You’re listening to the Transform Your Life from the Inside Out podcast. This is a throwback episode to episode number 43, and that episode is titled Nothing Works in Life Without This. What is this that we’re talking about? What you’re going to discover in this episode, Harvard Research demonstrated. There’s a certain psychological concept, and this psychological concept, When we bring it into our life, and by the way, most people fail at this concept, and that’s not hyperbole. Literally, most people fail at this concept. And this Harvard psychologist said it’s the most overlooked concept in performance. And people don’t give it the credence that it deserves. But what this Harvard psychologist for years of study observed is When you live from this concept, you increase your productivity anywhere between one and 500 % with no additional input. So what is this one thing? Well, listen to the episode and find out. And when you start bringing this into your life, your life will start changing in dramatic ways very, very quickly. Enjoy the episode. 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 raw 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. Okay, so what are we talking about? Well, when I say self-integrity, what I mean by that, it’s not a matter of moral integrity or any of that. It’s a matter of integrity to self. Specifically, self-integrity is do you do what you say you’re going to do when you say you’re going to do it. Now, this is something that I’ve learned and I’ve learned it the hard way over the years, but I’ve learned that if you don’t keep your word to yourself, in particular, relative to a goal or an outcome or work or something, you know, working out or whatever, if you don’t keep your word to yourself, whatever it is that you want to create, it’s just not going to happen. What I tell people, and this pertains to me as well, is that nothing works when I demonstrate a lack of self-integrity. Now I want to refer to a study here by Dr. Michael Jensen. And by the way, I might have said Jenkins when I had, you know, when I referred to this episode and last episode, telling you what’s coming up. I think I might have called him Jenkins, but his name is actually Michael Jensen. He is a Professor Emeritus at Harvard Business School, and he ran what’s called the Social Science Research Network. And he did a year-long study. And what they discovered was, I mean, it was really amazing in my interpretation, is that when people focus on their self-integrity, plain and simple, when they keep their word to themselves, their productivity goes up anywhere from one to to 500 percent with no additional input from anything else. What they also discovered is, and what they most observed, is that when people actually kept their word to themselves, again, when they, you know, they do what they say they’re going to do, pretty much a 300 percent increase in output with no additional input is what was found. Now, that’s pretty amazing, right? I mean, simply increasing your output anywhere from 100 % to 500 % by keeping your word. Let’s put that in tangible terms. Let’s say, for example, and of course, there are other contingencies here, but let’s make this really simple. Let’s say, for example, that you started keeping your word to yourself about things that you were going to do to grow your business or to increase productivity at work or to make you more money. And let’s say that you actually started keeping your word when you said you’re going to do it? Well, what if, for example, you only had a 100 % increase in your output? Basically, that means if you made 100,000, now you’d make 200,000, or anywhere from five times that. I mean, the exponential result of this, to me, is mind-blowing. Now, there are other factors here, but what I wanna point out, and basically it’s fear, because people are afraid of rejection, you know, when it comes to salespeople, they will say all the time, and I know because I’ve coached, I don’t know how many countless thousands of selling professionals over the years, and they will say things like, I’m gonna prospect on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and they don’t do it. Now, the caveat there is the reason they don’t do it is because for many people, prospecting your lead generation also actually plays into most people’s biggest fear, which is the fear of abandonment or inadequacy, people’s two biggest fears, either abandonment, meaning people are going to reject you or inadequacy, I’m not good enough. But you know, it’s one thing to give your word and say you’re gonna do it, but most people or many people, I should say, say they’re going to do it and they don’t do it because of those reasons, meaning the fear of abandonment or rejection. This is a vital, vital, vital concept. And I also, when I was reading some research on this, Jensen also said that in his opinion, it’s the most overlooked concept in business. Now, I don’t know where you work, maybe you’re self-employed, maybe you’re an entrepreneur, maybe you work for a large company, I don’t know, maybe you work for a small company. But when you look at this, seriously, look at this, you will find that people actually ignoring this concept is like epidemic, whether it be in business or even in our personal lives. So where we wanna work from is, and there’s two aspects to this, and I’ll get to it in just