Empower Yourself by Owning Your Life, Mindset, Habits, and Identity
Host: Eric Chow · October 4, 2019 · Episode 9 · 59 minutes
Transcribed from the episode audio and edited for names and terms. Wording can differ slightly from what was said; the episode itself is the record.
What is up everybody? Welcome back to the Eric Chow Empowers Podcast. This is episode nine. It's been a little while since I've posted an episode because I've had a couple of difficulties scheduling with some guests, but I got some lined up for the coming week and I'm working on a few more. However, I wanted to record this episode because it's been a little while since I've uploaded and I wanted to do so. And I've also been spending a lot of time just doing some, I guess, research around personal development. So I actually start off this episode with this idea of extreme ownership, which comes from a book that I finished one or two months ago.
The book is called Extreme Ownership, How U.S. Navy Seals, Lead and Win, and is written by Jocko Willink and Lafe Babin, which are two Navy seals that served in Iraq. And the book is amazing. I definitely recommend it. I'll talk about it a little bit later. But I tried to explain what the concept is because it is somewhat difficult. to explain and certainly somewhat difficult to implement. But if you can, it is extremely empowering and will enable you to achieve so much more. And the other thing I talked about in this episode is how we can use a few ideas from science to benefit ourselves.
So I'm referencing things like the plasticity of our brains neurons and neural pathways, the psychological concept of cognitive dissonance, and more. To be honest, I don't really remember because I recorded some of these clips a little while ago. But essentially I'm talking about how we can shift our mindset.
our habits and our identity. Identity is a big one and it's something that I've been thinking about a lot lately. How we can actually change our identity and how we define ourselves. So hopefully these ideas that I've been getting from my research and from my own life as well. Research makes it sound so like official and like professional. It's really not that. professional, whatever. Just from my own exploration, I think that's a better way to say it. So yeah, hopefully these ideas from my exploration will help you because as simple as these ideas may sound, I think that they're much more complex and certainly much more powerful than you might expect. So yeah, I've been rambling on for too long already, so let's just get right into it.
This is episode nine. Hey everybody. So one of the things that I've been thinking about lately is this idea that came from a book that I was reading fairly recently. The book is called Extreme Ownership, How Navy Seals Lead and Win and is by former Navy SEALs, former Navy SEALs, Jocka Willink and Lafe Bavin. And it's just this idea that we often don't take responsibility and don't take ownership of our lives. And that's a big problem. And I really want to go into that for a little bit. You know, sometimes we say like, it's not my fault this happened. You can't blame me. It's their fault.
I mean... We all say these sort of phrases from time to time. We blame others. We refuse to take responsibility and we say, oh, this is bad luck or this is just circumstance and I couldn't control it. Well, that's true to some extent, but that creates a very big problem and you might be wondering, well, why does that matter? Why does it matter that we push blame and complain? Well, Doing so, I think, creates a huge disconnect between our dreams, our goals, with our reality. If we're saying, this isn't my fault, we are creating an atmosphere of hopelessness, of powerlessness, of helplessness, because we're blaming these external factors, perhaps it's other people, perhaps it's the way just life went, circumstances.
And if we blame that, those reasons for preventing us from doing something or preventing something from going our way by pushing that blame, by complaining, we are not able to undergo change in growth that allows us to achieve what we want. It doesn't matter.
How much you complain it doesn't matter what you complain about it's the perspective and the atmosphere that Pushing blame creates if you push blame You're saying this is Another say for example another person. This is another person's fault. This is their responsibility and Therefore since you've given that power away you can't do anything You can't change anything. And if you can't change anything, if you can't grow, you are not able to go and achieve your dreams until those external factors allow you to. Extreme ownership is about taking ownership of our lives, taking responsibility not only for our successes, but for our failures and our mistakes. It's owning everything, whether it goes right or wrong. The atmosphere changes when we do this.
goes from hopelessness to one of power and growth and confidence. Now, of course, this is not a difficult idea to really implement and really let sink in. Because, well, first of all, it's easy to blame people. We all naturally and instinctively want to defend ourselves when things go wrong. We want to pass the blame on others. It is so much more difficult to accept that something going wrong is our fault. And we question that. We ask, how could it be my fault? They're the ones who did blank. And that hurts our egos, that hurts our pride. However, I think that the task at hand or what, uh, Lafe Babin and Jaco Willink like to call the mission.
has to be more important than our pride. If we want to achieve our goals, we may need to put our egos aside and take the blame. In order to achieve our goals, we might have to find blame in ourselves because if we don't, we are powerless and cannot do anything to change the situation that will allow us to achieve our goals. But in taking ownership, we are going to be able to figure out How are we at fault? And in doing that, we look at, okay, what did I do wrong? And you might have to think hard about that. What did I do wrong? What did you do wrong?
