Our job to be a next level human involves not only wanting to be different but putting all our effort into being different. Thoughts, actions, and feelings must be aligned with who we want to be, and that is the first rule. Otherwise, there will be two opposite sides, fighting for the chance to coexist. Taking ownership of what we need to change in order to change, is the beginning of achieving this next level.
In this episode of Next Level Human Podcast, Dr. Jade talks about this duality. Why is it so hard to change and how do we actually do it? First, we need to challenge our perception of what is common sense, unlearn certain things, step out of specific paradigms, and question everything that can be questioned. Once we understand that we have the power to see things differently, that is when true change happens.
Podcast Intro: [00:14]welcome to the Next Level Human Podcast. As a human, you have a job to do. In fact, you have four jobs; to earn and manage money, to attain and maintain health and fitness, to build and sustain personal relationships, to find meaning and make a difference. None of these jobs are taught in school and that is what this podcast is designed to do. To educate us all on living our most fulfilled lives through the mastery of these four jobs. I'm your host, Dr. Jade Teta and I believe we are here living this life for three reasons and three reasons only; to learn, to teach, and to love. In this podcast, I will be learning, teaching, and loving right along with you. I'm grateful to have your company; here is to our next level. Episode Intro: [01:18]Welcome to today's show everybody, today we're gonna be talking about the superpower of ownership. So I have introduced the concept of the six powers multiple times. I'll introduce it again here, go through it briefly. And then we're going to talk about the superpower of ownership. So the six powers is a framework that describes the stepwise process that we humans go through on our journey to realizing our next level selves, our best selves. It goes by the acronym POWERS, P O, W, E, R, S, and that acronym stands for perception, ownership, wisdom, engagement, resolve, and sharing. And the best way to think about these six powers is through a step wise process; we must master each of these things before we get to our unique purpose. I say this often, but you the listener, me, everybody on the planet, all of us individuals, there have never been anyone like us ever on the planet, we are a unique spiritual fingerprint, nor will there ever be. And so the whole hypothesis of the next level human and becoming a next level human is this idea that we each have a purpose potential, a reason for being on the planet. And it's not just one thing, there are multiple things that we could do. And it's not something we find it's something that we create. And we created out of our unique exposures, the pain that we've been exposed to the people that have helped and hurt us, the passions, our likes, our unique personality, and our superpowers or our talents. And all of this is informed by the experiences that we have had. Now, a couple of episodes ago, on Episode 150, I talked about perception, in-depth with my experience with the plant medicine, Ayahuasca. So I thought today, what I would do is take you on the next step of this process, which is ownership. And this is a really, really important one, obviously, we talked about the idea that life shows up according to our filters. What I mean by that is that we humans live from stories, we think, we feel, we behave from a set of assumptions and a set of beliefs and a way of seeing the world. It's almost like we're all walking around with goggles on that let incertain things and keep out others. And the things that it lets in and the things that it keeps out, have a lot to do with our biases, our beliefs, the stories that we bought into, or the stories that we were told when we were young, let's face it, to some degree, we humans are sort of living out many of us a lot of the beliefs and ways of behaving that our family and the people close to us live out. And I oftentimes say, if you're a Democrat, it's probably because your parents are Democrat if you believe in certain things, if you're a Republican, Republican is probably because your tribe, your parents, were Republicans, very few people think outside of the stories that they were handed. And in that sense, we humans are really domesticated in a sense, just like animals are domesticated, very few of us ever stopped to question why we believe what we believe. And if you really start getting into the stories that we live from, you will see very clearly that many of these are inherited, and I don't mean inherited from a genetic point of view, inherited from a behavioral point of view. And many of us know what this is like oftentimes, we, we know, the idea that people who have suffered abuse at the hands of individuals oftentimes can also begin to perpetrate abuse on others. And so there's this thing that happens oftentimes with perception, the way we see the world is oftentimes the way the world will show up to us whether that exists or not. And there is a saying that I love out of this that basically says, if you see the world as a war, then everything is going to show up as a battle, whether there are battles there or not. And this is the way we humans live. And so the first step to becoming the next level human is really this idea of questioning everything and learning to test our perceptions and learning to tell different stories. There is a person who we were and there's a person who we could be and there is the person that we currently are now many of us never get past the person that we were in the past. We just continue to make our opinions, our identity and from my perspective, this is very, very dangerous because as soon as your opinion becomes your identity, it's something that you are stuck with, its something you don't really want to give up, it's a way of seeing yourself that cannot