Stop Playing Small: YOU Can Do More! | Iyanla's Vanzant's Top 10 Rules

So it's not selfish to put yourself first.

No, it's self-full.

It's self-full.

It's self-full to be first, to be as good as possible to you, to take care of you. Be willing to do a new thing in a new way, and sometimes you're gonna have to piss people off in the process.

I give all meaning to everything I see. If I see myself as broken, wounded, damaged, crazy, stupid, whatever, I give meaning to that.

Need motivation? Watch a top 10 with Believe Nation. What's up, it's Evan. My one word is believe, and I believe in you. I believe you have an amazing gift inside you that I want to see explode out onto the world. So let's get your motivation to a 10 and get you believing in you. Grab a snack and chew on today's lessons from a woman who was born in the back of a taxi cab in Brooklyn, New York, had a petty criminal for a father who was absent from her life, and had a mother who died from breast cancer while she was 4 years old, to become an An inspirational speaker, author, and TV personality, she's Iyanla Vanzant, and here's my take on her Top 10 Rules of Success Volume 2. Enjoy. Let's kick things off with rule number 1: Know who you are.

You must know who you are. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] I'm not talking about your name or your occupation. I'm not talking about what people say about you on Facebook. I'm not talking about your PIN number. I'm talking about who you are at the core and the essence and the root of your being. Spiritual code of conduct says you have to know who you are and that your behavior cannot make testimony about you that is not the truth of who you are. When you have a spiritual code of conduct and when you know who you are, if you ain't a hoe, you don't act like a hoe. If you ain't a deadbeat daddy, you don't act like a deadbeat daddy. If you ain't a gutter snipe, you don't act like a gutter snipe. Come on now. You know who you are from the inside to the outside. And your behavior is a demonstration of what you believe to be true about you. Spiritual code of conduct says know who you are when somebody calls you out your name in your face.

Rule number 2, my personal favorite: put yourself first.

So it's not selfish to put yourself first.

No, it's self-full.

It's self-full.

It's self-full to be first, to be as good as possible to you, to take to take care of you, to keep you whole and healthy. That doesn't mean that you disregard everything and everyone, but you wanna come with your cup full.

You know, my cup runneth over. What comes out of the cup is for y'all, what's in the cup is mine.

But I gotta keep my cup full.

Don't we do that? Don't we take on other people's stuff and make it about us when we don't know that we matter? When you don't know you matter, you will make somebody else's crazy about you. You got your own stuff to handle. You don't have to take on anybody else's. People violate you when you don't have clear boundaries because you don't tell them how to behave in your life, and they run amok.

They run amok because you don't have clear boundaries.

Rule number 3 is know your worth.

The real self knows the truth. No matter what mask or what face you wear in the world, Your real self knows the truth. And there was a time in my life when I acted like I knew a truth that I didn't know. And the truth I didn't know was the depth of my value and my worth. You see, I had already been an author that had sold over 6 million books, 14 different titles. I had already been on my own television show. I had traveled around the world. I had spoken to hundreds of thousands of people. And still, I did not know or value my own worth. So I had a very big opportunity to go forward and to be on what was once called The Oprah Winfrey Show. Yes, and I went on The Oprah Winfrey Show. And Ms. Winfrey asked me back again and again and again. And eventually, I became part of her Change Your Life faculty. And it was all good. I had written 13 books. I had traveled all over the country. I had done her show repeatedly. But I didn't know my own sense of worth. So what happened? I tried to live in a place that I didn't believe was true for me, and eventually, I crashed and burned. Crashed and burned by leaving the Oprah Winfrey Show and going on to another network and doing another show that didn't even survive a season, all because I didn't know my worth. Now, it would have looked like all sorts of external circumstances. Oh, there was a miscommunication between me and Ms. Winfrey, and the other network was offering me a lot of money, and why shouldn't I take a big business deal? No. Mm-mm. It was about me not knowing my own worth, me not being able to stand in the miracle of being on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" repeatedly among honored teachers without having to work hard for it because that was what I had been taught. The matter with me was that I didn't know how to receive a gift, a blessing, without working hard for it. So when things came to me easily, I blew them up. It's self-sabotage or procrastination or forgetting or whatever it is. That opportunity went away because I didn't know my worth. That's the kind of truth we have to tell each other. We have to be aware of it. We have to acknowledge it. And we have to accept it.

Rule number 4: Do not accept the unacceptable.