Because the only thing we can control is ourselves. So in saying, this was our fault, we find what we did wrong. And we are able to change ourselves so that we can achieve our goals.
We can't control other people. We can't control life circumstances. So if we blame them, we can't change it. We can't do anything to impact or influence that to achieve, to allow us to achieve our goals. That's why we blame ourselves. That's why we look to ourselves for who was at fault because we can find the things that we can change. And we can Look for what we can do instead of sitting helplessly doing nothing We let our egos take the hit and in doing so we are able to change things and accomplish the mission task at hand whatever it is and So the question is simple which is more important?
achieving your goals and keeping your ego intact now another thing that I was thinking about was how this idea of extreme ownership is this idea that we are going to own everything that happens in life. Everything that happens is our fault. But, you know, I was like, well, that doesn't make any sense because like I, and I just said this, we can't control other people circumstances of the environment. It's impossible for us to be responsible when things go wrong. That's just not.
Like, what can I... If there is an earthquake that causes me to be screwed over, I can't. That's not my fault. But then I thought about it some more. And I think that this weakness in the idea is also the idea's greatest strength. Let me explain. It is true we can't control other people or the external circumstances of a situation all we can control, like I said. is ourselves. How we gain power is by finding something for us to control in the seemingly out-of-control situation. Let's take a hypothetical example. If I am in charge of a team and someone on a team does something wrong and ruins the task at hand, maybe I'm no longer able to submit a project for a homework assignment in school or work or whatever it is, I'm in charge of a team and someone else made a mistake that ruined everything.
It would be easy to blame that person for their mistakes. They made the mistake. I can't control them. But if that happens, well, then we don't get anything out of it. But if I blame myself, I can say, well, maybe I didn't clearly communicate directions.
or I didn't do everything I could to ensure every single step was double checked and understood. Maybe I picked someone who was unqualified. Whatever the reasons may be, even if they're different in the situation, the fact is the same. There are always reasons to be found to blame ourselves. Choosing to blame the other person is easy. But in taking ownership of it, you allow for behavioral changes that increases the chance of the team you lead in the future to succeed. Another hypothetical example. If I'm angry at my parents were doing me wrong and forcing me down a path that is wrong for me, perhaps say someone is an entrepreneur, they want to be an entrepreneur, but their parents are like, no, you got to go to college, you got to pursue a degree.
It's easy to blame parents for putting them up to it, you know, wasting time and money only for one to be unhappy. And it's easy for someone to say, I can't believe they would force me to do this. This sucks. But what if we blame ourselves? Well, we can say, I failed to communicate my desires.
or I can take the risk and go out and do my own thing anyway, stand up for myself and refuse to live my life for someone else instead of just conforming and doing what they want. And that's not easy, but it is a reason. And extreme ownership is about taking responsibility even when it's difficult. There are a plethora of perspectives and reasons that could be possible in a situation because these are hypothetical. But if you look at real examples, you'll be able to find something that you genuinely can change. In taking ownership, we identify what we can do differently in the next situation and take the leap instead.
We gain the power to change instead of being powerless and angry. And to think about this power idea, in taking responsibility for the problems in your own life, and finding the things you can change that will empower you to succeed, you create your own power. If you blame other people or other circumstances of life or the environment, you give that power away to the external factors. When you push blame, you are effectively saying, I give you the power to decide whether I succeed or fail. That's what happens when you push blame. So when some odd convoluted way, letting our egos take the hit actually allows us to have power.
