Ep70_Value_full
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Adam Gragg: [00:00:00] So I had some pretty high anxiety last. Mainly triggered by some disappointments that I had in my life and I talked about that in my last podcast. But when I think about why I was so anxious, there's a number of things cuz there were a number of positive things, like very positive things going on in my life.

Like, gosh, opportunities, [00:01:00] business opportunities, launching this new course. I've been making better decisions professionally. Good things. But as I look back, I think, well, part of the reason that I had a lot of anxiety is I was not feeling worthy. I tell myself a story often that I'm not worthy of success.

I'm not worthy of going to that next level, and so I sabotage it. I procrastinate. Today we're gonna talk about how to find value within yourself. In fact, three things you can do to find value within yourself. So welcome to the Decide Your Legacy podcast. If you found this podcast helpful in the past, please give it a like rating and review on Apple or Spotify.

Pull out your phone, take 15 seconds, and that is how the content grows organically, which it has been significantly. Here's two risks that I've taken recently. I share these because I want you to take risks. And I want you to do things that are uncomfortable so you can grow. Playing it safe. There's nothing more damaging to your mental health than playing it safe, and there's [00:02:00] nothing more important to good mental health than you facing your fears, usually emotional fears.

So I did a couple things today. One I did was at this restaurant nearby my house, chicken Max. I told a. Is the manager there, just how great of a job he did and does. Cuz he is very friendly. He smiles and it's like he has never had a bad day. And I know that's a lot of hard work and he, he received it very well.

So it wasn't a huge risk, but it was. So then I went to a business group called the q and i. Was kind of vulnerable with some guys who I don't know very well, but it's worth it. That's how you get to know people, and it was just a really inspiring day for me from business, for everything. So I'm Adam Gragg.

I am a legacy coach, a speaker, podcaster, mental health professional for almost 25 years, and my life purpose is helping people. And organizations find transformational clarity that propels them forward to face their biggest fears so they can live and [00:03:00] leave their desired legacy. We'll talk about stuff that you can talk to your six-year-old about and they're gonna understand.

I also am a fellow traveler. I struggle with. Everything that I discuss in the Decide Your Legacy podcast, I challenge you today to listen as a teacher, not just a consumer, and think about something from the day you can teach to somebody else in the next 24 hours. This is the podcast that you do. Not just listen to.

So self-worth and self, a self-concept are different things. They're use interchangeably sometimes, but self-worth definition of feeling of confidence in yourself that you are a good and useful person. Feel good about yourself. A self-concept is an idea, it's a construction, a self. It's constructed from beliefs that you hold about yourself and the responses of others to you.

So people often struggle with their self-concept, which makes it so they don't have self-worth. Yet we can improve our self-concept by finding the [00:04:00] value within ourselves. So why do people struggle here? Which it's a great struggle. People struggle often because they have had critical people in their lives and they've listened and believed what those critical people have actually said about them.

That can be traumatic when you're only hearing what's going wrong and not what's going right. So had somebody share an example that when they played basketball, they were really good. After the game, their dad would, would point out all the things they did wrong, thinking that was gonna help him to become a better basketball player when it really didn't help, cuz it was not.

Love and acceptance. So people struggle because they have critical parents. They struggle because they do constant comparisons. So they look at social media, compare. That's not a negative, bad thing. When you compare yourself to others and what they're going through and their struggles and their families and their situations, that's gonna be damaging because you're not them.

Maybe it can be inspiring if you are, you're comparing yourselves to their merits or their character. I think that can be inspiring. So another thing is that people believe lies. Like [00:05:00] one big lie people believe overall is it's, it's better to be comfortable and safe than to get out and take risks. You know?

It's better to save your money and never go out there and ever take that big, giant leap because you could fail it's uncharted water than to just play it safe, you know? So you. People have and hope I didn't get that mixed up there. But this safety thing is a, is a lie. People believe people can believe lies about themselves from what they're told growing up.

