Life's Golden Ticket by Brendon Burchard Page B

they could have answered that question, their internal dialogue would have sounded something like ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m acting like Madonna up here, and the crowd is laughing at me!’ or ‘I’m dancin’ like a chicken in front of strangers!’ or ‘I’m screaming something embarrassing at the top of my lungs!’ But you see, they couldn’t answer that question because I took away their ability to do so.”
    â€œHow? How’d you do that?” I asked.
    â€œI simply took away the three reference points every person needs in order to be self-aware. First, I told them to stop paying attention to their thoughts and feelings. Second, I told them to stop paying attention to feedback from the outside world, to pretend the crowd wasn’t even there. Third and most important, I told them who they were, in this case Madonna or a chicken.”
    â€œThat’s it?” I asked. “That’s all it took?”
    â€œThat’s it, and that’s powerful. Think about it. If you are unaware of the world within you—your internal thoughts and feelings—and you are unaware of the world around you—how people perceive you and your behavior—then you don’t have the ability to answer the question ‘Who am I being right now?’ Because you judge who you are at any point in time by your thoughts and feelings as well as by what other people are thinking and feeling about you. Follow me?”
    â€œI think so. . . .” I paused to digest the discussion. “So you’re saying that to be self-aware,” I continued, “you have to know what’s going on in your internal world and you have to know what’s going on in the world around you?”
    â€œClose,” Harsh said. “Don’t forget the third reference point. To be self-aware you also need to know who you are. You have to have an internal standard for who you are or who you want to be. This is themost important reference point in self-awareness. Think of it as a three-legged stool. You can know your internal thoughts and feelings. And you can get feedback from the world. But if you don’t have an internal standard for who you are to compare that information to, you aren’t self-aware. In other words, you have to take your thoughts and feelings and the feedback you are receiving from other people and you have to ask yourself, ‘Are my thoughts, feelings, and behaviors supporting who I want to be?’”
    Harsh examined my face. “Get it? Self-awareness is all about paying attention to the world within us and the world around us and then using that information to decide whether we need to change our consciousness or conduct, what we’re thinking, or what we’re doing. Does that make sense?”
    â€œSure. So tell me again how that allows you to make people dance like chickens.”
    Harsh and I laughed for a few seconds; then he suddenly got a serious look on his face. He looked at me quizzically, almost annoyed. “But listen, you know that you’re not here to learn how to make people dance like chickens, right?”
    I was taken aback by his sudden change in disposition. “Uh, yeah, of course.”
    He didn’t seem convinced. “Before I walked in this tent, Henry and I had a nice chat. He told me about your situation, and I think you can take an important lesson from our conversation about self-awareness. Are you willing to listen?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œYou see, you’re lucky. You have the gift of consciousness. Unlike the volunteers onstage, you do have the ability to tune in to your thoughts and feelings. You do have the ability to pay attention to how you’re making others think and feel. You have the ability to define who you are. Because of these things, you have always been able to ask yourself, ‘Who am I being right now?’ and you have always been able to decide if that person was the