be changed, you become static, and you can't be any different. And from my perspective, that's exactly the opposite of what we want to happen as humans. And so perception is the first and the most important path, or most important piece of the next level, human journey. And out of perception, once we begin to challenge our perceptions, it's not always a pleasant experience, when we challenge our perceptions. In fact, it can be quite uncomfortable, because we can see things about ourselves that we don't like, we can see, for example, that we are dishonest, or that we are assholes, or that we show up in ways that are unbecoming and not something that we would want we, when we change our perceptions and take our filters off, we oftentimes see, most importantly, that we are the problem that it's not the life that is happening to us so much is our response to what is happening to us. And when you master perception, you really can no longer be in a victim mindset, it forces you to essentially say I am the common denominator.[06:29]So these recurrent emotions, these repeated patterns, these obstacles that repeat again and again, are really about us and the perception and the filters that we are wearing. And then we decide almost always once we challenge our perceptions to be something different. And this is where the superpower of ownership comes in. It's basically this idea that if I want something to change in my life, I can not insists my parents treat me differently. I cannot insist the world treat me differently. I can't insist that you know, I am special in the world is going to revolve around me it's not the world is going to do what it does, regardless of what you think and so the idea of ownership is this idea of radical responsibility or Extreme Ownership, basically saying that if there is something in your sphere of awareness that you want to change as a human, then it is on you. It is nobody else's responsibility, but your own, you are responsible for your wounds, you are the one responsible for your pain. You are the one that makes the decision about whether you're going to pass your painting on, or you're going to become the antidote to asshole basically. And this is what ownership is all about. So I'll use a little bit of my story, many of you know it, but my big perceptual change came at what a lot of people would call a midlife crisis, I now call it a midlife awakening. And actually, to me, that perception of a midlife crisis is this idea that it's a bad thing, right that it's something to be avoided. But for me, the idea of the midlife awakening, this change in distinctions or discussing it differently was, I had the opportunity out of the disappointment in myself and hurting other people and being dishonest, I had the opportunity to wake up and be someone else. And this is one of the first things that the stage of ownership teaches you it comes right out of changing your perceptions. Because once you see, you are the common denominator, and you are the major problem creator in your life, this then a lot of people might say, I don't want to think about it like that. But once you decide, and once you see that you are the major problem creator in your life, and therefore it opens up the opportunity for you to be the major problem solver in your life. And this is what the principle of ownership does. Now, once you start to recognize this, the first step of ownership is realizing okay, well who do I actually want to be if I've been being this other human? Who do I want to be now? And a couple of things come out of this that we have to discuss around perception because there is how we think there is how we feel. And there is kind of how we act right? Now you can think a thing and not necessarily act a thing. You can feel a thing and not necessarily act it out but when you start to be someone different you have to think, feel and act in alignment. And this is one of the things that I think people have a problem with when they're dealing with self-development because we oftentimes say or you've heard, you need to think differently. You just need to think positive thoughts you need to think about a particular way. And of course, that's incredibly useful.And yes, you do need to think that way. However, your brain is watching you all of the time. So it's watching. Yes, it's watching the way you think. It's watching the way you speak. It's paying attention to the way you feel. And most importantly, in my mind is watching the way you act, not just when people are watching you, but more importantly, when people aren't watching you. So when I discussed the idea of being a particular way, this means that thinking, feeling and acting are in alignment. And I oftentimes talk about this distinction that I like to point out between faking it until you make it and being it until you see it. One of the things that I started to say was, I don't want to fake it because fake it means when people are watching me, I am being the thing. But when people are not watching me, I go right back to being the old way. So I started saying, I want to be it until I see it, which basically means I'm being the thing when people are watching, and I'm being the thing, most importantly, when they are not watching. And this is the beginning of perception moving into ownership, once you start realizing that the way that you be in the world, the alignment of thinking, feeling, and acting, or the state of being is the most powerful transition that you can make. And that is up to you. Because most people look out in the world and say, How is the world being towards me, and then they adjust their behavior to account for the way the world is being towards them. That's a problem, though, because the world is just doing its thing. So if you see the world being a particular way, it's usually because of the filters that you're wearing.