0:00

Self-awareness. Self-awareness.

0:03

Do we even have it? Do we even know

0:05

what it is? Is it the most important

0:08

awareness to have? A lot of people

0:10

say yes. You know, I would like to

0:12

say that self-awareness is

0:15

essential and at the core

0:17

of ever achieving anything in your

0:20

life, especially

0:20

happiness. It is

0:23

fundamental. And if you don't have it,

0:25

you're gonna constantly be

0:28

so sad at where your life has gone

0:30

and it's not going the way that you want. And oh

0:32

my goodness, like it's everybody's

0:34

fault but yours. But the truth

0:37

is, once you have that self-awareness

0:39

and you begin to find the success, and

0:42

then you begin to understand energy

0:44

awareness, time awareness,

0:46

and mind awareness, and then you combine

0:49

all of those, you're gonna be

0:51

living in a place

0:52

of ultra-awareness.

0:55

And that, my friends, is where happiness

0:57

is found.

1:03

Welcome to Build With Rob. Talking

1:07

all things aware.

1:08

Talking all things awareness.

1:11

You know, I mean, think about it. If you listen to this

1:13

show, I like to think that you're already pretty

1:15

self-aware, right? If you're someone that's continually

1:17

trying to optimize your life, get better and better,

1:20

trying to evolve, achieve,

1:23

set goals, be a better version

1:25

of yourself, be happy, all of these things

1:28

require you being self-aware

1:30

and understanding the

1:32

aspects of your reality

1:34

that you are good at, that you need to improve,

1:37

and ultimately that you need to

1:38

stay completely away from in

1:41

order to live

1:43

the life that you want. And for me,

1:46

awareness itself is something

1:49

that grows over time. And

1:52

obviously I speak a lot about continual

1:54

evolution and the more you understand

1:56

about yourself and the more you grow and evolve

1:59

and the more knowledge you have,

1:59

gain and the more specific it gets,

2:02

the deeper it gets, the further you see, the

2:04

deeper you see, all of these things change

2:07

your sort of understanding of everything.

2:10

But in recent times, I really

2:12

began to understand the importance

2:15

of awareness. And

2:17

for me, I wasn't always self-aware.

2:20

I wasn't always self-aware. And I feel like I've

2:22

been self-aware my whole life.

2:25

And that's what's even worse. Look, this

2:28

is even worse. The non-self-aware

2:30

person who thinks they're super self-aware.

2:33

It's the bottom of the barrel. It's the bottom

2:35

of the barrel. I don't even know what it is. Almost like

2:37

a gerbil being on a spinning wheel

2:40

where you keep going thinking it's

2:42

going to all work out for you, but you just keep ending

2:45

up in the same place over and over and over

2:47

again. And you just can't understand it because

2:50

every time you get together with your friends and they

2:52

try to hint at self-awareness

2:55

and you are like, God, it's so good

2:57

to be self-aware. Here I am again.

3:01

I hate to say it. It

3:04

wasn't

3:05

exactly me, but who I

3:07

was for a long time.

3:10

And sometimes you need to be punched

3:13

in the face to really understand

3:17

how much you're not looking at yourself

3:19

through the lens of a deeper reality.

3:23

And that's when self-awareness

3:26

is more of an awakening to the truth

3:28

of who you are rather than having

3:32

surface level understanding of the

3:34

things around you and who

3:37

you are, but still being hopeful

3:40

in what you can become or who

3:42

you already are versus

3:44

what you need to learn or

3:47

become to tie

3:49

to the identity that you already believe that

3:51

you are. And that hit me like

3:54

a ton of bricks in 2012 when the private

3:56

equity.

3:58

group did

4:01

their diligence on me and

4:03

essentially showed me how

4:06

much about business I didn't know

4:09

and how much of a business

4:12

person I wasn't and

4:14

how I didn't even understand how

4:17

the traditional world of

4:19

business even worked. And

4:21

up until that point, up until

4:24

the devastation of essentially being

4:26

shown, how little I understood

4:29

about business, how I didn't understand

4:32

how to ultimately create value

4:34

and that really was the super

4:36

driven like

4:39

marketing guy. Right?

