Introduction

You're listening to the Transform your Life from the Inside Out podcast. This episode is titled, what do you need to do to change yourself to be successful? That is the question that a lot of people struggle with and they wrestle with is, what do you need to do? Or what do you need to change in yourself to be successful? And the answer is almost nothing. Keep listening.

Hi, I'm Jim Fortin, and you're about to start Transforming Your Life. from the Inside Out with this podcast. I'm widely considered the leader in Subconscious Transformation. And I've coached super achievers all around the world for over 25 years. Here, you're going to find no rah rah motivation, and no hype. Because this podcast is a combination of Brain Science, Transformational Psychology, and Ancient Wisdom all rolled into one to take your life to levels, you've never thought possible. If you're wanting a lot more in life, to feel better, to heal, to have peace of mind, to feel powerful and alive, and to bring more abundance and prosperity into your life, then this podcast is for you. Because you're going to start learning how to master your mind and evolve your consciousness. And when you do that, anything you want, then becomes possible for you. I'm glad you're here.

What Do You Need To Do To Change Yourself To Be Successful?

Okay, almost nothing. Now, I don't know about you. But I learned that I work in the Personal Development Industry. And my whole industry is wired to you've got to change all these things about yourself. And when you change all these things about yourself, you'll be happy. And you'll be successful. But the reality is, is that many people, they try and they try and they try to change so many things for so many years. And then Have you ever noticed that a lot of people that no matter what they change, then they think Well, okay, I've changed that. Now I've got to change something else. And I have to change this. And I have to change more of that. And I've got to change more of that. And I have to do less of this, and more of that, and a whole lot more of that. And I have this laundry list of things to change.

So I want to go here, and you've heard me talk about this before is I want you to create a short list, and a short list of three things. And these three things are, if you had, if you had more of these three things, then you know what, you'd have a better life and a better quality of life. And you'd be happier. So right now, in your mind, just do a mental checklist of these three things. Okay? Now, they might be well, if I had more money, I would be happy. If I had a nicer car, I would be happy. If my kids are better, I would be happy. If my internet launches would do better, I would be happy. So notice your list, okay. And what I also want you to notice is that society, and the way that it's set up, it programs us to achieve. And then we feel bad about ourselves. When we don't achieve things. Think about that. Now, what I mean by that is we're programmed from the time we're little kids.

I remember in second grade, that I was always taught the way to have a good life is to get a good education. And my dad and my mom taught me that you've got to be a really good student. And I remember I think I was in second grade, I came home with my report cards. And we've all been there, you know, you come home and you got to report cards. And sometimes you want to show your parents, you know your report cards and sometimes you like didn't get them today. And you lie about it or whatever, as a kid. But I remember when I came home, and I was excited because I got an A in some subject. And I thought in that moment, I thought I'm proud of myself. I'm happy with what I did. I worked really hard. I mean I did my ABC's or my cursive writing or whatever it is. And my dad looked at my report cards, and he goes, Okay, you got all A's. And then he said and some of you might have heard this before, not for me but in other places or maybe Even your own parents, he said, But doesn't that school of yours give a pluses.

And in that moment, I learned that for me to be to get the approval of my father, then I had to be the best that I could possibly be, and make the best possible grades, and be the best example. And, and leadership and all this kind of stuff. And I remember when I was in high school, I mean, I was a member of like a couple of sports teams. And I literally had many, many, many extracurricular activities. And my parents used to praise me for leadership, for winning awards. And I remember one time that I interned with a US Congressman in college, and my parents were like, We're so proud of you. Because it was, you know, a small town, there's a little article in the paper, a small town kid works in congressional office, blah, blah, and, you know, good for the kid. But I look back. And my parents were so proud of when I achieved something, and they told me how proud they were of me, that I was written up in the newspaper, for achieving something.