[11:43]sothe first piece to ownership is realizing that it's not trying to change the world, it's changing yourself so that you see the world differently. So that you have some control, and then the world starts showing up differently for you this is what being means it is acting in a particular way. And when you act as if you are a method actor, playing a role, thinking, feeling, and acting a particular way that is when being comes into action. But as we start to understand ownership, you still want to have a sense of how you are going to be and the problem is most of us don't know what that looks like. For example, when I took on the ownership principle of honesty, I was so much of a people pleaser at that time. And the lens that I was looking at the world was is that people just want to hear what they want to hear. And no one's really that honest. And we're all kind of bullshitting each other. That was the filter that I was wearing. So when I took that filter off and decided I wanted to be honest, I really didn't know what honesty, being honest, he was like to be honest with you, right. And this opens up a huge amount of things that we need to discuss. Same thing when I decided I wanted to be smart, and stop being the dumb jock. Same thing, when I decided I wanted to go into medical school. The same thing that I decided when I wanted to become an author, I didn't necessarily know I knew how to be a jock. I didn't know how to be a smart kid. Right? And I knew how to be in college. But I didn't necessarily know what it was gonna be like to get into medical school. And I knew a little bit about writing because I'd written papers and things like that in school, but I didn't know necessarily what it was to be an author. And so as soon as you began to change your perception around, a gap opens up and you have to go well, how do I own this thing? How do I define this thing and own this thing, in a very different way? And so I'm going to walk you through how to do this. And I call this creating yourself and honor code. And this works with anything you want to achieve. It can work with personal development, things like being more honest, being more kind being more generous. It also works with big things like I want to be a doctor or a lawyer or a writer or I want to change careers, I want a beautiful relationship, I want to change my health and fitness. What you need to do is create an honor code out of these things.[14:14]nowevery time you listen to this podcast, you hear about the four jobs of every human. And so really, what I suggest you do, as you're listening to me now is think about which of those four jobs you want to be different in, right think about which of those four jobs you want to think, feel and act in alignment to be different. And then we're going to construct an honor code around that. And this to me is how you begin the ownership principle. So how do you do this? Well, the first way that you do this because we don't always know how to be is we look for heroes or inspirational figures that have already figured it out. So with finance, for example, you might pick a rich person or someone who has mastered finance, who's really good at investing are really good at earning. For self development you might pick someone who is really good socially or for personal relationships. Rather, you might pick someone who really good socially who has a really great romantic relationship, who you really love the way they show up as a husband or wife or a partner. For personal development, you might pick someone who you find generous, and you know, kind and in their integrity and an inspirational figure that way for health and fitness, you might pick someone who has mastered health and fitness in the way that you might hope to do it. So the first step is to look at essentially your heroes. So you pick out these hero figures. Now, these figures can be people who are real-life heroes, that you know, in real life, they could be people from the past, they can even be fictional type of characters. And the first thing you want to do is really study these people. Take out a notebook write down the ways that they behave. So if it is with finance, you want to be like, you know, what does someone like a Warren Buffett do? Well, he understands and has mastered investment, he has a particular way of looking at businesses, he probably, you know, earns money a particular way, he saves money a particular way he thinks about money in a particular way.And this begins the process. So you might choose Warren Buffet, if it's a health and fitness person, right, you might choose your favorite health and fitness person, you know, maybe it's Chalene Johnson, maybe it's, you know, whoever it's going to be. And you say, well, they do things this particular way they eat this way, they exercise this way, right. And you're really studying the way that they're being and writing down their behaviors in personal development as it pertains to purpose, you do the exact same thing. So for me, I might look at some of my heroes, which would be, you know, Martin Luther King,Muhammad Ali, Bruce Lee, these types of people, and I write down and study their particular attributes.And thenI seek to emulate them almost like, again, I'm playing a role like a method actor. And so this isstage one of ownership of the Honor Code.