Identity First: How to Finally Follow Through

Hey, guys. Welcome to Unfiltered and Unshakable. This is episode 10. This is going to be the final episode of the first batch of them. There's going to be way more coming down the pipeline. But today, I want to end this first run with something that's kind of really an important shift. And it's going to be a little longer and a little more verbose, but it's an important shift that you'll, you know, that you'll ever make in your business, in your life. And it's not a tactic, it's not a platform, it's not a hack, it's not a discipline. It's your identity. Because, look, the truth is this. Most people are trying to change their results without ever changing the person responsible for creating them. Yeah. So let's get right into it. I think at least, you know, years ago, I worked with somebody. It was one of my clients, private clients, that had every tool in, every. Every tool you could think of, every course they took, every guru they sat in a room with, from nobodies to Tony Robbins, right? And everybody in between. They hired dozens of other companies in the past. They had every strategy known to mankind. But this person in particular, he couldn't stay consistent for more than a couple of days. He'd do something once. He'd feel discouraged, he'd fall off and then blame the strategy. Until one day he said this exact line that became a turning point. And this was literally sitting in a meeting. And I wrote it down. And I've kept it. I've kept this in. It's not a little black book. I use, like, drawing books when I sit in public rooms with people, and now the iPad. But I had this on a piece of paper for about 20 years. I don't think I'm the kind of person who follows through. Boom, there. It was not a strategy problem. It was an identity problem. And from that moment forward, everything we did changed. When he started asking himself, what would the version of me that does follow through do right now? Because, look, for years he didn't, and he was still successful, despite, you know, it's always the nose, despite your face. Like, he was still a successful dude. Like, he had a great business. But when he started saying to himself, what would the version of me that does follow through do right now? Not tomorrow, not when he felt ready now. Identity first, action second, results third. And that's, you know, for a lot of what I talk about, that's a big part of rise, and it's a big part of Becoming unshakable. Yeah. It's about being able to see those moments and taking control of them for yourself, for your business, for your family, for your future, for your own well being in life. So let's talk today a little bit about the identity shift. You don't rise to your goals, you fall to the level of your identity. Right? That's typically going to be that the identity you hold is the behavior in which you produce. So if you see yourself as somebody who tries, you're going to try. If you see yourself as somebody who's inconsistent, well, you're going to act that way too. And if your view is overwhelmed, well, then your brain's going to serve you proof that you are overwhelmed over and over again. Because identity becomes a filter. It decides what feels normal to you. So if success doesn't feel normal, your body's going to fight it. It's going to want you to fail. If consistency isn't a part of your identity, you're going to sabotage it every single, single time. But guess what? The execution, it gets easier as your identity expands. Nobody needs motivation to brush their teeth. Why? Because every one of us, our identity is, I'm a person who takes care of myself. I brush my teeth, I wash my hair. I use beautiful argan oil to keep my curls tight. You know, this is what we identify. It's part of our being, it's part of how we were raised. It's part of. Think about that. It's part of how we were raised. So how are you raising yourself in your business? And how are you raising yourself as a professional when like you brush your teeth but you don't, you're not consistent for your business. Each one takes a couple of minutes, but one was more important than the other. So you want the identity to be, I'm a person who takes care of myself because the identity eliminates resistance. It makes the action automatically. And it's why consistency is so damn hard for people who don't identify as consistent. Because if you don't feel it in the first place, how the hell are you going to do it? So when I think about Rise and everything I've been doing in this framework and the things I've been building and modeling and going nuts on for the last gosh or whatever, this is how you're going to apply it to identity. All right, this is going to be that golden nugget to end the first 10 episodes. And I hope this helps for you. Get a pen and paper, do whatever you need to do this transcription is available. First you're going to recognize what identity are you currently operating from. Well, I'm inconsistent. Nope. Steve, I'm bad at content. I'm overwhelmed. But I don't like being visible. Right. That's a lot of people. I enjoyed being, personally, I enjoyed, Steve, enjoyed being invisible to 99% of the universe and only visible to the 1% that had me behind closed doors for decades. I loved it because people don't know what I do for a living when they see me in the street. My neighbors, the other parents in my daughter's school, nobody has a clue what, what I've done with the last 20 years of my career other than I live in the same neighborhood as them and I'm the long haired rock and roll guy that pulls up in a muscle car with skid row blasting while they're, you know, sitting in their electric cars listening to Yanni. Nothing against Yanni, he's great. It's, it's just a different energy and vibe. Right? We're all energy beings. And yeah, my energy might be a little bit out there, but either way you gotta recognize I don't like being visible. You gotta interrupt. Stop repeating this story to yourself all the time. Stop telling yourself you're inconsistent and that you suck at content. You don't suck at content. You suck at owning the fact that your content might actually be good. Yeah. Stop telling others that version of you even exists. Don't tell your co workers, oh, I wish I could be more consistent in content. The time you spend bitching and moaning about that, you could have just done a five minute post and you know, call bullshit. Call the bullshit. Call it right now. Call bullshit on the outdated identity call, just yell it. If you're in a car right now, just be like, yeah, this part of