MM144 - Self-Assessment | MM Book Study Pt. 2

Day #2 of the Morning Mindset book study! Today we’re discussing Self-Assessment, and how important it is to take a look at yourself in the mirror. You can just listen, or you can follow along with your own copy of the book, “Morning Mindset: a 30 Day Plan for a More Positive and Productive Life”.

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[INTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Welcome to Morning Mindset. A daily dose of practical wit and wisdom with a professional educator & trainer, Amazon best selling author, United States Marine, Television, and Radio host, Paul G. Markel. Each episode will focus on positive and productive ways to strengthen your mindset and help you improve your relationships, career goals, and overall well-being. Please welcome your host; Paul G. Markel.

*Professor Paul*

Welcome back ladies and gentlemen to the morning of mindset podcast. I am still your host Paul Markel and we are going to continue on chapter 2 in the Morning Mindset: a 30 Day Plan for a More Positive and Productive Life chapter 2 is Self-assessment or gut-check time? Yes, indeed, and yes, those are the pages of the actual legitimate dead tree version of the book that are in my hand right now, it's in my hand.

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You know what I may do? I just was thinking, since I'm going to-, this is a brand new book. It’s actually a brand new, signed book that I went out into the office and I took off of the shelf out of the inventory and I guess I need to tell Zach the Shipping Ogre, I need to tell him that I pulled a book out of the inventory so you can deduct it.

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I was thinking that when I finish this maybe I'll put the date on it and I'll personalize it and maybe I will send it off to one of you guys. What do you think as a as a Memento or Keepsake or whatever let's think about that. Alright, self-assessment gut-check time, everybody has to start somewhere and that where you are today is your starting point. It does not do you any good to fret or worry or feel bad over the fact that right now you're not as advanced as you think you should.

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You're not as far ahead as you think you should be, or what have you, or you compare yourself to someone else. “Well, this person is doing blank or that person is doing blank or they have more money than me or they have a better job than me or they're skinnier than I am or they're stronger than I am” or what have you. You cannot possibly lead a positive and productive life, if you focus all of your attention on what other people are doing and what other people have wishing that you were the same way, you're not them, they're not you.

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Self-assessment and gut check is basically this, being honest with yourself, analyzing your current situation. Maybe your current situation is better than you thought it was, maybe when you take stock in your life, in your career, in your family, you might realize “You know what? I'm doing way better than I ever gave myself credit for” and if you're honest with yourself, you probably are doing better than you give yourself credit for.

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Most people spend far too much time focusing on the negative, and it's natural, it's common. I do it, you do it, we all do it. We get frustrated and we focus on the negative and that's okay, but you can't get stuck there. You can't get stuck focusing on the negative or focusing on what you don't have or focusing on what other people have that you do not.

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Self-assessment is saying “Hey, where am I right now?” Going back to the, you know, the weight loss goal. Let's say self-assessment and gut check is making yourself climb up on the scale, and knowing that the scale is not a liar, knowing that it's a true scale. There's a lot of scales out there, inexpensive, imported made in Taiwan or China scales that aren't quite right. But self-assessment, gut-check time is making yourself climb up on that scale and looking at the numbers and saying okay and it doesn't matter what the numbers are.

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That's where you are right now. Whether you know you want more weight less weight stay the same whatever self-assessment in gut check is actually being honest enough to say. Alright, this is where I am when it comes to strength training strength training is very easy linear progression is easy you figure out what you can lift whether it's the squat or the deadlift or the bench press or the standing press or whatever.

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You figure it out and you take a pen and a notebook, and you write down that number. You, say you start at your overhead press is 75 pounds, right? You just started pressing your overhead presses 75 pounds, but you say but it's easy to go to the gym and look across the way and see somebody else doing a hundred fifty-pound press, and thinking “Man, I don't, I'm not going to start. That guy is so far ahead of me. He can lift so much weight”, doesn't matter because we're not talking about him. We're talking about you. You write that number down, and then you dedicate yourself and then you move on and then you can check that number again in two weeks, two months, in six months, in a year.