You don't have to be broke. You don't have to struggle. You don't have to be sad and sorry. You don't have to take care of everybody just because you've always done it. Be willing to do a new thing in a new way, and sometimes you're gonna have to piss people off in the process. Sometimes. 'Cause people will hold you to your limitations. They will hold you to what they believe to be true about you. Spiritual code of conduct says, do not believe that because it hasn't happened, it won't happen. Renew, recharge your vision. And do not be tricked into thinking that because it's always happened, it has to continue to happen. Spiritual code of conduct says, Do not accept the unacceptable. Do not accommodate and tolerate what doesn't honor you.

Rule number 5 is change your thoughts.

Close your eyes for me for a moment, and I want you to hear this. I give all meaning to everything I see. Breathe. [INHALES] OK. I want you to take that thought out of here with you so that as you go back into your life, that you remember, I give all meaning to everything I see. If I see myself as broken, wounded, damaged, crazy, stupid, whatever, I give meaning to that. So if I want my life to have a new meaning, let me pick thoughts and images that support who I am.

Rule number 6, unpack that baggage.

When something happens with a partner or a friend and even a coworker or supervisor, and you're bringing up all the other times that you've experienced that in the past, that's baggage. When you start your statements about why you do something a certain way or what you're not going to do because of a certain experience, That's baggage. And these are just common everyday things. This isn't even the hard stuff. So I want to give you some unpacking skills for just the common everyday normal baggage that we walk around with as human beings. If one person tells you you're a horse, you don't have to believe that. If two people tell you you're a horse, you may wanna listen. But by the time 3 people tell you that you're a horse, you need to check yourself 'cause I bet you got hay hanging out your mouth and your tail is wagging. In other words, if you keep hearing the same thing from different people at different times about you, you need to unpack that baggage. And don't hear it as criticism or make people wrong or bad. Ask them what they mean. I remember when my grandson, told me that I was mean. And I had heard that, but I never paid any attention to it because moi, I'm Iyanla Vanzant. I can't be mean. But when I sat and I listened to him and I realized, wait a minute, he's not the only one saying that to me, I had to hear it and I had to unpack it. So when you hear 1 or 2 or 3 unrelated people telling you the same thing, Don't dismiss them. Ask them, tell me more about that, because that may be some baggage that I have to unpack.

Rule number 7: Ask for what you want.

You have to ask for what you want and don't settle for what's available or what you think you can get. Say it again. They told me, say it again. A spiritual code of conduct says that you have to ask for what you want and do not settle for something because it's all you think you can have or because it's what's available. If you want it single, don't settle for it if it's married. Let me take a walk. If you want it easy, don't make it hard. And if you want it hard, then you gotta work with it if it's not. Ask for what you want. And ask for the things that are gonna up-level your wattage in life. Don't settle for things that are gonna dim your light. Up-level your wattage. You, you, you— sometimes our light be blind— blinding us. Your light is so brilliant it blinds you. The reflection of it shining back in your eye. And so you get confused, and you be holding on to things that do not reflect your own brilliance. Did you hear what I said? That your light, your gift, your talent Your truth can be so brilliant that it blinds you, and you end up reaching out for, holding on to, taking on, taking care of, housing, feeding, clothing, lending money to stuff that only dims your light.

Rule number 8 is trust yourself.

Often we teach, preach, say what we most need to learn. What was it about trust that you needed to learn for yourself.

I grew up thinking that a woman was my mother who was not. I grew up thinking that there was something wrong with me because of— God only knows why. My life was—

Actually, you explained why so well in reading about your grandmother. I think she was related to my grandmother. In all the ways that you make children feel inadequate.

Inadequate.

Bad. I was bad.

Yeah.

I was bad. Yeah. I had the devil in me. Yeah. I had the devil in me, and she was gonna beat it out of me.

Because she was a woman who, because of the times in which she was raised and the suppression and oppression, had learned that it was best to go through the world keeping quiet.

Keep quiet.

Be who they want you to be. Had I knuckled down, had I really given in to— the restrictions and limitations placed on me, I wouldn't be who I am today. Mm-hmm. It was my talking that saved me. Here was the, you know, the classic, "Shut up. You talk too much.

Shut up.

Why you talk so much? You've always got something to say." And today, people pay me, wow, to hear me speak. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

If I had shut up as a child, that may not have ever happened.

So you learned that you needed to learn to trust yourself.

Rule number 9: Use feedback to improve.