a moment, keeping our word to ourself and keeping our word to others. But where we wanna work from is keeping our word to ourselves. Now, I remember One morning I woke up and it dawned on me what I’m going to share with you right now. See, I grew up in a small Texas farming town, very just simple traditional values and in the town that is, and I think even my family to a large degree, but there were three predominant rules in my family and my parents were very strict about these rules. There weren’t a whole lot of rules, but these rules were enforced and that is do not lie, Do not cheat and do not steal and my parents as I you know, as I just said, we’re very adamant about those rules So I’ve always had this interpretation and opinion of myself that you know integrity is very very important to me Of course, you know, you may or may not know me personally I don’t know but integrity is very very important to me and that I do right by people And I also gravitate towards people that also have extremely high levels of personal integrity. So I remember one morning that I woke up and this is what dawned on me. I woke up and I’m like, you know what? I mean, I’m a really integral guy. And by the way, I don’t know. I mean, when I said it that kind of way, I came out of my mouth, that’s kind of hokey. But I said that and then it dawned on me, you know what? It dawned on me. That’s why I said, you know what? That is that I don’t keep my word to m-an integral guy, you might be to other people, but you’re not integral to yourself. And that was kind of a blow for me. I mean, there’s like a big, aha epiphany awakening that morning, because I had this notion that, you know, you’re an honest guy. That’s a really, as I said, a really, really high value to me. And then when I recognized that, yes, I am honest with other people, but not honest with myself. I mean, Holy cow, I was like, if that’s not an eye opener, I don’t know what is. So the question that I have for you is, to what degree do you actually keep or not keep your word to yourself? Ponder that for a moment, seriously. So if you look at, let’s go to prospecting and lead generation, do you do, you know, if you’re in this, do you do it when you say you’re going to do it? You know, also, I’m gonna jump around here. I don’t use notes for these. And my voice is a little hoarse also, so it’s been a long day today. I’m gonna jump around here. And by the way, I tell you that for a reason, because somebody actually wrote in and said, “Hey, Jim, you sound a little tired. “Can I volunteer time with you?” So it’s interesting to me what things that people pick up. So I’m a little hoarse right now. So anyway, I remember my sisters and I talking one time and I used to always tell my mom that, you know, mom would call me and I’d say, hey mom, I’ve got to go, got a business call, I’ll call you later. And I didn’t even recognize, seriously, I didn’t recognize that I never called her back. And one of my sisters said to me, we were just chatting one day and she said, you know, mom had mentioned that every time you say you’re going to call, she already knows you’re not gonna call. I’m like, what are you talking about? Of course, you know, I’m gonna call mom. And she said, well, of course you call mom, but every time you tell mom you’ll call her back, you’ll call her later, you never do. And I sat down and I’m like, you know, wow, yeah, that is true. And I also asked myself, well, if I do it there, where else in my life do I do that. And I’m going to be, you know, just completely transparent. I’ve come to a place now in my life where, and I’m going to hop around to you a bit, but this will relate to you or many of you as well. I used to be at a place in my life where I would actually over commit and I would tell people, yes, I can do that. I can do this and I can do that and I’ll do all the stuff. And what I would do is by saying that I was out of integrity quite often, because there is no way any, you know, any person could keep up with all the things that I said, said that I would do in the timeframe that I said that I would do them. Now we’re going to keep on going here and take this apart some more. But where I work from at this day and age is I have a really, really a firm, let me put it this way, a firm commitment place, when if I say that I’m going to do it by seven PM on Tuesday night, I am not perfect and I have missed it and I have to go back and clean that deadline up and tell people, you know what, I’m out of integrity. But this day and age, I don’t commit to as much and I don’t speak words unless I know that, you know what, that I can commit when I give people a certain time and day, I don’t speak it unless I know that I can 100 % no question be in integrity with that day. I also wanna point out that I move very, very fast and business. And I have a lot of things going on and a lot of balls in the air right now. And a lot of amazing things are happening. And the podcast is one of them and thank you so much. And it’s very easy for me to get distracted because I have so many things with PR and the podcast and my transformational programs and coaching and everything else that it’s very easy sometimes to get distracted because I have a lot of things going on. And the reason I share that with you is because I’m sure your life is the same. You’ve got many things going on in your