My friends, take ownership of your life, create your own power and achieve your goals. Now, the reason that this came up fairly recently, again, I read the book, I don't know, it's been maybe a month, probably like two months now, something like that. I was thinking about a few different Just sort of things going on in my life, I guess you could say. I was writing a paper for one of my classes, probably like a week or I think it was about a week ago, maybe two weeks ago. And he was asking, well, what's wrong in society? This is sociology. What are some issues in society that if you had the power to change, what would you do? And I was thinking about that.
And, you know, one thing I was thinking about was, okay, well, I don't like the, let's take education. Let's talk education. I think that the educational system is very much flawed. And that's in many ways. So, for a lot of subjects, we learn it in elementary school, again, in middle school, and again in high school. for a lot of science especially. We learn biology, chemistry, physics, in elementary, middle, and high school. Of course, at more advanced levels. But why do we need to repeat it? We're not really going to remember or truly deeply understand anything in elementary school. If we're only going to learn it again in middle school and again in high school, what are we doing? It's a waste of time, in my opinion.
So actually I should caveat something first. Of course it is important that some things are developed. So English and math, as we move from elementary, middle to high school, it develops, it increases in difficulty. And so it's important to build basics so that more and more teachers can build upon it. But for science, we're learning the same thing. Even though I learned what a cell is in elementary school and middle school High school is still gonna start with this is a plant cell and this is an animal cell. It's always gonna happen so There that's one problem. I think with the educational system another one.
I think is in You know many decades ago if you wanted to be successful and get a pretty good job You basically only needed a high school diploma. If you had a college degree, you'd be like, okay, that's pretty good. Like you're you're on top of the game. You're you're above most people. But now everyone's going for college degrees. College degrees mean very little now. Unfortunately, it's basically a requirement to get college degrees. And so what's going to happen if the education of our country, if the system does not evolve, but the education level of our country increases, it means our children are probably going to be required to get masters and doctorate degrees.
And their children, who even knows what happens after that? All of that just to be in a decent job, possibly, because many people get a degree and then they don't even get a job in the area or field.
that they want. I also think that the educational system is focused too much on pure academics and on developing skills for the workplace and not enough about say emotional intelligence, about developing ourselves as human beings, about personal life, about practical things like taxes and whatnot. There's a lot of problems and When I was writing the paper I was like well, you know, I wish I could do something, you know If I had the power to change it I was totally would but well, how do I gain that power? Well, then I thought of extreme ownership Well, how can I take ownership if education is so necessary for success?
but if it is not guaranteed to give me success What can I do? Oh, I can educate myself. So that means I'm going to spend some of my free time educating myself. Whether that is watching documentaries, whether that is reading, whether that is watching videos and listening to podcasts that do something for me. So for example, something I've done for quite a while is listen to podcasts on that are very much about personal things, personal development, perspectives on life, basically some of the things I'm sharing now. I've listened to podcasts that have helped me with emotional intelligence. So it's consuming content that helps you learn things, whatever you're learning. It doesn't really matter.
The fact is you're learning outside of school because if the school system's flawed, we need to educate ourselves. We have to take responsibility. If my degree is not guaranteed to lead to success, I need to get more than my degree. To me, that doesn't mean I'm going to go get another degree because that's way too expensive. I'm going to get whatever degree, but I'm also going to educate myself on the side. For some people, that means I'm going to get money. on the side. That works too. The other thing I can do with this problem is if the educational system say doesn't teach us everything, I can do what I'm doing now, which is telling you that the educational system doesn't do everything, which means I'm telling people that they need to start educating themselves.
And that's what I'm doing literally at this moment. Because if I can't change the system, I can create awareness that the system isn't perfect. Now I'm not bashing the system. I've come up through the system. I've learned a lot through the system. I've met amazing people through the system. But there are flaws as there are with a lot of things. So by pointing them out and instead of saying, oh my gosh, this system is flawed, what am I going to do?
I can't do anything to change the problem. I can't do anything. I guess the system's just gonna screw me over. No, I'm going to refuse to do that. I'm gonna take ownership and I'm gonna say, well, what can I do? If this is my fault that my degree is not guaranteed to get me a job, that my going through the educational system's not gonna do anything, if it's my fault, what can I do about it? And that means for me, I'm gonna educate myself. I'm going to figure out what I need to do. And that, I think, is an idea that allows me to take power and take responsibility.
And that's just so much better than just being powerless and pushing the blame on the system, the government, whatever it may be. So that's an example of extreme ownership.