4:42

Like I wasn't like I didn't walk

4:44

into those meetings talking

4:47

about business through the lens of like,

4:49

hey, I know how to create content and

4:51

big ideas and I know how to story

4:53

tell and market products

4:56

like but I don't fully understand the business. I

4:58

walk in there, I'm a business guy,

5:00

I'm a real business guy. I'm not

5:02

just like an athlete, I'm a real

5:05

business guy. I've been starting businesses

5:07

my whole life, started my first business at 16. I'm

5:11

a business

5:11

guy that

5:13

doesn't know anything about finances,

5:16

operations, product development,

5:19

supply chain, leadership, but

5:21

I knew I do know how to make cool products

5:23

and market.

5:24

You know what I mean? I couldn't have seen that.

5:27

That was like this lack of awareness

5:31

that I even had that forced me

5:33

to

5:34

embrace

5:36

reality as Ray Dalio says.

5:38

You know, like for the first time

5:41

I

5:42

really began

5:45

to see

5:47

myself for exactly who

5:49

I was rather than

5:51

who I thought I was.

5:53

You know, and

5:55

then began to understand

5:58

if this is

5:59

what you want to be, what

6:02

are all the things that you need to learn to become

6:04

that? And I think that's

6:07

like self-awareness right there.

6:09

That is the beginning. That is truly the

6:11

beginning. And there's so many people in my

6:15

world that

6:16

have that type of self-awareness

6:18

that I had back then, where it

6:21

is a limited

6:24

view of yourself and

6:26

really

6:27

putting yourself in a

6:30

position that you

6:32

weren't necessarily worthy of, but you

6:34

didn't know any better. So you continued

6:37

to claim it. I see a lot of people get stuck

6:39

in that and never

6:43

approach life through the lens of like,

6:45

how do I make

6:47

my life better? What do I need

6:50

to learn to become the person

6:53

that I want to become rather than

6:55

I am the person now

6:57

who I always thought

6:59

I would be type of thing. And for

7:01

me at this level, you

7:05

just don't ever think

7:07

that you could ever possibly

7:09

learn everything that you could possibly

7:12

learn on how to

7:14

understand yourself better, get better,

7:16

know the world better. Everything

7:19

about you, you can continue

7:21

to learn and get more and more

7:23

aware of and have a deeper and deeper understanding.

7:27

And in this journey, you

7:29

know, for me, it went from really

7:32

developing deep self-awareness, right?

7:34

Because it really starts with, you know,

7:37

taking a good look at yourself. And

7:40

for me in that era, I took all these personality

7:42

tests and different tests that gave

7:43

me deeper insight to

7:46

why I sort of did

7:48

the things that I did and the way that I felt

7:51

about certain things and the way that

7:53

I interacted with people. It gave me like a deeper

7:55

understanding of who I was.

7:57

And then I began,

8:01

to decide, okay, now I

8:03

want to take this information and create

8:06

a strategy and a plan to become

8:10

the person that I

8:13

always thought I was.

8:14

And that's what happened, right? And that's the

8:17

life design and the business design

8:19

and integrate them together. You know,

8:22

start at the end on where you want to end

8:24

up and build the plan backwards to

8:27

get there. And along

8:29

the way, this philosophy

8:31

as a whole revealed itself to me

8:34

as I began to implement trying

8:37

to master myself. And

8:40

of course, it starts with self-awareness.

8:42

But as I began

8:44

to really get specific

8:47

with my overall strategy

8:50

and what I was ultimately

8:52

trying to achieve, which is just a

8:56

harmonious, happy existence.

8:58

At the time, it was just, I just want to be happy.