And so if you look at that this applies to a lot of you is that in our life, we're set up to achieve. And then guess what, if we don't achieve, if we get the A, instead of the A plus, or we lose three pounds, instead of five pounds, or we make 100,000, instead of 150,000, or whatever it might be for you, then we set ourselves up for failure, because now we're not happy. And if you look at that, you know, you look at that, the way that happiness is set up in the world, is that you've got to do all these things. And then when you do all these things, you will achieve a certain level. And then when you achieve that certain level, you're going to have a good life, and you're going to be happy. That is setting you up for a lifetime of failure. Because I know you've heard the phrase before that no matter you know who you are, or how good you are at something, someone's always going to be better. That's true. I mean, someone's I look at me, I mean, there are people that can do some aspects of what I do. And they might even be able to do it in a way that's more enjoyable for people, or more consumable, or, I don't know more something, maybe they're funnier, I don't know.

But I don't get into that game of, I've got to do more, you know, so that I can be more I'll tell a story one of these days. But my brother in law shared with me, we were on the beach, Don Xavier in Mexico many years ago, 1997 as a matter of fact. And he said to me or phrase, and there's a bigger story behind it. But he said, just be consider that for a moment. Just be when you just be who and what you are, wherever you are in that moment. And you're happy with that. That is a powerful place to be. But I know many of you listening right now I know, because I've coached for a lot of years, is that many of you aren't happy until you get to that next level, and the next level. But you know what, there's always going to be a next level. And if that's your model of reality that you work from, you're going to spend your entire lifetime, never being fully happy, and never being at peace. And when I talk about changing things in your life, we're conditioned that you've got to change things.

So, you know, my dad, when I was a kid is, you know, what could you do differently to make the A plus, and you look at your coaches and your teachers will have you practice harder, you'll be better. And if you do this, you can jump a little higher, and you do that you can make more money. And that's all well and good because I think many of us it's a natural state we want to go to the brain is wired that way to go to higher emotional states. But notice here happiness is a state. Consider that. Now when I say state, I don't mean like Nebraska. Oh gosh, no offense to people in Nebraska, but living in Nebraska to me is not happiness. So, you know, I grew up in a small Texas town, but I'm just kidding. I mean, the price goes up. Happiness, I guess. And I'm only joking because you know what you can be happy wherever you are.

And what, what, what I want to say here is that happiness is a state. So let's understand that happiness is a state, meaning a state of mind. And here's the kicker for this episode is that a state of mind comes down to your level of awareness, your state of mind, comes down to level of awareness. But back to what I was saying is that many of us are taught that when we achieve things, we're going to be validated, meaning mom and dad are going to give us a buck for our A what's the price point is then age, if you get an A probably 10 bucks, I don't know, pure kid. I mean, for crying out loud in the United States, even the tooth fairy gives you when I was a kid gave you a silver dollar for your, for your tooth, I mean, you, you spit out a tooth. And here, you got a silver dollar for that. And we're, we're taught that in our culture, okay.

And then many times, also, we learn in our culture, that if I achieve, then guess what other people are going to look up to me. And other people are going to admire many women, women, they run their lives ragged, by by being the mom, that's seen by other people, as the woman who can do everything. So she's supposed to be and many times she tries to pull it off. And I'm going to tell you, I'm speaking to a lot of women here. I've worked with a lot of women. And the woman who tries to be the perfect mother, the perfect wife, the perfect everything homemaker, school teacher, chauffeur, custodian, business woman, lawyer, and you know, and all this stuff is generally and over worked. And many times an unhappy woman. And then a lot of times, what we do, is we're taught to achieve when we're kids, and we're not happy if we don't. And then we also get ego gratification out of that is that people look at us in a certain way, if we're successful. And then if we're not successful, then guess what? Then mom and dad, they're not proud of us.

And you know what guys, is I'm thinking of no one in particular. But one of my really, really good friends, there's three boys in his family. So of the three boys, my friend is a graduate of the Air Force Academy, college graduate,Air Force Academy, and he's an entrepreneur. And he puts a lot of pressure on himself. And he said to me, which I know him very well. I mean, he's come to my home, we're really good friends, I've stayed at his home, etc, he and his wife and, and he said to me one time he goes, Jim, I put so much pressure on myself, because I am my parents last hope.And I'm like, What do you mean by that? And he said, because I mean, that I'm the only son that's going to amount to anything in the eyes of my parents, because my brothers have not, they both one's on disability, and the other is a pothead. And it's his exact words, I'm choosing his words. And he goes, I have to make my parents proud. And so then he puts all of his pressure on himself. And when he does, he didn't achieve, he would beat the hell out of himself. So let's go back here a little bit. What do you need to change in your life, to be happy.