And that's basically the concept, one of the concepts that I wanted to share. And look, I don't want to take credit for this. This is not at all my idea. This is from an amazing book called Extreme Ownership, How U.S. Navy Seals Lead and Win by Jocko Willink and Lafe Baben. It is an amazing book that recounts war stories from Iraq. takes lessons from those experiences, which you guys know I like, stories to experiences and lessons, and then applies them in the business world because Willink and Babin have a company called Echelon Front where they provide sort of leadership consulting to a bunch of companies and businesses and there are stories about how they use those lessons from war and apply them to business. So the book is amazing.
I do recommend it. And this whole, I think I meant 22 minutes so far into this segment, into this episode. All everything I just shared is basically taking their idea from the book and sharing it in my own platform, my own words. But it is all 100% their idea and just giving you my thoughts on it. I think it's great. and thinking about how I can apply it as I hope you guys can tell it's amazing. So yeah, that is extreme ownership. So another topic that I wanted to touch on came from just discussions that were in my sociology class this week. We were talking about some flaws in the culture that we are in, some flaws in the socialization of people.
Socialization is basically just the teaching of the culture to other people. So we socialize children to think a certain way and fit in in our society, for example. And we were talking specifically in this case about women and how women are effectively sort of put down and sometimes classed as more of things rather than people, whether that's in advertisements and movies and whatnot, in for example clothing, or whether it's just false advertisements around just an unrealistic perfect body sort of thing, or whether it's in the upper corporate world where they're like, oh, you can't possibly do this. And just a lack of belief around it when they are equally, if not more qualified than some of the men doing it, or them being judged by the way they dress rather than looking at qualifications.
So, you know, that's what we were talking about. And we were talking about, well, re-socializing this idea and being able to teach women and men that maybe that's wrong. And of course there were other things we were talking about. Men also have this stigma that crying is weakness, for example, where it taught to be tough, or taught to be strong. And that's a huge mistake. That's a huge weakness.
to be that emotionally uneducated, I suppose I could say. And so someone asked, well, can we re-socialize? Is that possible? And the answer is very simple. The answer is yes. We can very easily shave, shift our minds, our minds sets, our habits and our perspectives. And that's not just when it comes to the way we view women and the way we view men and the way we are supposed to behave as taught by society, it's with everything. If you're not happy with the way you think, with your mindset, if you're not happy with your habits, you can change it because the brain is plastic. To get scientific on it, neural connections are formed.
through repetition, the brain works through repetition. The less you use a neural pathway in your brain, that pathway is going to die out. The more you use a neural pathway in your brain, the stronger that one will become. It's all about repetition. So, if we are able to repeat an action, a thought, a behavior, a perspective, That becomes stronger and stronger and it becomes easier and easier to do that thing. If you want to be positive, if you want to be grateful and you constantly, constantly repeat to yourself throughout the day, what am I grateful for? What's going right in my life right now? You were building up the neural pathway of positivity. Obviously that's...
very simplified. That's not exactly how it works. But you know, it's still built on repetition. So if you consistently and constantly ask yourself that every day, several times a day for a week, whatever that is going to be built, and you are eventually going to be naturally able to think positive to think gratitude. But it's not just repetition to ourselves. It's also What's around us? And this is a key part of re-socialization. Content choice. What we consume is going to influence us. Like the food we eat influences our body, the content we consume influences our mind. Because if a certain idea is repeated and we feed it to ourselves, if we consume that content, we start to think that way.
and oftentimes that can lead to us being closed-minded because we accept an idea and we are unable to realize that we can watch something without accepting it. But in order to do that, we have to be aware, we have to be conscious, and we can't just be consuming that mindlessly because then we are letting our walls down and letting that content to come in. So... We have to be conscious about the content we consume. Now, you don't always have to be. It's okay to not be. But I think it's important to be careful and to be aware that this can influence you. What does that mean?
Well, let's take my example from earlier. If I really want to think positive and think gratitude, I'm going to surround myself with people and with content that do exactly that.
