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You're listening to the Transform your Life from the Inside Out podcast. This episode is one in a series of eight in the identity series and this episode is titled Your Identity Confirms Itself. When I say your identity confirms itself. What I mean is this, we seek out people and our lives. We seek out people to be in relationship with that confirm who we think we are at a subconscious level. So, if you look at your relationships, That'll be a direct reflection of who you are subconsciously, whether you actually like everyone in your life. meaning the relationship that you're in also, or you don't guess what. You attracted that based upon your own subconscious identity, 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 and 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.

You know, I've told a story before. Back when I was in college. Dr. Georgette Meraldo. She was, a psychologist, one of my advisors. And I remember Dr. Meraldo. These are her words, not mine. And I've mentioned that before here in the podcast. Dr. Meraldo used to say. The campus king will find the campus queen. And the campus ugly will find the campus ugly. Again, pretty brutal, but Dr. Meraldo was not known for her tact. She was known for her shock value and, uh, really, you know, she was a good woman. Just at a great professor, just she really called you. She really, really spoke up. I'll just leave it at that. Anyway. There's a great deal of psychology behind this when it comes to physical attraction and different things that are, you know, part of the equation. But the whole point is, is we seek to be in relationships. With people who confirm what we believe our identity of ourself is.

 So, as I've said before, if you really want to know who you are subconsciously. Just look at your friends. They will tell you by who they are exactly who you are. And you might be thinking well, Jim, that's not true because I know someone, or I have been in an abusive relationship. Well, the truth is. You're the one, if you've been in an abusive relationship. No one made you get into that relationship. No one made you stay in that relationship. You were in that relationship based upon who and how you are at a subconscious level. And that's what we're going to talk about today is identities and relationships. Recently I talked about, and I said that. Our identity is a self-fulfilling prophecy. But you know what that self-fulfilling prophecy also plays out in our marriages and our partners and our, you know, our relationships generally with people that we have in our life.

And the reason why. For the most part. We seek to confirm ourselves. By actually bringing people into our life. As I just said a bit ago, who confirm what we think we are. You don't tell you a couple of personal stories. I think back to 20 years ago. I remember that I lived in New York city. And I wanted to start a company and I had a billion dollar you know, a billionaire investor behind me. He was also one of my clients. And he was willing to put a couple of million dollars behind me to start something. And so, I, I, you know, I set up a business plan, everything else, and I brought a couple of friends on board with me to, to work in this venture. And one of the friends that I brought on with me, his name is Rob. He was a Harvard graduate. And he was a vice-president at Goldman Sachs. And I remember one day talking about Rob to the other business partner. Who was a psychologist, and I was talking about Rob. And I remember, I remember thinking back. I really like Rob, he was sharp. He was really, really a smart guy. And my friend said to me, who was the psychologist? He said, you like, Rob's so much and you trust Rob. Because you and Rob are a lot of like you value intelligence, you are intelligent. And what you, you know, because you're intelligent, you value other people that are intelligent and you gravitate towards them. And that was really true. And I've always remembered that story. And that learning and lesson. When it comes down to truly understanding that we attract what we are, even in relationships.

What I want to demonstrate or talk about in this episode. Is obviously we do not want to be. I don't know, I don't want to be. And I think a lot of us don't want to be. We don't want to be in a relationship with someone exactly like us. We don't have to share all the same exact likes and dislikes and everything else. And this episode, obviously we want an alignment of identities which are core values and fundamentals. But we're going to be different because we're different people, but here's what we're going to talk about in this episode. The more different. You are then your partner, your boyfriend, your girlfriend, whoever. The more different you are the more strained and less fulfilling. The relationship is going to be.

So really what I'm talking about here is how healthy is your predominant relationship in your life? Think about that. Because we can say there are all kinds of external things. Why it's not what we want it to be. But I find many times it's really about a misalignment of subconscious identity. Or, you know, simply stated. a misalignment of identity. When I look at misaligned identities. I don't have any research on this. But I do believe it's conduct common sense. I mean, I've done what I've done for two decades now. And I've worked with hundreds of hundreds of thousands. If not millions of people all around the world, I just see the patterns and I believe. That one of the major causes of divorce and here in the United States, I believe something like 53% of people who get married. Get divorced. And then people who get remarried, something like 72 or 73% of those people also get a divorce. But I believe one of the main causes of divorce at least in my interpretations and perceptions. Is a misalignment of identity.

And what people generally and what people generally say is once they're getting a divorce, well, we were compatible, but we grew apart and that may be the case. But then I also look at the identities of the one, the person that did grow as opposed to the identity of the person who did not grow. You know, I think back to. Many years ago. And I heard someone say this, it was actually a program. And they say that when we get in relationships with people, We get in what this organization called a racket, meaning let's say that you're in a relationship with a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a partner.