me is bullshit and I'm going to fix it. Because then we're going to go to the shift, right? Because we're rising. We're going to adopt the identity of the new person we're becoming. So I'm the kind of person who shows up, I follow through, I execute, even when it's not perfect and I don't break promises to myself that. Let me tell you something, that is the number one thing we all do and we all suffer from and nobody wants to admit it. It is the elephant in the room. It's the thing that, that freaking destroys dreams, it destroys families, it destroys businesses, it destroys people's souls. It probably puts people in a pine box years earlier because you break the promises to yourself when you're like, I want to do this for myself and my family. Oh, but I'm too afraid to post. Well, did you want to do it for them or not? Last but not least, execute act from the upgraded Identity now. Today, this moment forward. Small actions, small wins, small proof of concept. Every tiny execution is going to reinforce your new self image. And you don't wait to become unshakable. You can't just sit around like, look, the whole philosophy of what I talk about is for people that have personal empowerment to build upon themselves, to look within and to just find that spark, find that source of evidence, right? It's like the transformers needing the AllSpark. Find your AllSpark, grab it with both hands and say, let's ride, baby. Because that's how you're gonna become unshakable. You become unshakable when you take the actions to become unshakable. You can't just sit on your hands and sit on your ass and wait for it to happen, because it's not gonna happen. You have to prove it to yourself through motion. Those small actions, those small wins, and those itty bitty bits of proof every single day that make you say to I posted online today. You don't have to sit there. You're not a social media pro. Don't sit there with 80 phones posting, you know, perfectly on each platform to. To be able to eke out every drop of the algorithm. Who cares? Just get, get a tool. Get a tool like Metricool and set up all your accounts on it and make one graphic that takes you five minutes, you know, or post a video right from your phone into Metricool onto your socials. Boom. Done. Make it simple. Prove it to yourself through the motion and through the actions. That's how you become unshakable. So let's talk about a practical application of this. Here's an exercise that you could start doing so you could hit pause after each one of these. Hit pause on the show and take a minute, get yourself a pen and paper, open up your phone, notes, iPad, you know, whatever you like. The remarkables. Those are cool. Now, I want you to write your old identity that you're dropping, the current one, the one that you're sitting with right now going, well, screw me, man. This, this is the stuff I gotta get away from doing moving forward. This is, this is what I'm gonna use, you know, for the new year. This is gonna be that promise I make to myself. Only thing is, I don't believe in doing those things on the new Year. I believe in doing those the day that I feel motivated. Right. So if you hear this, the day it comes out, or if you hear this, I don't care. Today and right now is when I want you to be doing this, not waiting. So hit pause. Write down one sentence. Brutally honest. Beat yourself up. Write the old identity that you're dropping. And if you've got multiple parts of your identity that you want to drop, maybe you need an extra minute, maybe you need an extra sentence. It's okay. We're here to effect change in ourselves and to become better people. Okay, you're back. I'm just gonna presume you're back because I'm just gonna keep talking. Write the new identity you're claiming. Also, try to keep it brief. One sentence. You know, think about it, like, where do you want to go? What do you want to be next? We don't have to be the same person just because that was who you were in college or that's who you were when you started your career, and that's who you were when you started your current job. You don't have to be the same person. You know, your current job, your current business, your current status is not what you have to be tomorrow. Tomorrow you could be whatever the hell you want to be if you put your mind to it. And I firmly believe that. I believe in my heart of hearts, because I've seen it happen for so many people that I've personally helped guide through this part of their lives, that tomorrow can be completely different than today. And tomorrow could be a whole new beginning. So choose one action today that the upgraded identity would do. Not 10 things, not a whole plan, just one item. Go out and do it. Lock in as evidence, repeat it daily. And that's how you install your new identity. So the riff of this episode, the one ending 10 episodes now, identity always beats intention. Become the person who follows through and execution becomes automatic. And that's it, guys. That's all I got for you. Have a wonderful time. Thank you. So that's it, folks. That is the. That's episode 10. And honestly, it might be the most important episode of this first batch, because if your identity shifts, your clarity is going to shift, your confidence is going to shift, your consistency is going to shift, and your execution is going to shift. And then your entire business and your entire being is going to change with it. This is what being unshakable actually means to me. Right? That's the whole. The whole point of becoming unshakable is owning who you are. And running with it. So if this hit you, go back through the first set of episodes again. You'll hear things that you might not have heard ready or been ready for the first time. You might hear things a different way. And if you want the community that reinforces this new identity that you're building, you could join me at unshakeableaf. Just go to stevelicksman.com and in the top right corner, click, become unshakable and you can join the community for free. And I can't wait to see you there. And as far as this goes, this was episode 10. Thank you so much for being a part of this. I truly couldn't say thank you enough times or have enough gratitude or appreciation for anybody who's listened to all 10. You're more than welcome to DM me anytime. Send me a message, tag me on social media, whatever floats your boat. I am like a vampire that just appears. And yeah, that's that. Thank you for 10 episodes, folks. And here's to the next 10. Have a wonderful day. I'm Steve Lichtman, and this was unfiltered and unshakable.