And I'm going to share with you and I'm not going to go into a deeply here, I just want to get you to start thinking. By the way, I'm going to come back to what I was going to say there. If you're new here, welcome. And what I want to share is, I've heard time and time again, from people that listen to the podcast that go back to episode number one, start. Start with episode number one, because I don't think they necessarily build on each other. But the reality is, is you will find life transformation value, in every single episode, many times we don't find value in something because we're not aware enough to see the value or to pull the value out of something. And that's why you can listen to something like this. You know this episode for Example. And you keep listening and you keep growing. And you go back, and you listen to this episode three months from now. And then you say, wow, you know, Jim said a lot of things in that episode I completely missed the first time. Why did you miss because of your level of awareness.

So I said, there's very little you have to change, because we're trying to change things about us. And characteristics and attributes. No, those are all kind of what I call external things to some degree, even though their behaviors, net comes internally. The number one thing that we can change is to become aware of things. And I'm thinking here about what I want to say next, is, you're wanting change, all of you are wanting change. That's why you're thinking about that for a moment. Let's go there. That's why you're here. That's why you're listening to or watching this podcast, you're here, because you want to change something. But here's also something is that how will you know what you've changed, and to what degree you've changed, if you have no awareness that you're working from? Alright, so think about that. You know, I also want us to recognize that we live in a world, you probably heard me say before that Rumi said something along the lines, and many ancient masters have said that is all the wisdom is inside of you. And you have to get quiet, to hear the wisdom. And that's awareness. When you you start working from that quietness, and you start listening.

But in the world that we live in, thanks to social media. We live in a world that robs you of awareness, and attention. And I'm not going to go into this episode. But it's a known fact. And I mean, a fact that social media is designed by the owners of social media companies to get you hooked to their social media, outlet, whatever it is.And the reason why is when you're hooked to that set, when your brain, let me say that when the reptilian part of your brain gets a reward, the brain releases what's called dopamine. And that feels good. So that's why for example, Facebook used to I don't know if they do anymore. Other on the more advanced things now, that Do you remember, when you have people like, you know, if all of is doing some degree, whether it's puppies or whatever, people like a post of yours. And notice, when you open a post, that people like many times, it's not just one like, it's not like Ding, open again, like Ding open again, like you get the little ding Bell, or whatever it is. I don't really I'm not on social media that much anymore. And for those of you that Trotter, for me, and everything else, I don't check social media for the most part.

But what I was saying is, that's all designed, that is all designed, why it's designed to hook your brain on to that social media. So you watch and you watch, and you watch, and you watch why ad revenue, because then what you do is you have all of these ads flashed in front of you. And guess what I know, because I advertise on social media. But I'm telling you the truth, guys, I mean, I advertise on social media so I can reach more people and help more people. But the reality is, is social media, what they're concerned about the owners of the companies, is to hook you. So they've got a bigger base of people, you know, watching Facebook or Instagram or whatever, more ads, the more ads that are run, the more money that the companies make. That is the truth.

So you look at this, but you look at the world of things that hooks us. You look at the social media, you look at cars, and homes and lifestyle and beauty and people that are hooked on the gym and hooked on their bodies and their self ego and their self importance and, and you know what, I've got to build and sculpt the perfect body not for health reasons. But because what what other people are going to think about me. Now think about that for a moment. What I just said is a lot of the world robs us of awareness because we're so focused With blinders on. Did anyone listening? Did you see a video several years ago. Of course, I'm mentioning a video because I saw it on YouTube somewhere somewhere, but I don't know, somewhere on social media.

And it had a guy on a subway or a train in San Francisco, I believe with San Francisco. And the guy pulled out a gun. And you know what? Every one on that train, no one noticed when the guy pulled out a gun. Why? Because where was their awareness, their awareness was on that little bitty five inch screen are right in front of their eyeballs. I do want to point out that social media can be a fabulous thing. And it can be a powerful tool, depending upon how it's used. But when social media consumes your life, you then are owned by that particular outlet. And the unfortunate thing is, there's been brain studies done on this. A lot of people I was in the airport, not only a couple of years ago, I saw this kid in a scroller. And this kid was probably maybe two years old. And this kid knew how to scroll very easily and very quickly through an application. And I'm not taking anything away from any parents that use that for perhaps a reward or some entertainment or, you know, what we're traveling the kind of the keep your, you know, to keep your kids entertained, and you know what I'm trying to get on the airplane that my kids will be quiet for 10 minutes, I can do everything I need, I can check in and get on the airplane, I get it.