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Where are you now, and when you do that, you can make an honest assessment of your progress. But ladies and gentlemen, what I want you to do is I want you to focus on where you are. Now, you may have a college degree. You may have 18 years of experience in your career field, you're way ahead of the 22 year old who just got a piece of paper from a college and now is going to try and find a career.

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You're way ahead of that person, that person might be jealous of you. That person might think “Man, I wish I had 18 years experience in the field already”, or 20 years or 10 years or whatever. You're sitting there thinking “Oh, woe is me” and someone else wishes they could be you, because you have that kind of experience. So let's focus on ourselves. Let's focus on our own gut check, and if we're being honest, that is the hardest thing for people to do.

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Especially in today's day and age, in our modern times where nothing is ever anyone's fault. Everyone is a victim of some sort of oppression or some sort of prejudice or bigotry or unfairness or whatever. We literally live in a world, in a society where the mainstream trend of thinking is “Well, it's not your fault. Just but you didn't win, because you didn't try hard enough, that's not why you didn't win. You didn't win because the other person cheated. The other person has more money than you because they took advantage of the system, and they got more money than you, it's not your fault. You don't have as much money as them, there's a systematic unfairness. That's preventing you from having everything you want.” Yeah, it's real and it's really screwed up and we're not going to be able to repair our nation. We're not going to be able to make things better as a country.

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Until we admit that this, you know, ridiculous notion of universal fairness is childish. That's what five-year-olds say. Five-year-old say, “It's not fair, it's not my fault.” We're not supposed to be five years old. We're not supposed to have a five-year-old mentality, when we’re 30, or 28, or 50, or 47 or whatever whatever how old you are?

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There are fully grown adults in the United States of America that are unwilling to take well credit or blame. Well, they'll take credit if something's good, but they won't take blame when something's bad. They won't take the blame. They won't accept the responsibility for their own lives because it's far easier to to be a victim.

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It's far easier to say it's not my fault. It's far easier to say it's not fair people who are successful in business people who have successful careers and positive family lives people who remained married after 15, 20 30 40 years. My grandparents were married over 50 years. Those people didn't get that type of relationship because they blamed everyone else for their problems and everything was unfair know they accepted responsibility for their shortcomings and they worked harder to make things better if you legitimately look up to.

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Business people. I don't know who's your favorite business person, you know the easy ones to take offer, you know, like Bill Gates and so forth. Those people didn't get I don't really like Bill Gates, but he didn't get there by blaming everyone else. He didn't get there by saying, you know, things aren't fair in the government needs to needs to pass a law and make everything fair for me.

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That's not how he got to where he's at, Tony Robbins, Henry Ford. I mean if you wanted to go back and look at the famous inventors and entrepreneurs in our world Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison and you know Albert Einstein both both Einstein and Edison when they were children, one of them was accused of I think it was one of Edison's teacher said that he was just dumb, and he was and Einstein's teachers described him as a very poor student gut-check time. Where are you right now accept responsibility for your own life, both your successes and your shortcomings. Be honest with yourself get rid of this notion of fairness and and you know all this nonsense about it's not my fault.

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I'm a victim know everything in your life is your responsibility your successes are your responsibility and your failures are your responsibilities, and as soon as you own up to those things and have an honest discussion with yourself about self assessment and gut-check time the better off you'll be, right? Ladies and gentleman that was part to self-assessment and gut check. I am your host Paul Markel and we will continue with the Morning Mindset book study during the very next episode.

[OUTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Thank you for spending time with us today. To get show notes, submit a topic request, for more from your host Paul G. Markel, visit MorningMindsetPodcast.com. That’s MorningMindsetPodcast.com. Please leave a review of this podcast on your favorite podcast player, we appreciate your time & effort, and we look forward to reading your honest feedback.