Even when it doesn't feel good, feedback can be a really, really good thing. But first, I want us to make a distinction between feedback and criticism, because I think that's important. Feedback is the energy or the return energy of what's put out. This means that feedback is information about or reactions to our state of being. And our performance and our way of being in relationship. Feedback comes to us as a response or a reaction or sometimes as comments or a review of what we do and how we show up at any given moment. And feedback has a purpose. The purpose of feedback is to provide us with guidance or direction that will serve as the influence for modification or change in our behavior and in our energy. So in other words, feedback is a cue that something we do or say or how we behave needs to change. That's all it is. Now that sounds pretty harmless, but, but here comes the challenge. Most feedback either feels or sounds critical, which means that it's going to trigger a toxic memory or a feeling, which then motivates us to discount the feedback we're receiving. You know, we can't even hear it. So what is criticism then? If feedback is criticism, what is criticism? Criticism is feedback that demoralizes, condemns, judges, or blames. It's feedback that is consciously or unconsciously offered to manipulate, or control. That's the difference. Where feedback is offered to motivate correction or change, criticism is offered to manipulate and control. And in many, many cases, while what people offer as constructive criticism, what they wanna give us, it's actually criticizes us, and that's what leads to a mental or emotional shutdown, and we can lose the value of what's being offered because criticism is an offering. Now, here's the good news: all criticism is feedback. And here's the bad news: all criticism is feedback. What I mean is this: whether it's positive or negative, productive or or unproductive. All feedback is telling you something you need to know about yourself. And what you hear and how you hear it has nothing to do with who's saying it. All feedback is about who you be and how you be. And it's bringing that to your awareness. There's something you need to change, beloved. Whether it is coming at you from your mother or your sister or your boss or your coworker or your partner, feedback is a source of information for self-improvement, and it can be received and used as the foundation for altering and changing your way of being or specific course of behavior.

And rule number 10, the last one before the bonus clips: have a morning routine.

Do you have a morning ritual?

Oh, yes. Absolutely. Soon as my eyes open, 23rd Psalm. Soon as my eyes open, I do it. And then I usually go— I go sage my house out because I don't know what was floating around in there in the night because, you know, I live out in the bushes like you. Then I make my coffee. I do love my morning coffee. And then I read my Course in Miracles lesson for the day. I read my Jesus Calling. And then I put my Bible to my head and open it. And wherever it opens, that's what I read. And then I go downstairs. And sometimes I get on the treadmill.

And sometimes I just dust it off.

But I always get on my trampoline and do my 15 minutes there. And then I get on my inversion table and I hang upside down.

Really?

Yeah, because to rush the blood to my head and keep me from getting wrinkled. And then I'm off for my day.

Now I've got some special Iyanla bonus clips for you. But before that, my question of the day for you is, what is your morning routine? What is the single thing that you have to do every single morning? Leave it down in the comments below. I'm really curious to find out. Thank you guys so much for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love. I'll see you soon. And enjoy the bonus clips.

Do ground yourself spiritually every day. That means when you get up in the morning, connect with something bigger, greater, grander than you. Ground yourself spiritually every day. That means believe in, trust in, connect to something bigger than you, something grander, something more divine, something that makes your divinity worthwhile. If you don't, you can be knocked off center by everything that comes your way.

We've all had that experience where it just seems that we're not moving we're holding on, or where no matter what we do, it doesn't seem to be advancing us. This is what we call the experience of being stuck, of not being able to move or manifest or express or experience that which we desire to do. Being stuck is both a mental experience, an emotional experience, and sometimes a physical experience. And there are 3 reasons that we we get stuck. Number one, we really don't know who we are. When you don't know who you are, you don't know what you are capable of, and you get stuck in your limited perceptions of yourself and reality. Number two, when you don't want to find out who you are, and you won't take the risk to push yourself beyond what you know, and when you are stuck on your story, stuck on your sadness, stuck on being stuck. You don't want to know who you are, so you won't push yourself. You'll stay where it's comfortable. You'll stay where it's familiar. Boy, will you be stuck. And the other reason that we get stuck is because we live down to other people's expectations of us. How many times have we been told as children, you can't do that, don't do that, you can't do that, you won't do that, they won't let me? And we believe that, and we stay stuck. Raise your standard. Apple, at the core, its core value is that we believe that people with passion can change the world for the better. Not one drop of my self-worth depends on your acceptance of me. I don't ever give up. I'd have to be dead or completely incapacitated.

Hey, Believe Nation, if you want to see my all-time favorite top 10 rules of success, I have a very special secret video for you. These are the individual clips that I have personally learned the most from and applied to my life and my business. Check the link in the description for details.