And I want everyone to understand as well, I'm not judging, I'm not tossing any stones. I'm simply saying, Let's be aware. Let's be aware. Now, what I want you to do I request is right now, to kind of slow down a little bit. And I want you to look at how many of your thoughts and your behaviors that you've done today are related to chasing happiness in some degree.Think about that. And focus on that I think I said earlier is that a lot of times people will say, oh, that doesn't. And if I did, and I'm saying it now, people will say Well, that doesn't apply to me. Number one is they're in there, they're lacking self awareness. By even saying something like that, because we humans, I mentioned his name before, I think his name is Anatole France, I believe. And he said, the greatest ability of the human being is to deceive himself. And that's what we do, we filter things out, and especially things that are going to make us feel bad and etc.

But what I want you to look at how much of your day today is involved in chasing happiness. And by chasing happiness, what that means is, is that you were doing something, you were doing something to create a higher state of consumption of something probably in some degree in your life. And you spent a lot of time and a lot of energy, and a lot of your life chasing that thing. You know, some people say that with the result of what happened in the world. And right now it's, you know, what is it August July of 2021, sorry, July of 2021. And some people will say that what happened in the world is really good, because it slowed the world down. Think about that, does it apply to you? Did you slow down this time last year? And now look at your life now. Because what many people have done, which is what humans do is, things slow down. And we create some equilibrium in our lives. And we're living as human beings, not functional beings doing a behavior. And that brings a lot of joy for a lot of us.

The question is, have you noticed how many people and especially in the United States, because we pretty much are opened up as a country. How many people are right back to where they were pre 2021 right back into the rush, rush, rush doo doo doo. And the more that I do, and the more that I rush, and the more that I achieve, and the more that I accomplish sigh breathe the happier I will be. So speaking of awareness, okay, are you aware of all the time that you waste being unhappy? Consider that, are you aware of all the time that you waste being unhappy. And when you look at that, for many of us, that's like, Whoa, I just I didn't recognize it, I didn't see it. Now, are you also aware of the amount of time let's compare and contrast, the amount of time that you invest and spend and allow being happy. Now, look at your last 24 hours, and just take a mental, very quick assessment, how much of your day was spent being happy and blissful and joyful, which is a state versus, I got to get a promotion to work, and I've got this report to do. And I've got to do this. And I've got to do that. And I've got to do and I got to do and I got to do and I got to do, which are all external outcomes. And then have you recognized for many of you, you're tired, you're exhausted, you're worn out, and you are unhappy because you're tired and exhausted and worn out, and you're tired and exhausted and worn out, because you're chasing happiness. So you're unhappy, because you're chasing happiness. Think about that. You're unhappy, because you're chasing happiness.

Let's get back to the very beginning of this episode. A little self inprospection here, I guess inprospection, not self inprospection, is a little inprospection is what things did. And the operative word, what things did society? What things did society program you in this matter? In terms of being successful? And I and I mangled that limit? Let me say it again? What did society program you with that in order to be happy, you have to have that thing. And if you look back, just search your memory here for a minute. Search back to your parents, and I want you to go back about to the to the ages of 7,8,9 years old, seven, eight, or nine. So that would be what second grade, third grade, fourth grade. And look at things that your parents said to you. Okay, look at things that your teachers said to you. In first, second, third grade. I remember which I mentioned here, my teacher 1971, first grade, Mrs. Schilling was my first grade teacher. And I remember because I learned this, otherwise I was I was, like a straight A student. And I had to work to be an A plus student.