life, relative to your life and your business. And when we get in that place, it’s very easy to speak our words and to say, yes, I’m gonna do that or do this or that, but we’re really not actually even conscious or present when we do it. So that’s a place that I’ve been working on in my own life is being fully conscious that when somebody says, hey, when can you do X, Y, Z? Well, you know what? before I just blabber something and say, you know, whatever date I now think about, well, what are the consequences of me saying I can deliver it Tuesday at 5 p.m.? I also want to share with you in full transparency here that I think being honest with myself that mastering self-integrity has been one of the lessons, and I’m just speaking slowly here because I’m thinking through this has been one of the lessons that’s been the biggest challenge for me. And also, you know, I’ve mentioned on other podcasts about my father who was an alcoholic. And the reason I mentioned that is because my father, and I’m not saying all alcoholics are this way. I mean, everyone’s different, but my father literally was like one of the most challenged people in the world when it came to matters of self integrity. I mean, and also commitment was not a strong suit for him. And it is what it is. I mean, he is who he is, but here’s the thing. As a small child, I learned from him that it’s okay to speak X, Y, Z and then actually not get to it and not do it or not follow through. So I learned this very early in life. And as I said, this has been one of the lessons on my front burners in life is to, you know what? get to a place where I’m very, very integral with the words that I speak. And I’m even asking people in my life that, you know what? Hey, if I say I’m gonna do something and I don’t do it, and part of that’s also brain-based, I’m not letting anyone off the hook, including myself, but I’m a general thinker, which means I think in big pictures, I’m not a very good detailed thinker. And it’s very easy for me to actually say I’ll do a lot of details or want to get involved and a lot of details, and maybe more challenging to follow through because my brain thinks more generally. So, what I want to tell you is I’ve taken a broom and a mop and a pail and cleaned a lot of this up over the years, but I want to share with you that this is still a lesson for me and something that I have to keep in front of me, and it’s something that I ask you to really, really look at in your own life, because when I started today’s podcast, I said that nothing works if we are not a person of self-integrity. And if you look at your life, let’s take simple things. And again, you know, which we’re going to talk about in a couple more episodes, again, about habits and brain-based habits. But you look at, let’s just say, working out, for example, how often have you said, “You know what? I’m going to work out on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, or this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to do this when it comes to working out or I’m going to do Pilates or yoga or rebound, whatever it is. And have you noticed that many times that you speak your words and they never happen. So, you know, this is a great wake-up call for a good many of you to look at your own life and to look at your level of self-integrity in your own life. Because if you’re not being self-integral, as I just said, nothing works to the degree that we want wanted to work. What I’ve also noticed over the years as well is I definitely know I can stand by this. When people ask me to do things for them, a friend, well, they don’t do it anymore because we have Uber and Lyft, for the most part, but when people would say, hey, can you pick me up at the airport? You can bank on it. I’m going to be there. Why? Because I told you I would be there. You know, when we were kids, back when you know, in our 20s and maybe, I don’t know, early 30s. And her friend would say, “Hey, you know, can you help me move, you know, move apartments?” Which by the way, I never enjoyed that stuff. But, you know, “Can you help me move my apartment?” I would be there hungover or not because we were young and going out drinking and all that kind of stuff on Friday nights, you know, but I would be there. If I said I’d be there at eight o’clock, I would be there at eight o’clock. And let me give you some examples of that. A couple of places before I go there is in the book, Don Miguel Ruiz, the book, The Four Agreements, I strongly suggest you get that book by Don Miguel Ruiz, R-U-I-Z, and it’s called The Four Agreements. And one of the Four Agreements is to keep your word to yourself. Now, you’ve heard in many episodes, I’ve talked about my brother-in-law, the Shaman, and He had told me one time, he’s like, there are not just four agreements, there are 13 agreements. And all the time, and all the time that I’ve known my brother-in-law and worked with him, I have never one time, and I’m saying this as stone-faced as I can, I have never seen him one time, ever be out of integrity with anyone, including myself or people that I’ve seen him talk to, he has never been out of integrity with me in particular, because I can’t talk, I’m not within 24/7, you know? But I remember like last year, he told me, he goes, I’m gonna get something for you. There’s something that I wanted and it was a healing device. And