That dramatic childhood narrative that they build because they're told they're not lovable or worthy or good enough. And it may not be in the words that they actually heard. It may have been the responses that they received, so they didn't get the praise. When they did something good, they only got the criticism when they didn't do something good and it was way, way off balance.

So they learned to interpret that as that they're not good enough in some way. So, and also major losses, disappointments, trauma, I mean, those things impact us. Our past impacts us greatly. You know, and this, this is something we can't discount. [00:06:00] People are walking zombies when it comes to this because they've had these traumatic events that they never admit actually impacted them and have developed this self-concept that they're unworthy, they're unlovable, that sort of thing, and they're never actually admitting it.

So you can't heal. Anything that you don't admit is actually broken if they're not admitting anything is actually broken. So I wanna start with an action here. Write this down. Pull over in your car, stop the podcast, speak it into your phone. What is something that has happened to you in your life that you believe has negatively impacted your self-concept?

A traumatic type event. So divorce, loss of a job, critical parent, critical boss. Difficult health situation could be anything. You can go back to your first memories, which is something I have people do a lot of times, is make a time, a timeline of their lives, which lists those traumatic type events. It could be somebody that was a mentor in your life that died or someone [00:07:00] betrayed you, whatever it was.

So just write one of those things down and as we go through this, Podcast, you're gonna actually get to work on your self-concept, which was impacted greatly by that event or that series of events, or that situation that was traumatic in your life. So number one, okay, be around good people. Be around good people. Who you hang around with.

I can predict somebody's success level and their mental health level by their three closest friends. And how much time they're actually interacting with those people. It's so important. A good close friend is somebody that you can process your past with and they're gonna accept you and love you, and they're not gonna judge you and say, get over it.

They're not gonna do that. They're not gonna say, you know, when are you gonna get over this situation? Or, that was so long ago. No, they're gonna listen. They're gonna accept you. They're gonna process and be willing to listen to your negative feelings when you're struggling, and they're not gonna judge you for it, and you're not gonna sense that judgment from them.

They're gonna understand. [00:08:00] Your value and point it out to you, and they're a reflection, a mirror that's gonna show you that you're really worthy and that you're got a lot of potential. They're gonna help you think clearer and healthier overall. They're gonna encourage you to take risks. They're gonna encourage you to take care of yourself, and they're gonna encourage you to prioritize the most important things in your life, not pull you away from those things.

So a lot of people, they think they have friends and they really don't have good friends. I can think of one example where someone got divorced and they had. some Who they called friends, setting them up even before the divorce was finalized with people for dates because they didn't wanna see their friend in pain.

I get it, but that's really a pretty selfish thing cuz it's thinking about you not what's best for them. Because you don't want to be in a situation where you're just going out dating somebody before you're divorced because that's going to cause more trauma. You're not gonna be clear-headed in that situation.

Your picker's gonna be off, so you're gonna wonder. And you look back five years later and you're wondering, why did I choose all these kind of dangerous, bad [00:09:00] situations? Yet You had these friends, so-called friends who weren't protecting you from that. In fact, they were pushing you into it. You're gonna know your friends when you go through tough situations.

They're gonna be there at the most critical moments in your life. They're gonna be there. You may have not seen them for five years, but something happens that's traumatic in your life and they're there. And you know that they're there emotionally, physically, hopefully if they can spiritually, they're on your side, they're praying for you.

You just know they're on your side. Yet we go back to these empty wells that aren't our friends expecting something to actually change. And I'm talking about family. I'm talking about friends. I'm talking about people in your life who you think you're close to. Well, you want to analyze those situations and you wanna be around the good ones cuz they're gonna help your self-concept increase cuz they're gonna show you the truth about yourself. You know, traditional wisdom will say, you know, wear a mask, please. People don't rock the boat. Don't be vulnerable. Don't share your thoughts and opinions. Don't share the truth, but I'm telling you that. You can't really know [00:10:00] who your good friends are until you're vulnerable, until they see you at your worst, until you have conflict, until you see whether or not they're trustworthy or not.