Because I can't try to be positive if everything around me is negative. It's just not gonna work. So I have to surround myself with positivity. Or if I want to change my perspective from men or weak if they show emotion, how can I change that? Well, I realize some very strong people. How strong... I am totally butchering this wording. I realized that some of the strongest people are those who were able to be vulnerable. And I look and I admire some amazing human beings who were able to be emotional and yet be some of the strongest people. Emotional, showing emotions is not weakness. And I'm able to learn that.
And I'm able to repeat that and I'm able to believe that. As I see it, as I observe it, as I do it myself, I build the neural pathway that allows me to believe that. If I'm only thinking it in my head, it is not going to work. I need to observe it. I need to see it. I need to be it. I think that step one is awareness.
of what's going on, whether it's a bad habit, whether it is your mindset that you do not like, whatever it is that's going on, be aware of this problem, and then what do you want to be? How do you want to be? And I think this is a good segue into this idea. We can be however we want. We define ourselves. Nobody else defines us. If I tell you, you are this. You can tell me you are right or you are wrong. You have that power because you can do whatever you want. Okay, well, that's not true. You can't let me don't don't kill people like that's just that's just morally wrong.
But you know what I'm saying like you have the power to be what you want. You can tell yourself I am not confident. And if you keep telling yourself that and if the people around you keep telling you You are not worthy. You are incapable. Blah, blah, blah. You are going to be unconfident. But if you say, I am confident, I am worthy, I am capable, I am amazing, I can do all these things and the people around you build you up as well, you are going to be confident. It's just built through repetition. If you're telling yourself, that you can't do something. You can't do something.
People tell you, you can't do something. You can't do something. You can't do something. You're not going to be able to do it. But if you were able to generate the belief in yourself that you can do it, it's over. You got this. You got this. You just need to believe it and you need to change that belief into an action and put in your all and you'll be just fine. And that's one of the one of my biggest themes that I like to share, right? If you put in your all, you're going to be just fine because everything works out. So pay attention to your mindset, pay attention to how you're feeling, pay attention to the way you act, your sort of behavioral patterns.
And if you notice something that you don't like in yourself, realize that the mind can be reshaped, so use repetition, figure out what you want to be like and build it. Yeah, I think that's a, yeah, I think I'm gonna just end that there. Another topic I wanted to touch on was identity. And this very much touches on the concept that I was just explaining of the brain's plasticity. You know, it, yes, it's a great waste that we can change our mindset and our habits. But I think more importantly, it's also great for us to change our identity. See, we often think of identity as for other people.
So other people might tell us, hey, this is who you are. Or we might tell other people, hi, this is who I am. And I actually disagree with that idea. I think that identity isn't for other people.
It's for us and oftentimes I think our identity is forged by other people. It's forged by other people saying hey, you're really smart. You're really beautiful or maybe they're putting you down like you're stupid or you're slow or you're clumsy or whatever it is. People tell us something about ourselves and as that becomes repeated that becomes how we define ourselves. And that's that can be a problem. You know, sometimes, yeah, it's great. It's nice to be complemented. But if we aren't conscious of it, if we are aware of it, we start to define ourselves in ways that we don't get to choose. Because as these things are repeated to us, that's what we begin to accept. So what might be better is.
we should define ourselves for ourselves. Because again, identity should be for us. And the reason I say that is because I think that I think of identity as thinking about who you are inside the type of person you want to be, whether that is the type of person you are now, whether that is the person you want to be in five years. Identity is for you. It's so you can know yourself. It's and perhaps more importantly, it's for you to improve on. It's for you to say, this is who I am and this is who I want to be. How can I get there? Because the brain is plastic, we can actually do that.
And I think that as we become conscious of that power, we should be able to make the decisions for ourselves and not allow other people to Define us. I think a good way to think about it is People have their own images of you They have their own versions of you in their head But the true you is the version in yours every single one of you listening Has your own image of me? but None of you know my whole life none of you know everything that goes on none of you know my whole life story Very few of you probably have known me for more than four years more than seven years and I'm alive for 18 so that means that Everyone has their own small sliver of who you are that they get to see.