he goes, I’ll get it for you. And about a month later, he hadn’t gotten it for me. And I thought, wow, in all the years, I’ve never seeing him out of self-integrity. And this is the first time he’s out of self-integrity. And about two weeks later, he came over for dinner and what did he have tucked under his arm? He had tucked under his arm, what he told me he was gonna do for me. And I just look on a marvel at all the years that I’ve seen him maintain such a high level of self-integrity. And I remember him sharing a story with me. When he was young, he grew up in Mexico and he started the pregnancy with shamans when he was six years old. And I remember he told me when he was a teenager that he and some boys they were talking and they were saying, they were drinking and all this kind of stuff. And they were saying, hey, tomorrow morning, we’re gonna go swimming at like 7 a.m. And we’re all gonna meet. And he told me that he talked to his mentor who was a shaman later that night. And he told his mentor that, you know what? We all said we’re gonna go swimming tomorrow morning at 7 a.m., but you know what? They’re all gonna be hung over. They’re not gonna go. So therefore, I’m not gonna go. And his mentor said to him, he said, “It doesn’t matter. “It doesn’t matter whether or not they show up “or not show up. “What matters is that you go because you said “you were going to go. you must be an integrity. And you know, that reminds me of another story. I read somewhere many years ago about Geronimo. And Geronimo in his later years, he lived in Oklahoma. And every week, I believe as I read, every week he used to ride a horse. I mean, that’s what else would he ride, right? Back in the 18, whatever, 70s or 60s or whatever it was, he would ride a horse for two hours to go see his biographer. And I read that one time when he was supposed to go see his biographer, he was like, he had the flu and he was really sick. And he rode his horse for two hours in the snow to see the biographer. And he went to see the biographer and he told the biographer, “I’m really sick today. I cannot sit with you today.” And the biographer said, “Well, how come you, if you’re sick, why don’t you just skip? I mean, why don’t you send me smoke signals or something, you know, why don’t you text me? You know, and Geronimo said, he said, I came here to tell you that I couldn’t be with you today because I told you that I would be with you today. And wow, right? I mean, providing that story is true. And I read it somewhere rather reputable years ago. I mean, he wrote for two hours in the snow, having the flu or whatever, to tell a guy he couldn’t be there, and then he wrote two hours back. And in all honesty, that’s the way that I see my brother-in-law show up, and that’s the model to me is, and I’m suggesting maybe you explore that in your own life, is do I do what I say I’m going to do. Okay, before we dig in a little further here, you’ve heard me say probably for the past 30 days or so, is I’m doing a transformational training starting on September the 4th. As a matter of fact, I’m doing three of them in a row, spread out over I think about four days or so, but the first one is September the 4th, and what I’m going to do in that training is I’m going to take a lot of what you’ve been learning here at the podcast and putting it in a frame for you. So mark your calendar for September the 4th. We’ll be getting you the dates next time, not the dates, but the time next couple of weeks. And I’m really looking forward to actually taking a lot of this and putting it into a workable frame for you in a way that you can actually apply. And actually, hopefully, my intention is that you have an amazing end of the year and an amazing 2020. Okay, let me come back here to the topic for a little bit. When we talk about words. I’m not going to spend a whole lot of time right now on this, but there’s a phrase that I work from. And one of my coaches, my NLP coach, Peggy taught this to me many years ago. She said to me, she said, “We speak our lives into existence.” And when you really think about that, look at your life, and then of course that matriculates in the self-talk. But you look at your life and wherever your life is right now, it is because you have spoken your life into that place. And a place a lot of you have spoken your life into is money’s hard to come by, money’s hard to make. I’ve got to hustle and grind and I’ve got to work like a dog and I have to work 60 hours a week. Take this and let’s just slow down here for a second and really, really get introspective with that. And you notice that your life is exactly the way that you say that it is. My brother-in-law, the Shalom taught me one time many years ago, he shared this with me, and it was just one of those knockout phrases for me. He said, “The world is this way or that way, because you tell yourself the world is this way or that way. Ponder that. My life is this way or that way because I tell myself my life is this way or that way. And if you ponder that and you take a step back and you look at your life, your life is exactly the way that you tell yourself that it is. Now, there’s a difference between ways that you wish it could be different or any of that. But if you literally, and you got really honest with yourself. And you look at where you are, it’s because you have talked yourself into