But she put a paper on my desk math. And I don't know what's first grade this day and age. It's probably calculus. But when I was a kid, it was one plus one, or two, I don't know, I don't remember. But she put a piece of paper on my desk and looked at me. And she looked at me as if she were sad, and disapproving. I mean, physically, physiologically, as a six year old, I could read her body language, which we can do. And she looked at me, and she said, Jimmy, you're not very good. You know, you're not very good in math. And she kind of frowned when she did that, like, Oh, poor, you, pitiful kid. You know, you're just not good at this. And I spent many years, many years getting over that, which I've told a story about that I won't go into that right now. About I learned that I was bad at math. And I struggled with math for many years. Why? Because that was programmed into my head as a kid. And I was bad at math, not because I wasn't smart, because I was making A's everywhere else. It's because I was programmed for that by society, and then reinforced by my parents.

Now, look at three things. Let's just slow down here for a moment. Look at three things that your parents literally pounded and beat into your head. Why not? I don't mean literally pound like physically, I mean, what things were said over and over and over and over and over again, from your parents. Now, I think we also recognize that your parents did these things, because when I started earlier, they wanted you to have a better life and what they were teaching you is do all these things, and achieve and achieve and achieve. And you, my child will have a better life. And you heard the things before, right? You have to go to school, you have to get good grades, you learn that in your most impressionable years, you have to get a degree Not anymore. But back in the 80s, that was the thing, you want to be a success, you want to be more than what your father was, you want to be the first person in the family to go to college. A lot of you've heard that before. Well, and guess what, get a degree, then when you get a degree and you go to college, you have to make Dean's list. And then guess what, when you do that, then you can get a good job. And then you know what, you can't get married, until you have a good job. Because you can't support your family. If you don't have like good grades, and you get a good job and you can't support your family. And if you can't support your family, then how are you going to have kids. And then all these things, plan for the future live for later, say for a rainy day, marry the right person. Become aware of all of that become aware of all of the nonsensical ways that you were programmed, literally, to be unhappy as a kid.

But see, you were programmed to do those things to be happy. And the flip side is, if you didn't do those things, and extremely well and better than everyone else, and achieve with it, then you were unhappy. So you were doing things to be happy, which I said earlier, that actually made you unhappy. Okay. So think about that. What if this? What if right now, in this moment, your life was amazing. And nothing changed right now today? Wherever you are, whatever you have in the bank, whatever your relationship status is, wherever or whatever's going on in your life. What about if your life were amazing? But so many of us, like I said, and I'm going to wrap up here in a bit, we think that things, things, things make us happy. And they don't. Because guess what, when you have things, and they make you happy. And I'm guilty of this, not at this point in my life, but I've been there for many years, based upon my programming, is that when I have things, guess what this is, what we do is we want the thing, want the thing, want the thing, and then we get the thing, and we're not bored with the thing, and then we're not happy. And we want something else to make us happy, which is why we got the first thing in the first place to make us happy. Now we're not happy with that thing.

I had a client of mine, a therapist in New York City, and I've told the story here. But I broke into the Park Avenue crowd. And I had a lot of clients that were very wealthy that would send their driver to come pick me up for hypnosis, and coaching and all that kind of stuff. And I had mentioned before that one of my clients said to me one time she goes, you know, Jim, do you know what I like about working on Fifth Avenue? Do you know what I like about having rich clients? And I said, because they can pay more. And she said, yes, that too. But all of my clients are very wealthy. I mean, Fifth Avenue, come on Park Avenue in New York City. And she goes, they all know when they come to me that money. And more money's not going to make them happy because they have all the money in the world. And they're not happy. So think about that for a moment. If you had all the money in the world, would you be happy? If you had 1,000,000, 5 million, 10 million? Would you be happy or happier. And I'm going to share with you if that were the case for you. There's a whole setup challenges that come with that. Because a lot of people who make a lot of money, spend a lot of time protecting their money. And it's a lot of work because they don't want other people to steal what they work to be happy to get and now they have it and they have to protect it. And they're unhappy thinking that other people might steal what they have.

Where I want to go here is the way to success in life. And what you want is awareness. Because awareness is what drives you think about that. But it's a matter of where it drives you and to what degree so the question is, is do you Have that awareness? Or does the world drive you. And like I said a little earlier, is I don't, I don't care who you are, seriously, I don't care where you are in life right now, this applies to all of us is if you think you have a high level of awareness, you may, you may not, I just want you to be observant about yourself. And notice how many things in your environment, then I could go into brain neurology and all that. And I won't do that in this episode. But how many things that have been happening in your life, right in front of your eyes, that you miss, because you filter it out. Therefore, you have no lack of awareness, people stealing at work, your kids on drugs, all these different things, I'm just making this up as an example. But I'm just making them up. But that's what I want you to look at. Okay.