And so the true you is someone only you can know. And I think that should be defined by ourselves. The reason I think that this is also incredibly powerful is it allows us to, like I was alluding to earlier, improve. If I constantly say, I am...
productive. Even though I know I'm not productive, I'm not going to do anything. I'm not going to be very productive. But if I internalize and I change my identity through repetition, through challenging my doubts, through changing the identity that I have from I'm a procrastinator, I don't do my work. until the last minute blah blah blah. As I change my identity, as I challenge my beliefs, I'm able to change it. And when my identity becomes, I am a productive person, then I'm going to be a productive person. And that's a process I've already begun. I used to be a pretty bad procrastinator and I'm not that great still. But I've gotten much better. Much better.
I'm no longer doing assignments on the last day. I'm no longer waiting until the last minute to start an assignment and cram it all in. I'm no longer waiting until the last minute to cram all my studying. I'm doing pretty good. And that's because I've been able to challenge my beliefs. I've proven to myself that I am not going to, I don't have to procrastinate. I don't have to waste my time on everything. I don't have to delay everything. I can actually do things early. And since I prove that to myself and I changed my identity to be more productive, I am becoming more and more productive. I am proving myself right. And the reason is because that's how our brain works.
In psychology, there's this idea of cognitive dissonance. It's when your thoughts, your beliefs don't line up with your actions and when they do different things, you feel cognitive dissonance. The brain doesn't like that. So if you do something that goes against your thoughts and your beliefs, what are you going to do? You're going to change your thoughts and beliefs to fit the action. Or If your thoughts and beliefs aren't fitting something that you want to do, you're going to change the action. Let's take my procrastination productivity example. If I believe that I am a procrastinator, I'm going to change my action from being productive to being a procrastinator because my brain wants to be right.
But if I change my thoughts and my beliefs to I am productive, I will change my actions from procrastination to productivity. And this goes for everything. If I want to be happy, if I want to do the things that make me happy, if I want to do the things that I enjoy, how am I going to do that? I have to deal with the things that I don't necessarily want to do. I have to make time for the things that I do want to do. I change my belief around it that I can actually Be productive get things done My actions map to that I'm proven to be right and then I'm able to do the things that I want to do and that makes me happy and to therefore I am good to go I'm using my identity to empower myself To do what I want to do.
There's a great great quote by this guy named rock Thomas. He has a fantastic Talk speech thing on YouTube to search up rock Thomas I Am and one amazing line that he says is this the words that follow I am follow you What does that mean the words that follow I am follow you? You are defined by the words that come after I Am I am Eric Chow that is true But what else am I going to say about myself? What else am I going to say about myself? And whatever words I choose, the more I repeat those words to myself, the more I say I am blank, that blank becomes me. And unfortunately, other people who say that to us, you are blank.
As they repeat that if we are not going to apply our awareness, if we are not going to be careful, if we are not going to realize that that is what they were doing, that too is going to become our identity. So change it. Use this idea of brain plasticity and change your identity to be that you want, that which you want. I am smart. I am handsome. I am capable. I am productive. I am lovable. Whatever it is, whatever you want to tell yourself, pick those words that come after I am and repeat them to yourself. If you pass by a mirror, look at yourself and say it.
When you wake up in the morning, look up, look, open your eyes and say it. Before you go to bed at night, close your eyes and say it.
the more you repeat it to yourself, the more you will be able to create your own identity, empower yourself to be the version of you that you want to be because your identity is made by you for you. And this is especially powerful, I think, that if you're feeling down about yourself, if you're not in a great place, if you look at your identity and you realize that there's so much negativity in it, this concept, I think will help tremendously and has helped many people in the past. But I also think that it's great for people who are fine. I'm fortunate enough to be in a pretty good place right now in life.
And yet I'm still trying to use this concept of identity to improve myself. What type of person do I want to be? How can I get there?
I'm going to change my actions, my thoughts and my beliefs. I'm going to utilize this idea of brain plasticity and cognitive dissonance to my advantage. Because by choosing to go one way, everything else will align with that path. That's essentially what cognitive dissonance is. If I'm going to choose my actions to go one way, if I'm going to choose my thoughts and beliefs to go one way, the other one is going to fall into a line with that path. I don't need to control both. I don't need to say this is what I'm gonna do and this is what I'm gonna think and this is what I'm going to believe.