that place with words. Now, an entirely different podcast and episode, and I can’t go into it right now, but something else that I was taught is that everything begins with sound. You probably know me well enough by now is that I don’t endorse any religion. However, in the meaning that Everyone’s gonna find their own path. So let me leave it at that. But in the Bible, there’s a phrase and the phrase is this, in the beginning, there was the word. And I want you to recognize that in everything in your life, before things happened as they did, in the beginning, before that, there was a word. It’s because we speak our lives into existence. So the next question I have for you is, what are you speaking and then are you keeping the words that you’re speaking? One of my transformational coaches, I remember talking to her one day and she was actually on a coaching session with me and she said to me, and this was so powerful to me, is she said that when we give her a word and we don’t keep our word to herself, What we’re really demonstrating is that our word is of no value. Wow. I mean, when I really think about that and then she said that if we give our word and we don’t keep our word, that’s also a matter of low self-esteem because what we’re telling ourselves is that I don’t even value. I don’t even value my own words to myself. Wow, that’s powerful. So let me ask you a couple of questions. What do you do? What do you do when you break your word to yourself? Consider that. Are you kind of like, well, let me clean this up. Let me actually fix this. Let me make this right to myself. Or are you kind of like, and I’ve been there and most people are there. Are you kind of like, eh, all right, no big deal. And have you noticed that when you actually break your word to yourself and you go, eh, no big deal, it’s always easy to continue to break your word? I remember reading this story about a Navy SEAL and this is what I call an unbreakable standard. This is something that I talk about in my coaching is having unbreakable standards, meaning when you of your word, it’s unbreakable. However you’re giving it, it is an unbreakable standard and you keep it no matter what. And I remember the story about a Navy SEAL and he said, he was a young guy and he said that he was gonna run, I don’t know what it was, he was gonna run like three miles a day for the next 90 days. And he woke up one morning and he wasn’t feeling well. And he said, “You know what, I, like a lot of us are gonna rolling over in bed. Should I get up and run today or should I, you know, should I stay in bed? And what he ultimately, well, let me ask you, what do you think he did? Do you think he, you know, he woke up, he was a Navy SEAL, he woke up, he had the flu, and he said he was gonna run every day for 90 days. Do you think that he rolled back over and went to sleep or do you think that he got up and ran? What do you think? Well, as he recounts, he got up and he ran because he’s sad that, you know what, and of course he was a young guy and he heals much quicker than older people, that can even be a belief as well. But he said that he could recover from the flu, and maybe if it’s setting back a day or so from the running, but what he would not recover from is breaking his word to himself. So consider that and look at your own life and where do you break your word to yourself? Another question for you. Do you think that people who achieve amazing things Do you think people and by the way, none of us are perfect? I don’t know a single person of perfect person on this planet But do you think that people that have achieved great things or have achieved what you want to achieve? Do you think they’re in the constant habit of breaking their word to themself. You know, that’s really some really good food for thought. And then something else I want to ask you is this. Is where are you going to be relative to your goal? Whatever it is, health, wellness, you know, weight, work, money, whatever it is. Where are you going to be? Let’s keep this simple. Let’s not look at a year, but where are you going to be 90 days from now? Literally three months in the future if you continue to break your word to yourself. All right, so the big takeaway this week in this particular episode is that really, and if you take a step back and you really get honest with this is the reason that things don’t happen in your life the way that you want them to happen, I don’t mean controlling people or any of that, but I mean, weight goals or whatever or business goals, not always because life’s not black and white, but many times you’re not achieving the outcomes that you want because you’re not keeping your word to yourself. And your transformational takeaway this week is to be 100 % impeccable with your word, because when you do that you are much more likely to get the outcomes you want than to actually keep saying you’re going to do something and not doing it. Okay, so the next episode is another transformational story on Monday, and it’s gonna be Marcus’s story about how he actually started transforming his business by actually transforming his own life from the inside out. So if you’re an entrepreneur, you own your own business, whatever you do, make sure that you actually listen to that episode. All right, thanks for listening to this one, and I’ll catch you over on the next episode. Bye-bye.