And a caveat here, I want everyone, everyone to have abundance in life. And I want you to have the home and the car and the perfect health in the business. And I want you to have all of this stuff. But I want you I request food for thought is that you create it from happiness, not to become happy. I know you know what that means. So what we want to do is we want to create from happiness, not to get it to become happy. Okay? So, ponder that, think about that. Because as I've said before, is social media is going to take us and boom, we're gone. Or the phone or people on social media, or email, or work or whatever, think about that, is that I want you to have happiness, for the sake of being happy not to chase it, so that you can be happy. And you're not happy right now. Because as you know, and I'm an expert on that, if you've listened to the podcast for any amount of time, no one promised you tomorrow.

So back to the very beginning of this episode, is what do you need to change yourself and in yourself to be successful? Think about that. And the answer is awareness. All right. Awareness. Because even when you develop awareness, you will then have the ability to live from a different place, emotionally, in terms of your observations about the world. I mean, like I've mentioned before, you know, on this, on this episode, I talked about appreciating water. Without water, you'd be dead, you would be dead in a couple of days. Do you even have any, you have any awareness about how much water you use on a daily basis, okay. And I'm not telling you to go out and count everything and count every car and every water and every glass of iced tea and coffee and know, basically what I'm saying here is slow down. And Bob Marley, be happy. Be happy now.

Because as I said, like two or three times in this episode, is if you're wanting things to be happy, you're chasing things to be happy, which means you're not happ now. And and also for most people means once you chase and chase and chase, and then catch, guess what if you're still operating from the fit the same paradox that you're working from now, once you work and work and work and chase and catch, then you're not happy anymore, and you have to work and work and work and work and chase to catch again, and it becomes a lifelong cycle of being unhappy to be happy. Okay, so hopefully everyone gets that. So your transformational takeaway is, use awareness. awareness. Have you noticed this episode also, that I'm taking more breaks and that I'm talking to you when I'm talking to you? Why? Because I'm wanting you to stop between things that I'm saying. And I want you to settle, settle into what I'm sharing with you and let it soak in. Okay.

Because you've heard me say before also is that the most powerful state that we can be in? Also, um, quite a few places in this episode. But one of the most powerful states we can be in is peace of mind. And let me ask you, have you ever experienced peace of mind? Yes, you have. How many of you were unhappy, while you were in peace of mind, it's an impossibility. You can't be unhappy if you have peace of mind. But if you're chasing things, that's what people do, as I alluded to, if you're chasing things to be happy, then guess what, you don't have peace of mind. And then back to the example that I just gave you. So then you get it. And then you chase again. And you will spend your life and a cycle of always being unfulfilled, being unhappy, because you are chasing happiness. So I want to leave you with this thought. Ponder it, be ready. The thought is this. Just BE. Just BE.

Conclusion

If you're serious about Transforming your Life, from the Inside Out, I have a free training that you're going to want to listen to. And it's helped 10's of 1000's of people all around the globe. The thing is, all of my students start here, because when you learn to change your thinking, you'll change your life. Because as you already know, life happens from the inside out. The training is called discover how to eliminate fear and negatfortin.com/eliminatefear, and start learning how to transform your life at a deeper level from the inside out.

Thank you for listening to this entire podcast. If you're the kind of person who likes to help others, then share this with your friends and family. You know, if you found value, they will too. So please share via your social media channels. Also, if you have questions, I'm here to assist. You can email me questions to support@jimfortin.com, and I may even use your question for a future podcast episode. Also, if you want transformational content like this daily, connect with me on Instagram, my Instagram name is @iamjimfortin. Finally I do have a personal request. I believe that we're all here to help others and to grow and evolve ourselves. together, you and I, let's help more people. If you would, please leave a review on iTunes and a good one by the way. I'd be grateful and through your assistance together, we can transform more lives. Thanks for listening.