Peer pressure makes you act against your values. The speaker offers a simple fix: fill in "Who I am is ___, ___, ___" with your core attributes. People who can answer this stay anchored to themselves instead of chasing external validation.
So now my group, my roommates, whoever I'm hanging with, they're all like, oh, you got to do it. I mean, this, right? And be like, here's the line that I love teaching audiences. We started adding this in about a year ago. In fact, we did it here with the incoming class last year. When you're in those moments, all of us should stop and ask this simple question. Who I am is blank, blank, blank. Most 40-year-olds can't answer that. Seriously. If I can answer that, in those moments, I can stop and remind myself what the answer is. And you can't talk me into anything because I know who I am. But if I don't know who I am, I'll do whatever the group wants me to do because it gives me ego, it gives me self-esteem, because I don't know who I am, so at least you'll like me, and it gives me peer points. But if I know who I am, you can't talk me into anything.