It's a great blessing, although it sure doesn't feel like it, but it's a great blessing when you're vulnerable and you're betrayed because you're seeing the character of somebody else and you're knowing from that situation whether or not you wanna push forward in that relationship because they're not trustworthy at that point, they become an empty well.

Sure they can come back and apologize and own what they did, and that can heal the relationship. And I would suggest you do that. And I would suggest that you forgive. But when there's no ownership, they remain this empty well. So be around these good people because you have opportunities to build those kind of relationships.

So who in your life would you consider one of your three closest friends? These real friends. And how could you build new ones if you don't have any or rekindle the old ones? I had a client one time when I was challenging him to go out and meet new people cause he was new to the area and he had friends but they weren't local and he wanted [00:11:00] to make some friends that were local.

Yet his attitude about himself was, was really, really negative and it was not what was gonna build friendships, in fact, very critical towards himself. And then he became very critical towards these social environments where he had an opportunity to meet new people. Oh, I don't like that support group. I don't like that book club.

Or, those people are whatever, you know, they're not my type. I mean, that's gonna go bad. Or those people are smelly. I mean, whatever it was possible, I would just listen. And there was really no way. For me to help him see the positive he had to choose to do that on his own because, you know, for all of us, it's easier to see the negative in ourselves than it is the positive.

It's stickier as well, the negative, and it's also therefore becomes a lot easier to point out the negative in other people. Yet one of my goals this year, in fact, my main goal this year, which I give myself probably a C minus at it, is. To be more encouraging is that 90% of my interactions are encouraging people and not criticizing and not judging and did not have that flavor to me, cuz I know I struggle with that and [00:12:00] have struggled with that and I wanna work on that big time.

So how can you make close new friends? How can you rekindle those friendships that you have? So if you found this podcast helpful so far, hit the link to shatterproof yourself. These are seven simple steps to deciding your legacy. I'm sorry. These are seven simple steps yes, to deciding your legacy, but it's actually seven simple steps to building better mental health.

And it's a video workbook, number of videos course you can go through. It's free. It's something you can share with people. Highly recommend you go through this and check it out. It's not very long and I'm super excited about it. So the. Thing that I would encourage you to do if you want to build your value.

And I'll tell you what, my daughter Emerson came up with that title for this podcast, finding Value Within Yourself, and I really like that title. So first one was Be Around Good People. Second one is Care for Yourself like You would a friend. So I just defined what a friend is. You know they're not gonna judge you and criticize you.

They're gonna listen to you. They're gonna [00:13:00] understand that you have struggles and hurts and fears. And they're gonna help you see the truth. And they're not gonna put you in bad situations or encourage you to do things that are destructive. They're not gonna be your drinking buddy, you know, that knows you have a problem with alcohol, yet they're still always inviting you out to go and drink.

How are you gonna be that kind of friend of yourself? And so that may be having boundaries with yourself by saying no, by being committed to things that you put into your schedule by following through to yourself. So when you are gonna go and read a. Because you plan that into your schedule for an hour at Starbucks, you go and do it.

You don't just make excuses. You find ways to love yourself. I'll tell you one way that you won't be a good friend of yourself is, and I can guarantee that your self concept's gonna be decreased and damaged, is by comparing yourself consistently to other people, by worrying, by focusing on controlling what other people do, by thinking the answer to.

Yourself concept is gonna come externally from that new job or new relationship or [00:14:00] having money or being better looking, or Botox or fame or whatever it might be. That's external. You think that bigger house, that nicer car, whatever it might be, and you get to. You get to choose to say, well, how would a real friend respond in this situation?

They wouldn't value you for those things. They would value you for you, and the value you have inside of you is not gonna be based on anything external in their eyes, and they're gonna help you to see that. So I had a friend once. Well, and still he is still a friend. He's, he's a friend, mentor. His name's Don.

He's, he's probably 74, 5 years old. I have two great friends that are in their seventies that have been extremely inspiring mentors to me, and I'm probably excluding other people. But Joe and Don are the two that I have had a lot of time with, and. I don't know. He told me something one time and I just [00:15:00] didn't want to hear it.