I just need to pick one. Am I gonna pick changing my thoughts and repeating them so that I can create a belief? Or am I gonna try and change my actions? I'm gonna pick one and the other is going to line up with me and with what I want.
and I'm going to do it consciously because as I keep saying identity is made by you for you and the words that follow I am follow you. Hopefully this idea makes sense. Normally I have a script but I'm just kind of ranting at this point so yeah hopefully this idea helps you. When it comes to identity I also want to reference an amazing quote but before I do I need to give some background This quote is from a guy by the name of Stefan Taylor. He is this guy from Sweden, amazing human being. And the reason I found out about him was through a video by Yes Theory, which is my favorite channel on YouTube. If you haven't heard of them, check them out. The video was basically the Yes Theory guys.
four people two in Austin, Texas and two in I think it was Stockholm, Sweden each of them found a stranger that was going to So two strangers one in Sweden one in Texas that were going to fly to each other's house and Live there for 72 hours. So Stefan was the one from Sweden flew to Texas to live there for 72 hours the guy from Texas flew to Sweden to live there for 72 hours. They literally just switched lives. That's basically the episode. Yes, theory usually does some crazy, wild, fun stuff like that. But it always has a great lesson behind it. I think you should definitely check out their stuff. But anyways, Stefan in the episode does a speech to some young entrepreneurs.
And one of the things that he presents is this idea of do over R. It's a fraction, numerator, do, denominator, R. And the idea is this, if you define yourself by what you do, if who you are and what you do are the same thing, if that fraction equals one, then what happens to you when you stop doing what you do? If I defined myself as I am a high school student, which I no longer am, what becomes of me once that happens? What becomes of me when I graduate if all I am, if Eric Chow equals high school student, if I'm no longer a high school student, what is Eric Chow?
Now, of course, people don't usually define who they are by one role, but certainly by a couple of them. I might say I am a high school student. I am a, well, a no longer high school student. I'm a college student. I am a math mentor. I am a brother, a son. I have all these roles. Once I stop doing some of those roles, what happens to who I am?
If what you do and who you are are the same thing, if that fraction equals one, you are screwed. Because once you no longer do what you were doing, who are you? Instead, what you should do is allow yourself to define yourself as more than just what you do. What you do should be a fraction, should be a portion. of who you are. Because the thing is this and this is the quote, you can fail at what you do, but you can never fail at who you are. End quote. If what you do and who you are the same thing, when you fail at what you do, you can fail at who you are. But if what you do is only a small part of who you are, then you can be much more.
You are more than the roles that you play in society. In fact, I started fairly recently a couple months ago introducing myself as hi. I'm Eric Chow the roles I play in society are brother, student, college, student in college, math mentor, friend, podcaster, so on so forth. You are more than the roles you play. The roles you play are kind of the identity that you introduce yourself as. But you are more than that. Someone isn't just what they do. The President of the United States is not just the President of the United States. The CEO of Facebook is not just the CEO of Facebook. He is more than that. These are titles. These are roles. And we are more than our roles. We are more than our titles. So...
Make sure you don't allow yourself to just be defined by what you do, because what you do can fail, what you do can change, what you do can evolve, but who you are, you should never fail at that. And the only way you can do that, the way you can make that true is by making what you do a fraction of who you are. Hey everybody, thank you so much for listening to episode nine of the podcast. I apologize again for not uploading any episodes for a few weeks. I needed to take some time to myself and take a step back from all the podcast and articles and whatnot and was also having some trouble scheduling.
some episodes with some guests, but I do have, I think, two scheduled for the coming week, so should be good. Yeah, I hope you guys enjoyed the concepts that I laid out in this episode. Extreme ownership, brain plasticity, changing your identity, and the concept of do over are. Hopefully these ideas will help you. bring value to you and empower you to do things. In fact, I think this is a great episode for just the name of it. Since this is the Eric Chow Empowers Podcast, I think this is an episode where I really touched on some ideas that I really believe can be empowering. So hopefully you guys feel the same way.
In fact, I'd really love to hear your opinions on some of these ideas. This should definitely be a discussion if you feel that something's confusing, something's complicated, or maybe you have your own story you'd like to share. Absolutely, connect with me on social media. You guys know Instagram and Twitter, underscore Chow Eric. Let me know what you're thinking about the podcast.
Let me know what you think about all of these concepts that I presented in this episode and I'll see you in the next one. Have a great rest of the day.