9:00

And

9:03

that's when I first took a step

9:05

into becoming

9:08

time aware,

9:09

right? And like, okay, this

9:11

is your life. What do you want

9:14

to do with your life? Like, what do you want your days

9:16

to look like? You know, what

9:18

are the things that you want to do? What are the things you know

9:20

you need to do to be healthy? What are

9:23

the things you enjoy doing? When do you get burnt

9:25

out? It's like really beginning

9:27

to understand time and

9:30

becoming aware of your

9:32

time and its value is

9:34

then what I learned over the next

9:37

four, five, six years. And

9:39

then that's, you know, where you get all this

9:41

incredible sort of insight

9:44

to what it even means for

9:46

you to be in a place of being consistently

9:49

happy and finding joy and

9:51

having energy and being and

9:54

doing the things that you like and what do you not

9:56

like doing. Time ends up being this

9:59

great indicator.

9:59

of what

10:02

are the things that you even want to do.

10:05

You know, and shaping

10:07

your time and getting control

10:10

of the time and getting back

10:12

in control of it is the first

10:15

sort of step in becoming ultra

10:17

aware, right? Because now you understand,

10:20

like, if I decide to do this, it's

10:22

not necessarily going to affect

10:24

me next week when I take the first meeting.

10:27

I could decide to do something that affects me for

10:29

two, three years, right?

10:30

It could affect four, five, six,

10:33

seven different people that get involved, right? It

10:35

could end up, you know, pulling

10:38

time away from these other things that I want to do. You

10:40

just begin to look at it so much differently.

10:43

When somebody asks you to do something,

10:45

you look at it through the lens of, like,

10:48

how much time is it going to take and do

10:50

I want to trade that time? And it is

10:52

an easy no.

10:54

You know, they will tell you successful

10:56

people get really good at saying no.

10:59

And to me, it's when you become time aware,

11:01

it gets so easy to say

11:04

no to things. Because when you begin

11:06

to value all of your time

11:08

at a really high level and somebody

11:11

asked you to do something and

11:13

then you just measure out how much time you

11:15

got to give up for it. And then you

11:17

connect that back to, like, your

11:20

overall goals and mission. It doesn't align with it. It's

11:22

an easy no. You

11:24

don't even think twice about it, you know?

11:27

And so now, you

11:29

know, the better I got at time design and now

11:31

it was all about becoming

11:34

energy aware, right?

11:35

Because it was, man, energy

11:38

in that state, that energetic

11:41

feeling, that's where I want

11:43

to be all the time inside this

11:45

time.

11:46

And so now it's like you're just getting

11:49

so sensitive

11:52

to how things make you feel. And

11:54

again, that was along the journey of being introduced

11:57

to the idea of qualitative data, but

11:59

it's just...

11:59

just like intuitively,

12:02

you,

12:03

you just begin to understand

12:06

like how you're using that time

12:08

and how it makes you feel. Right.

12:10

And so being energy aware

12:13

is that great indicator of all of

12:15

the things that you

12:18

need to do to change in

12:20

that particular moment. Cause keep again, uh, you

12:23

know, keep, keep in mind

12:26

when, when you are assessing how

12:29

something makes you feel energetically,

12:31

you can only truly assess it in that moment.

12:34

Like you can only truly assess

12:36

energy in the

12:38

present tense, you know, and

12:40

you need to, to, to understand intuitively

12:42

if something's

12:46

draining you or you're exhausted,

12:49

like where that is coming from and

12:52

be so aware that like, man, it

12:54

is the fact that I'm trying to like

12:56

get up two hours earlier instead of one

12:58

hour earlier. It is like, Hey, I changed

13:01

my diet thinking this was going to be it,

13:03

but I've been feeling exhausted. Like I,

13:05

oh, the way I designed my time, but I'm going

13:07

from thing to thing to thing. And it's just

13:10

draining me. It's just continually

13:13

understanding and getting sensitive to like

13:15

how your energy is

13:17

and everything that you do, the people that

13:20

you're around, the, the things that

13:22

you watch, the things that you read, all these different

13:24

things, right? Like make

13:27

up that ability to, to

13:29

be aware of how it

13:31

is affecting you energetically,

13:33

right? And now you're, you're seeing, you're

13:36

understanding all your time and constantly

13:39

being aware of how you're using

13:41

it. And then you're judging the efficacy

13:44

of that time with the

13:46

quality of energy and then seeing the people in your

13:48

life, the things that you've chose to do, like all these different

13:51

things that are affecting that, that

13:53

you can actually change. That's

13:55

now when you're on this deeper level.