He said, stop beating yourself up. He said, you are so critical and nasty to yourself and, and what's going on here? And I didn't even, didn't really even resonate with me. I thought, I, I don't do that. And he, he just pointed it out again, you'll be compassionate with yourself. Talk to yourself as if you were a friend of yourselves and he kept saying that. I mean, and I didn't. It's like you're just killing yourself. You're beat, you're doing these things, and I was, I was sabotaging myself. And that stuck with me. And so an activity I sometimes have clients engage in is if they go back to when they were in a traumatic situation or they go back to a situation that didn't work out for them recently, maybe something professionally failed in their mind, although that's perceived failure maybe.

Some relationship didn't work out, and then they write down in journal what a [00:16:00] compassionate response would be to themselves, because they may be telling themselves that I'm unworthy, or I'm unlovable, or I'm helpless, which are the three big ones when it comes to your self-concept and then you write that down so like, you know, the relationship didn't work out and I'm unlovable and I don't feel like I'm ever gonna find anybody, which is a thought, you know, at times I've thought myself personally, but that's not a thought I've had.

Recent days at least. So then what's a compassionate response to that? So then you write that down and you look at it, you know, and it can be something like you have great friends who see your value, and you do the best you can in situations that you face, and you're loved by the right people and eventually, The person that is right for you is gonna be imperfect just like you are, but you're gonna be imperfectly perfect for each other and there's hope.

And you know, I come back to my faith a lot. You know, God's in control and he loves you and he loves [00:17:00] me and. He, you're made in his image and there's good plans for you in your life. But what's that compassionate friend comment going to be? So, and now you think, you go through a miscarriage and a compassionate friend's not gonna say, get over it.

Or, what's wrong with you? Or, why don't you get on medication? You know, that's the last thing a good friend's gonna do. They're gonna say something like, that must be really hard and I can really tell you're struggling and I'm here for you. And as much time as you need to sit and just cry and. Whatever you need.

If you just need me to go sit with you at a meal, then I'll sit with you at a meal. If you need me to just call you and be on the phone without talking, I'll do it. Whatever you need, I'll be there for you. And that's a friend. I mean, that's, and you can be that to other people. So be a friend to yourself.

Care for yourself like you would a good friend, and be a good friend to other people too. Be that kind of friend to other people that I described. And the third. The third is number three to to know your value. [00:18:00] To find finding the value within yourself is, is to clean up your inside. Okay, so this is a little bit strange to think about, but what comes out of you is a reflection of what is inside of you.

So what is inside of you? If it's disorganized, if it's doubt, if it's negative thinking, if it's criticism of yourself, if it's not really taking care of what's inside. I mean like what you think about yourself if it's not following through. I mean, those are all. In fact, the people we attract and then the things we do externally is going to be a reflection of what's going on inside of us.

So if somebody is addicted to pornography, let's say, well, that's going to be rooted inside of them in thinking patterns and self-worth and numbing behavior in desire to numb, you know? Or if somebody is having affairs and. Stepping outside their marriage [00:19:00] consistently. It's not, that's a symptom of a problem that's within, that needs to be cleaned up.

You know? It's a deeper issue than that, and it could be this lack of love for themselves, and it could be a desire for revenge and resentment that's unprocessed. It could be that you have believed these critical comments that your family or friends or boss shared with you, and it's stuck so deeply that you're feeding them.

So you decide that I am going to with all my energy, I'm gonna clean up me. You know, I'm gonna do and follow through with the commitments I make to myself. I'm gonna create a schedule and follow through with my commitments. I am going to fill myself up with those things that energize me and those people that energize me.

Those activities and hobbies that I know fill me up and I'm gonna do it diligently with discipline and I'm gonna do it consistently. I'm gonna have a devotional. I'm gonna go to church, I mean, whatever. I'm not preaching here and saying you should do these things. That helps me significantly and, but it [00:20:00] puts me in situations where I get to clean up and introspectively look at myself and decide what I want to improve and change.