And according to this organization and it makes sense to me and I see it all the time. And I actually. I've been there in my own life in the past. But what we do is we say, oh, okay. I'm person a and you know, you're person B. I like you a lot I'm person a and I like you. And then person B, because we all, for the most part, want to be light person B says, oh, okay. Because you like me, I like you. And then me person A I say, and by the way, none of this is spoken verbally or consciously. I say, say, okay. Because I like you person B, I'm also going to buy your bullshit and person B says, oh, because I like you person A, you know what, I'm going to buy your bullshit. And then what happens is the honeymoon effect wears off. And then guess what? We've got a relationship with two people putting up with bullshit. They normally wouldn't put up with. And then here we go. Head to divorce court.

So, what we want to look at is what, in my identity, What in me allowed me to actually. You know, engage in that relationship and to stay in that relationship. And I've also found I would say more times than not it's because many times people are more in love with the idea of being in love. Then they are being in love with the person that they love.

Many times people are so desperate to be in a relationship. They'll put up with things to be in a relationship. And then once they're in the relationship, they'll no longer put up with those things. Hence the relationship starts coming apart. You know, a couple of stories here is, I don't know. As about five years ago, I helped a single mom. She had four kids. And I helped a single mom with her four kids get off the streets. I saw her at 7 /11 one night when I was getting gas. And I started talking to her and, you know, come to find out she was homeless. So I gave her enough money that night for a hotel. And then what I did is I put her up in a hotel for about a week. I started talking to friends and I started talking to friends about, Hey, can we find this person a shelter somewhere? And I had a lot of friends and students, students who jumped in to help me out. And I got to say the students were extremely helpful. Financially keeping her in a hotel for a couple of months. As well as finding her a shelter that would take her and the kids. Well, what happened is she was accepted into a shelter. And then the day before she was supposed to go into the shelter. She didn't go.

And she didn't go. Why? Because something she didn't tell me about a former husband came back in the picture just a couple of days prior. The truth is I'm not gonna tell the truth, but basically he then became available to her and she decided not to go into shelter after I, and people had worked and paid for her four months to not live on the streets. And she went back on the streets with her husband. And, you know, it was a big learning for me. Because I had one of my students who was helping. Who was a professional woman, but she used to be many years prior. She was a social worker. And when I say my friend was a professional, what I mean was that she was a real estate agent not working in the helping industries per se. And she said to me, and this always hit me when it comes down to self-image on identity because this applies to all of us in life. She said, you know, Jim, it's not hard to get women off the streets. It's hard to keep them off the streets. And the reason that it impacted me so much is because that's the truth.

You me, all of us. We will always, we will always go back to our subconscious identity and how we see ourselves and how we value ourselves and the self-worth that we hold for ourself. And whatever that self. You know, that self-worth is, are self-value. We will always metaphorically rubber band right back to that even, even if we do create change in our external world. We will go back to the old us because that's what we know. And that's what's called identity verification. Identity verification is brain-based. I'm not going to go into it in this episode, but basically there's a part of us, a part of the brain that wants to know what's going to happen tomorrow. There's a part of the brain that works on predictability and that's a survival mechanism, meaning that the, the better we can predict something, the better able we are to survive. And it's believed this came from many, many, many thousands of years ago when we had to go out and hunt for food.

That if we could predict how safe it would be at a hunt for food that obviously. I'm laughing because we weren't being chased by a tiger that contributed to our predictability about how safe it was to go out hunting. If we could predict how safe it would be, that was survival. So it's partly brain-based, but we want to be able to predict the brain does wants to be able to predict what's going to happen. And when we're in a relationship, even if it's an abusive relationship and we don't like it, many times you've seen it, I've seen it. We made them someone, and that may apply to even you listening. We stay in their relationship wine. Because if the person is being abused, at least they can predict what tomorrow is going to look like. They might not like it, but they can predict it. And also we all have meaning about what we mean and who we are. And relationships give us meaning. And here's something that's really interesting. Is we only engage in relationships that reinforce the meaning and value that we hold for ourself. We seek out relationships. That confirm who we think we are. And both parties in the relationship do this. Let me give you an example here. And this was actually, there was some research done at the university of Texas back in the early seventies, which is where I read all this research.

so let's say that person A, they have low self-worth, low self-value. They really don't care about themself a whole lot. And you know, people call it low self-esteem, but it's really low self-worth. Then what they do. Is, they will seek out partners that will actually do things to them that will validate and reinforce their low self-worth. So a real tangible example would be this, let's say that person A. Let's say again, they have low self-worth and they believe that they deserve to be abused. Okay what they will do is they will seek out a partner and partner B who will abuse them. Why identity verification now here's the interesting thing that was discovered in research.