13:59

awareness. And then,

14:03

you know, the great gatekeeper

14:07

of your happiness is your mind.

14:10

In being aware of

14:12

what you are thinking at all

14:15

times and how

14:17

your mind reacts

14:20

is like the third piece of ultra

14:23

awareness. You know, in being

14:26

able to have thoughts and then a step

14:28

back and think about

14:31

why did I have that thought.

14:33

That is what happens like when

14:36

you begin to have like a deeper

14:40

understanding and feeling in the

14:42

awareness of what you're doing, how it makes you feel,

14:44

and then what are you thinking?

14:46

What are you thinking?

14:47

Like, you know, is your mind

14:49

balanced? Are you able to land

14:51

in the present state and enjoy

14:54

the moment? Or, you know, think

14:57

about how you want to create a better future, right?

15:00

Or, you know, are you constantly thinking

15:02

in a negative place? Are you constantly planning

15:05

from fear? You know, like, what

15:07

is your mind doing?

15:10

Right? Like, that is the next

15:13

level of awareness that

15:16

then now you begin to be aware

15:18

of all aspects of your entire

15:20

existence. Because keep

15:23

in mind that what you think,

15:26

what you say,

15:27

like all of these things come

15:30

back to your decision-making that

15:32

goes on inside your head, that

15:35

makes the decisions on how to make the changes,

15:38

redesign your life, like enjoy

15:40

the moment that you're in versus like

15:42

take the time to be focusing

15:44

on planning on the future or rectifying something

15:46

that has happened in the past together

15:49

now.

15:50

Your energy awareness, your time awareness,

15:52

and your mind awareness

15:55

makes up that ultra awareness.

15:57

And this is like the beauty of what you're

15:59

doing.

15:59

What ultra awareness is. It

16:02

is like you have a complete understanding

16:05

of every single thing that

16:07

is happening in your life

16:10

and how it is affecting you at all times. And

16:13

so what it allows you to begin

16:16

to become sensitive to is

16:19

how does everything integrate together

16:21

as the whole and how does it affect

16:24

all aspects of your existence.

16:27

So how does staying

16:29

up late two nights in a row affect

16:32

a relationship that was already a

16:35

little rocky at work. It's

16:37

these different causes and effect

16:40

inside the whole that you become incredibly

16:43

aware of. You become aware

16:45

of your triggers, the same things that kind of

16:47

drive you back to want to

16:50

go into your bad habits. For

16:52

me, my pizza and wine

16:55

triggers anytime I feel stuck. And

16:59

today, now that I've just gotten

17:01

to a place where I really,

17:03

anytime something out of

17:06

the ordinary happens that

17:09

it's funny to me, when I get, last week I had

17:11

a wine and pizza

17:14

trigger. I got

17:17

caught up in this big deal and it

17:19

came to an impasse and I

17:21

had to make a crazy decision

17:24

to essentially reset.

17:26

And all I wanted was

17:28

pizza and beer. You

17:31

know what I mean? Maybe not beer. All I wanted was

17:33

pizza and wine. I was going all the way back to like 94

17:35

if I wanted pizza and beer. But

17:39

I got stuck in that trigger and when

17:41

I got triggered by it, boom, I

17:43

popped

17:44

right above it and

17:46

then assess it and think to myself like,

17:48

man, how funny. Look at this.

17:52

Look at how much this affected you. It put you on

17:54

one of your old triggers. I

17:58

would get mad in a meeting.