[17:00]now, stage two, you want to think about, I like to think about your eulogy. This is essentially you,at your funeral as a spirit in the back of the room, paying attention to people as they walk up and talkabout you. And what you want to do is write down the ways that you want people to think about you totalk about you to speak about you as a human. This is another clue about who you want to be. And youwant to apply this to your four jobs. And the final way that I like to do this is to think about yourdeathbed. And the regrets that you would have on your deathbed, you would essentially say I wish I haddone this, I wish I had done that. What would make you feel fulfilled? What would make you feel proudof yourself? What are the things that you would have done? Had you had more time? And I like to thinkabout this in the way of Memento Mori, right. So that ideaof remember death, so not just like whenyou're 80, right, because that's hard for us as humans to grasp when I'm at 90 100 and dying, thinkabout if you're dying next week, or next year, how you would be called to action so quickly, if life wasending that fast. This is why thinking about death is such a powerful thing to do. Now, once you havethese three things, you're heroes, you're sort of eulogy ideas about how you want people to think aboutyou. And then the things that you want to think about yourself on your deathbed, you have the makingsof your ownership principle. So then you begin to write down how you will show up. This is done inmany ways. But one of my favorite ways is what I would call the story edit, it's essentially writing a storyof your life up to this point, really incorporating your pain, any good movie has a pain point and has astruggle involved with it a struggle that the main protagonist, the main character must overcome. And inthat struggle, there is usually an insight that emerges out of that struggle, something that we realizesomething that we seeagain, taking the filters off of perception, you begin to see the world differently.And this to me is the whole point of pain in the first place. We are presented pain in life, bymydefinition and the way I see it. Because we need that pain in order to change our filters. It gets so painfulthat we go I have to look at life differently. When we hit rock bottomit's really about getting us to lookat life differently. Then out of that insight comes something so you write as you're writing in yourjournal, your story and your struggle. And then you right forward in time, as if you are the producer anddirector of a movie and you write out the plot of the person that you want to becomethis happenedbecause it made me this way this happened because it's going to help me realize this point thishappened because of this. And you write out the human that you are going to be from now on into thefuture, from your pain in your struggle in the past. And this is why getting very clear with your heroes,getting clear with your eulogy statement and getting clear with your deathbed scenario inform who youwant to be. And you write this out in story form. And then you also what I like to do is write this out inlike a 10 commandments type of way as well saying this, these are the principles by which I will live by.And you could see how this can really work for all four jobs, you can say I'm going to save money thisway, I'm gonna earn money this way, I'm going to do this with my paycheck, I'm going to do all thesekinds of things.Monetarily, I'm going to take risks this way, I'm going to invest this way, or in health andfitness, I'm going to eat this way, I'm going to wake up and do this thing, I'm going to be this way. And think about it not as a to do list; think about it as a way of being living this new story. Same withpurpose. Same with personal relationships. This is how you began the ownership principle.[21:08]So once you do this, now you have a story that you have written that you can vividly tap into,and you have a source of you know, five to 10 Different rules by which you will live. And then as you goout and live your life, which I'll talk about. In the future, we'll go through therest of the six powers,wisdom, engagement, resolve and sharing. As you begin to go out and live, you'll see a gap open upbetween what you know and your old behaviors and the new behaviors you're trying to achieve. Andyou'll see that there's going to need to be some knowledge and experience gained. So you can movefrom who you currently are to who you want to be. So ownership, perception is the first step ownershipis the second step. But then there are four other steps after that. But ownership acts as the anchor andthe lighthouse, because rest assured just because you've decided I'm gonna do this, and you've writtenit all down, life goes, Okay, we'll see about that. And it's going to bring back the same struggles and thesame challenges and the same people. And your job at that point is to go back to your anchor and yourlighthouse and say I am being this, I show up this way. And this is incredibly difficult because guess what,you got a lot of emotion attached to your family and your friends and your old patterns and your brainand your brain needs to see you be different for a period of time before that complete switch happens.So ownership is the beginning of it. And you need to have a very clear on our code. That's why I'm anadvocate to write this down. Because when shit gets tough and shit hits the fan, you're going to need togo back and look and saywho did I promise myself I was going to be and where did I lose the thread ofthat being and get back to it immediately, which means boundaries.[23:01]andthis is the final thing I'll say about ownership here;ownership only works when this newperson you're trying to be has boundaries attached to him or her. In other words, I have a rule when itcomes to ownership, no one is ever going to treat me away I am not or no longer wish to be period. Andif they insist on doing that, I will put up boundaries to protect that, that we can't always cut people outof our lives can we but we can always put up boundaries and basically insist that they stop treating us aparticular way, but we first must stop treating ourselves that way. So being comes first boundaries comenext, this is critically important. So that is the final stage of ownership. So now you should have yourhonor code and your boundaries with certain people and the way that you behave towards them. Andonce you begin living this, everything must change. And hopefully you understand that your perceptionchange has to come first ownership comes next and then this is the beginning of the process of beingwhich incorporates wisdom, engagement and resolve and we will talk about that at future episodes. Alright,short podcast today. I hope you enjoyed this one on ownership and I will see you at the next episode.