The partner that's being abusive. We'll actually seek out people who are okay. I'm having a hard time with the word here that are okay. That are, you know, they're, they're inviting, whatever you want to call it. But partner B. The one that is the abuser will seek out people that are okay or allow themselves to be abused. Basically, what happens is you have one party. Believing they are not worth a whole lot and they deserve to be abused and they will attract a partner. That believes certain people are not worth a whole lot and they deserve to be abused. They complement each other in terms of what their, you know, their subconscious identity needs. And it goes back to the phrase that I've said before, and I've lived by it. And I believe very simple phrase. It takes two people to tango. So in that relationship, it takes the abused and it takes the abuser to tango to maintain that relationship. So, know this for yourself. To whatever degree. Your level of self-worth is you will seek out relationships that will validate that. And when we're not in those validating. And when we're not in those validating relationships that gets uncomfortable for us.

I wanna stop the episode for just one moment and I want to say this. If you're liking this series on identity, then you're going to want to dig deeper and you're going to love my up and coming BE DO HAVE challenge. I don't know how long you've been listening to the podcast, but for many years I've done twice a year a series called the Be Do Have Series. I'm stopping that I do believe, and we're going to turn it into a challenge. It's really simple. It's a nine day format, and we're gonna be starting this in a couple of weeks. Now, I'm not going to be doing it on the podcast, but I'm telling you about it here on the podcast so that you can get registered for it. The BE DO HAVE concept is a foundational performance concept. BE DO HAVE means you must be before you can do, which is identity. You must do before you can have. And when you have your being and your identity aligned, things start to work for you. In this nine day challenge, we're breaking it down into a bite-size format, and it's gonna be different than what you're learning here. It'll overlap a little bit, but the whole point is I want you to start mastering this concept of identity and being. So go to jimfortin.com/be jimfortin.com/be to get on the wait list. Okay, back to the episode.

You know, I mentioned him one or two times in the podcast before a long time, 25 years. A longtime friend of mine, his name is Akio. Matsumura. Akio is the only private citizen in the world to bring together over 1000 world leaders, presidents, Kings, prime ministers. Secretary generals of the UN. Business Titans, world leaders. I mean, he was friends and still is of Mikhail Gorbachev and the Dalai Lama. He was friends of Gandhi's kids when I knew him a lot and I spent a lot of time with him years back. Mr. Martin Luther King's kids. And. He was friends with a lot of a very influential people, also in the entertainment industry. And particular someone that he knew really well was Shirley MacLaine. And one day he asked me to call Shirley MacLaine for him. Now her movies. I've always been a big fan. And I remember how challenging it was even on his behalf for me to call Shirley MacLaine.

I mean, I was literally, he was going through my mind. I'm like, who am I. I mean, I'm a nobody, even though I'm calling on his behalf, I'm a nobody. And I'm calling Shirley MacLaine and it was a challenging call for me. And the reason why is because I didn't. It wasn't in my self-image to see myself, the small-town boy talking to someone like her. I mean, world famous actress. I just couldn't reconcile that in my mind. That's the power of our self-image, but let me share another story about working with Akio again, when I say he was friends with UN is friends with, you know, power players all over the world. Kings’ presidents, prime ministers. And he introduced me to someone that she, her father was the king of her country in Europe.

And on one side of her family. Queen Elizabeth who's no longer on the planet. All of her kids were her cousins. And on the other side of her family queen, whatever her name was, I. And I'm queen Sophie or whatever of Spain was one of her cousins as well. And she, and I actually got along really this woman. We got along really well and people called her princess so-and-so and she and I, we just clicked. We clicked kind of, uh, you know, in a spiritual way. We just connected. We had a lot of commonalities. We could talk to each other. And despite that I never really felt comfortable talking to her, even though she would reach out to me and invite me and talk to me and everything. I never emotionally felt comfortable.

And the reason why, you know what, I'm this poor kid I grew up in Rio Hondo, Texas. I mean, this woman is royalty Kings and Queens and all this blah, blah, blah. I'm the small, poor kid from Rio Hondo, Texas. And that was a huge disparity of ego. Now had I grown up in a very wealthy, very powerful family. We probably, she and I probably would have been friends. But I couldn't reconcile that in my mind. So we, you, me, all of us, we actually align our identities with people who confirm our identities. And in some way, they are close to our identity. Now speaking of alignment of identities. Here's where it plays out in your life. The more closely aligned the identity. The more functional the relationship is. Now even a dysfunctional relationship, like I mentioned earlier, the woman or the partner or the man, whatever, the person that actually didn't have a whole lot of value.

They, this person would enter into a relationship with someone who also believed they had no value. And it was a very functional relationship because it had two dysfunctional people. Making the relationship work, which made it functional. So basically both these two people together, even though people in the outside, good look at it and go, that's horrible. What are these, why are these people leaving together when they hate each other so much? From the outside that's what it looks like. But on the inside, you've got two dysfunctional people creating a functional relationship. So, your life what's the quality. Of your primary relationship. Is it working for you? Is it not working for you? Are you happy? Are you not happy? Are you fulfilled? Are you not fulfilled? Are you getting your needs met? Are you not getting your needs met?