18:01

And then man, I would immediately like

18:04

stand out above it and be like, wow, look

18:06

at what made you mad. Understand

18:08

like this particular

18:11

Situation needs to be changed like

18:13

you are now angry and

18:15

you're you hardly even ever get angry

18:18

recently, I was I got so you

18:20

know absurd where I'm

18:22

Wanted to start tracking how

18:25

often I get mad How

18:27

often I get mad and and I'm not saying

18:30

like look look,

18:33

you know

18:35

I'm telling you right now. I think that there's

18:37

a world where I never get mad again. I really

18:39

I really really do and It's

18:42

just as ridiculous as when I

18:44

said I don't I think there's a world where

18:46

I have no negative thoughts And I have just

18:49

gotten to a place where virtually You

18:51

know almost no negative thoughts

18:54

and I realize like when I get

18:56

mad

18:56

when I'm like triggered to

18:58

get angry well, that's essentially

19:00

a negative thought and like

19:03

I can catch the trigger before

19:05

it happens and then soften

19:09

it up before I react

19:11

and

19:12

I told myself

19:15

that you've got to develop that skill

19:17

and

19:20

Flashed I Flashed

19:23

like literally as I was I did what as soon as I

19:25

started started to track I'm gonna

19:27

start tracking how often I get mad. I Like

19:30

two days later. I flashed like

19:33

something happened on ridiculousness Like you

19:35

know, I'm in my rhythm and you know Someone

19:37

like interrupted me without like, you

19:39

know in sort of an abrupt

19:42

fashion and I just snapped snapped

19:44

And then this how crazy it was. I swear to God I

19:47

Snapped

19:49

and then I was like, whoa. Whoa. Whoa

19:51

as soon as I finished the snap I said,

19:53

whoa, whoa, whoa Whoa, whoa

19:56

Sorry about that. I'm a guy here. That's like,

19:58

you know, I'm trying to track how often I get

19:59

get mad and I just I

20:02

just snapped and that's not even a big deal like

20:05

you know I don't like just next time you

20:07

know kind of ease into it and and don't

20:09

just abruptly let me finish and then

20:11

do it but there's no reason for me to get that

20:13

angry over it but that is

20:16

an example of like the depth of

20:18

ultra awareness and you just

20:20

continually trying to to create

20:23

a better and better version of yourself and

20:25

then you now decide that

20:27

you will be able to be aware of when you are

20:29

angry and then you get angry and snap

20:32

and instantly

20:34

like whoa whoa whoa you autocorrect

20:37

your snap because you can't even

20:39

believe you allowed yourself

20:41

to get there but it just shows

20:43

that's the beginning of having

20:46

the level of awareness to know

20:48

that one

20:49

day it is possible to

20:51

have no negative thoughts and never get mad

20:54

and I saw this great clip with Sad

20:56

Guru who was just basically saying

20:59

you

21:00

know I never get angry

21:03

because I would never allow

21:05

somebody to make me angry

21:08

I would never give anybody

21:11

that level of control over me

21:13

and power over me and

21:16

and it's it's

21:18

you know simple yet profound and

21:20

it's a decision and something

21:23

that you have to ultimately develop

21:26

through understanding yourself

21:28

at every level in a

21:30

complete and total way but I

21:33

do believe there's a modern version of you

21:35

don't got to grow a white beard you know

21:37

I mean we're robes to

21:39

not have people affect you it is

21:42

a practice of becoming self-aware

21:45

then then time aware energy

21:48

aware and mind aware and have

21:50

that ultra awareness where

21:52

you can feel and understand every

21:55

bit of you and have control

21:57

and intention

21:59

and how you react to everything

22:02

and how you make decisions in your

22:04

entire life as it all

22:07

affects the whole regardless of whatever

22:09

it is and I believe in you

22:11

everyone that listens

22:13

to this show I believe in you because

22:16

you wouldn't have got all the way to the end

22:18

here without some sort of like

22:20

belief