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
Interrupting the Drift of Your Own Personality
Hello and welcome back. In this segment, I wanted to talk to you about something really critical and that is, what does it take to start living outside of who you've become. Now that's not as easy as it sounds. See what I'm talking about is what it actually takes to start living freely, to start living an authentic life. And to do that, one must first come to terms with one's own identity. See there is no real possibility of freedom from your identity, when you don't understand your identity. You actually have to be able to see it in action. You have to be able to see what it does to determine that there's an alternative to it, which is why I've created this whole conversation for you, for you to start to see yourself in terms of what you've concluded, and the persona that you have to overcome those conclusions and that your life is lived in that cycle. Now a critical part of this aspect is starting to see your personality. Now, what do I mean when I'm talking about your personality? I...
mean your strengths. I mean what you're good at. I mean what other people would say you're good at. A great place to see your personality is if you examine your place of work. In your place of work, you have put yourself in a place where your personality can be most used and useful. So if you're analytical, you'll be in the kind of working environment where you can be analytical. If you're laid back, you'll put yourself in the kind of working environment where you can be laid back. If you're hard working, you work somewhere where it requires hard work. And it's the same if you're organized or detail oriented, or logical, or anyone of a number of ways, your job, for the most part, fits your personality. It's in fact, the reason why you do that job, so that your personality can continue being met by the same kind of problem that will remind you of what you've concluded and then your personality can save you. Now, freedom for a human being is, you know, a lot of people say this, use this term like being free and inhibiting my freedom, or free will even. But you can't really have freedom, until you first understand and get responsible for what's in the way of that freedom. See if you keep living the same life over and over and over, there's no freedom in that. You're constrained. You have to be you. In other words, you have to be the you that you have become and you must find the kind of problems in life that will perpetuate that you. So what we're out to do, is explode the myth of being you. To actually start to examine what would life be like if you were a whole other kind of you. But remember, an important part of this is fully uncovering your own conclusion and then uncovering your own personality. Like your conclusions, your personality is based on a very definitive number of ways of being, no more than a handful. For me, being independent, being quick witted, being compassionate. Being independent, as I said, is probably the most overwhelming one for me. I do everything on my own. I'm going to give you an example of being independent that you might connect with. A short time ago, I got a piece of furniture delivered to my home. The delivery guys dropped it at the end of my driveway. Being independent, my first thought was, how do I get it in the house? But also being independent, I didn't think about getting it in the house using the help of others. My first thought was, how do I get it in the house on my own? Which is what I did. I lugged this big, giant piece of furniture up the driveway, through the door, over fourteen children gates, through doorways, down a hallway, up a stair and into the room where it was supposed to go. And at the end of which my wife said, "Why didn't you ask the neighbor for help?" Why? People don't care. Why would they help me? It didn't even occur to me to ask someone for help because I relate to people like they wouldn't. So I want you to look in your own life to see your own personality at work and how your personality strives for the kinds of problems, that your personality can solve. That's why you have the kind of life you have. When you fully realize that picture, when you can fully see it for yourself, then we can start to talk about what would life be like living in a whole new way, with a whole new approach to being alive. I'll see you in the next session.
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!