to dress in a very certain way. You'll see you like this environment over that environment. You'll like this kind of situation over that kind of situation. You'd prefer this kind of career as opposed to that kind of career. All of which leaves you with a very distinct view moving forward. But you know what else it does? It actually excludes the possibility of all these other areas of life. You know, I'll give ya a really good example: You went to college, if you went to college, you went there with something in mind. You went to college and you studied something that you thought you could do. Where was that coming from? What was that based on? It was based on your conclusions. You've dated people. Why would you date those kind of people? Because they fit with your conclusions. Now, that might seem like a fail-safe kind of mechanism to have. But it's problematic because believe it or not, you marry the kind of people or get in relationships with the kind of people, you get into the kind of careers that one would get into to provide you with the right kinds of problems. Why? So that your personality can solve them. Which brings me to this really compelling way of looking at life. Human beings live their lives addicted to certainty. They look into the future and they want things to be a very familiar way even if those things are not positive. We do that because if you look back in your life when those negative things happened, you survived them. So, your life really becomes about repeating the same kinds of problems over and over and over. Why? Because ultimately you survive them, you make it. And that's the point of your personality, your personality is, again, to leave you with the illusion that you're somehow getting closer to what it is you're really after. In the next segment we're going to dig really deeply into this whole aspect of the kinds of items and issues and problems that you have in your life. Why you have 'em and then how to start identifying yours. How to start seeing them as a very definitive process that you go through to perpetuate the myth of your own personality.
Ratings and Reviews
Merrily Bjerkestrand
Gary, thank you for sharing your insights and building our understanding by "connecting the dots" of life and living as human beings. Your message and words are powerful and thought-provoking. More importantly, life-changing for those who wish to get out of their box, over their barriers, and live an authentic and genuinely free life beyond the velvet rope. These lessons were paced well and I appreciated the flow of connected thoughts and reasoning. Your message and points are both simple and complex at the same time. They create knowledge and understanding but are only useful if applied and put into action. Just like most of philosophy! You did a great job of identifying steps needed for personal change without reducing the need for individual action. Your bonus message of keeping one's promises to oneself sealed the deal. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
a Creativelive Student
I loved this talk! Much to ponder about our conclusions driving our lives. Our choices. How we can end up on autopilot. And how we start out with so much possibility and by bringing in awareness to our patterns we can begin to open up to operating from possibility instead narrow minded repetition. The multi universe perspective! Love that! I would love a longer more in depth class with Gary. Would be great! Thank you!
Glenys Morgan
I love that Gary is straight to the point and didn't delve into who screwed us up before we reached mid-20's - each of us has a distinct personality and challenges to deal with in our present life. The shortest course on behaviour change but I got so much out of each short segment, read the transcript as well and spent time in self-analysis. Life is one long lesson and often difficult to work through. Staying stuck in a rut is far more difficult. Thanks Gary, excellent class. And thanks to Creative Live for all the amazing classes that expand my gray matter!