So, let me give you some food for thought here. Is if you're not in a relationship right now, that's working for you. Before you ever again, enter into a primary relationship. I think about what I said earlier and that you don't want to buy people's bullshit. Because buy, there’s a whole psychology behind this, but you don't want to buy.

People's bullshit. And the reason why is because they'll buy yours again, I mentioned earlier, so it's important that, you know, what, what do I want in a relationship? What do I value in a relationship? How do I feel valued in a relationship? What will I accept? What will I not accept in a relationship? And then what do I value about life in general? It's really important that, you know, these, these answers for yourself before you engage in another primary relationship. If you're not in one. Because when you align the values, you have a much healthier relationship.

You know, my, my partner and I, we get along, I think what did Forrest Gump call it like peas and carrots. We get along extremely, extremely well. Now as in any relationship, we definitely have our differences. We do things differently. We think differently but when it comes to our core identity alignment, we get along extremely well. We've been together 21 years and we have what I would call a pretty amazing relationship. But when you look at the fundamentals of identity, One of my primary identities is to be that of a spiritualist and to live a spiritual life. My partner is the exact same way. So, we have an alignment of our identities in things that are a high value to us in the quality of our life. And that's ideally what you want as well. If you want to have and be in an amazing relationship.

So it's important that you look at your life now, because I know this. Trust me. I know this. And just, I mentioned statistics earlier. I would say 50% of people who listened to my podcast are looking for something more in life. Obviously, and they're looking for something better and something different, but that 50% that I'm referring to. I see time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time again, year after year after year. Even many people who listen to my podcast are not in healthy relationships. They're an unhappy relationships why because of the mouth alignment of identities. And what I see all whole lot of, and I mean, a whole lot of this is that many times people who listen to my podcast, they are in the personal development and personal growth.

Yet, you know what, early in their relationship their partner might have said they were, but as they got older, the partner said, nah, I'm not going to do any of that crap. I'm not going to do any of that. You have one partner working on themselves, the other partner not working on themselves. Guess what? You've got an alignment of identities at that point, the relationship is actually. A couple of things happen the other comes apart and they separate, or they stay together. And I see a lot of this two very unhappy people in a relationship and many people do that for years if not decades.

Let me show you the power of misaligned identities. This podcast is apolitical, but I want to share what's blatantly obvious. Look at the identity of someone that is absolutely pro Donald Trump. Look at the identity of someone who was absolutely pro Joe Biden. These people don't want to be in the same room together. They can't stand each other. They can't tolerate each other whole different podcast episode, but the reality is literally oil and water. I don't watch a lot of politics any more. Even though I have a degree in political science and used to work for an American president, I just don't fall apart as in politics anymore. But I watched the election of the U S house speaker recently. It got very heated, and the election has not taken that long. And I believe something like 150 years.

And when you look at the US representatives, Casting their votes it's clearly because there was a difference in identities. And right now, even the US Congress is sitting with one identity on one side of the aisle at another identity on another side of the aisle. And this whole point of this podcast is the more misaligned the identities the more dysfunctional the relationship. And I do want to say in relationships, and again, I'm in one for 21 years. Is, we do have a similar approach to spirituality. We're not religious, but we have a spiritual approach. But in other areas of our life, we may have, we actually, we do have some, some difference. We're very different about maybe some different things we need in the relationship when it comes to money habits, we're very much the same.

Politics. We both at this point, stay out of it, but we're very much the same in our general thoughts. So when you look at the combination of all of this, Hey, it all works pretty well. But if we were different on everything, different religions, and then we were basically adamant about the religion. Different physical sexual needs. And we're adamant about that different money habits. And we were adamant about that different politics. And we're adamant about that. Trust me, we would not be together or this would be a miserable relationship for both of us. So again, This episode is about the more aligned the identities and the relationship, the better and the healthier and a happy way that relationship is going to be. The exception is when I talked about the malalignment of dysfunctional people, meaning in terms of their behavior and the way they approach the world. And there are both dysfunctional and they both actually aligned to a relationship that worked for them because they're both dysfunctional. That is the caveat and the allowance. That's basically. Not align with what I'm saying but overall the quality of your relationships is dependent upon the alignment of identity and those very relationships. So your transformational takeaway for this episode is this, your relationships will only be as strong as the alignment of the identities in those relationships. Thanks for listening. And I'll catch you over on the next episode. Bye bye.

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 Negativity in an Instant. So, go to jimfortin.com/eliminatefear and start learning how to Transform your Life at a deeper level from the Inside Out.