And there's lots of formats for that. Just, you know, being in a running club or just being around those good friends that you've identified in your life and they help you clean up your insides. You keep promises to. And that's gonna help significantly because again, whatever's inside is gonna be coming outside and we feel our, a sense of dignity when we kept a promise to ourself.

Like I made a recording, I followed through some content today. And when I was done I felt good cuz it was a promise I made to myself that I kept and I've made a promise to myself to be less critical. And for example, I came. From work last week, my daughter had surgery on her leg and so she was at home and I checked in on her.

I went back, I kind of had a schedule with breaks in it so I could check on her. And so, and the surgery went really well, and she's doing great and [00:21:00] everything. But my first comment to her when I walked in the door is, how much have you read today? And she didn't respond to that very positively. And then I got defensive and said that wasn't meant to be critical.

I was just being a dad, which is something that I've said more times than I can count, which is a bunch of bs because it was a critical comment. It was a comment that I made that I shouldn't have made, and it was a judgemental comment. It was like, why haven't you done more productive stuff? When she really was very productive during the day.

I. I had to apologize eventually, but I didn't really see it as a critical comment until a couple days later cuz I got in that defensive mode. And that's a promise that I've made to myself at the beginning of the year. So I didn't really follow through. But as I do follow through, that's cleaning up my insights and it's helped me feel better about myself and knowing my value and seeing my value because I know that I'm true to my word.

I have integrity, which it means I'm, I'm whole, I'm falling through. So that's what I got for you today. So three things to improve your self worth. Be around good people. Be around good friends, care [00:22:00] for yourself like you would a close friend compassionately. Oh, and here's an activity that if you wanna work on caring for yourself as you would a close friend.

Well, this is kind of a bonus activity that I find extremely helpful with those three negative self-concepts that people are struggling with the most. I'm not how? I'm not lovable. I'm unworthy. And I am helpless. Those are the three big ones right there. There's all kinds of different variants of that, those damaging core beliefs, so all kinds of different variants.

So you go to a close friend or somebody you trust. It could be even someone you work with. It could be a pastor, could be somebody that is in your family that you trust and you ask them. I would just say, send them a text and say, Hey, I'm trying to work on my self worth. I know this is a vulnerable thing to ask.

I just love your feedback on how am I worthy of success, of growth, of a new car, a new job, or a new relationship? How am I worthy and what makes you say that I'm worthy? And how am I able to handle my [00:23:00] problems? How am I powerful? Basically, what have you seen in me in the past that shows you to, makes you believe that?

Because you treat me as if I am. And how am I lovable? Because you seem to to love me. So how am why am I lovable to you? And tell me. And they can just give you some bullet point type answers, and you can keep that and treasure it. Because if it's a good friend, it's gonna be very honest. So that was the second thing.

And then the third thing is to clean up your inside. So basically clean up your life. Could be as simple as making your bed, if that's a promise to yourself that you wanna make your bed. If you want to get up in the morning and put your workout clothes on, and then you get up in the, you put your workout clothes out, but you get up in the morning and then you don't put 'em on and work out.

You lay in bed or you sit there on your phone or you drink coffee and worry work on the day and do work rather than getting. So that's what I have for you today. What resonates with you most from today? I'd encourage you to teach it to somebody. You don't have to say, I'm teaching you something, but just talk about it and then apply it to your life.

Something from today, it's probably gonna be an emotional risk. [00:24:00] Remember my rule, the 30 70 rule. 30% of transformational change is insight. You're gaining insight into knowing your value today at 70% is action. What actions are you gonna take from today? Because that's where the real change happens. It's that risk.

I'm gonna go out there, buy faith, because take an action. You have to let go of the outcome. It's a risk. That's a definition of a risk. You can't control it anymore. We're out there trying to control too much. You gotta let go. Have me out to speak to your team live or over zoom. I'd love to connect with you again, hit that link shatterproof yourself.

Seven simple steps to better mental health. Don't wanna miss that and I'm gonna sign off the same way I always do. Make it your mission to live the life now that you wanna be remembered for 10 years after you're gone, you decide your legacy. No one else. I appreciate you greatly and I'll see you next time. [00:25:00]