Living In Integrity With Your Higher Self

Integrity is a concept that demands our deepest understanding and ongoing commitment. Today, I’m hosting a training on this profound topic, one that is undoubtedly among the most challenging yet essential aspects of personal growth.

Why is Integrity Crucial?

Integrity isn’t just about being truthful in the present moment; it’s about aligning our actions and decisions with the highest version of ourselves. Imagine integrity as a continuous journey rather than a static trait. Once you comprehend the importance of integrity, it transforms your approach to life.

Integrity Towards Your Highest Self

Most people believe integrity should align with their current self. However, I propose considering integrity from a future perspective. What does it mean to hold integrity towards the highest version of yourself? This form of integrity is different from simply being truthful in the moment. It’s about aspiring to become and acting in accordance with your ideal self.

Self vs. Ideal Self

A common piece of advice is to "be yourself." For many, especially in their youth, this can be confusing. At times, we are still figuring out our identity, often imitating others or unsure of our own personality. This is where the concept of the ideal self comes into play.

Most people have a notion of what their ideal self looks like, whether it’s being more confident, powerful, honest, or skillful. This concept helps us aim towards personal growth. For example, some might aspire to be like notable figures such as Jesus, Elon Musk, or Jeff Bezos. Maintaining integrity towards this ideal version of oneself requires commitment and often sacrificing present pleasures for future gains.

Practical Examples

Imagine striving to be fit and strong. Every time you face the temptation of junk food, recalling your ideal self can steer your choices. If your goal is to live up to 130 years like certain inspirational figures, your approach to health and longevity would naturally elevate.

Modeling Integrity in Relationships

Holding integrity toward your ideal self influences all aspects of life, including relationships. Rather than simply "being yourself," challenge and strive to grow as a leader, partner, or parent. This growth often means acknowledging your faults and learning from them.

Modeling integrity also means setting high standards. For instance, if you want to be honest and transparent, you should exhibit these traits to your children, team members, or partners. It can also mean adhering to these values even when the people closest to you do not exhibit the values themselves. Great leaders see and foster the potential in others before they often see it in themselves and lead by example.

Alignment vs. Conformity

Another critical aspect is alignment with your ideal self versus conformity. High achievers typically oppose the status quo, embracing challenges that others may avoid. This nonconformity often requires courage, as societal acceptance is a deep-seated human need. Our biology, shaped by ancestral survival in small clans, craves social acceptance, making nonconformity feel perilous.

Reactionary vs. Intentional

Most people are reactionary, responding to circumstances without introspection. Being intentional requires deliberate thought, and aligning actions with your highest values. This mindset can transform how you handle situations. For example, when facing criticism or setbacks, an intentional approach might involve reflecting on your reaction and aligning it with your ideal self ideally working towards taking time to reflect before reacting so that we can respond with the character traits that align with who we are becoming.

Action-Oriented Integrity

High performers distinguish themselves by consistently leaning towards action, specifically action that is aligned with their higher self and purpose. Whether it’s making swift decisions, having difficult conversations, or moving tasks forward, they prioritize action. This discipline stems from their vision of who they aspire to be and their unwavering commitment to their core values. They are mindful to ensure their action is not founded in responding to situations or other people’s agendas and when they make a mistake they learn from it to continue working towards action-oriented integrity. 

Conclusion

To summarize, living in integrity with your highest self begins with a clear understanding of your ideal version. Align your actions with this vision, challenge conformity, act intentionally, and always prioritize meaningful action. This focus on integrity not only enhances personal growth but also makes you a more effective leader and a more fulfilled individual.

Understanding and striving for this form of integrity helps you value your time, challenge those around you constructively, and ultimately, set a powerful example for others.

Aim high, live in integrity, and continuously evolve towards your best self.

Your coach,

Faisal, CHPC

TRANSCRIPTION

So our topic really today is integrity and I'll have these little posts and it's probably one of my favorite topics. It's one of the hardest things to have in our life. It's one of those things that you will continue to work on for the rest of your life. But once, why is this important? The reason why it's so important is that once you figure this out, once you figure out that you, you, you need to have integrity.

Now, most people think that that needs to be related to what you are right now. No, we're going to kind of twist this a little bit and start looking at it from a future perspective rather than present. We'll talk about what it means to have integrity. Towards the highest version of yourself and integrity towards the highest version of yourself is very different than integrity and in the moment.

And we'll go into the details of that in a little bit. Um, so our, our topic once again is on integrity, um, and integrity towards our highest self. So the first piece of that I want everybody to start thinking about is the first one is self versus ideal self. Um, and so one of the worst pieces of advice that I've gotten, especially as a young man, I remember in my late teens and early twenties, this is like one of those things you hear everywhere.

It was like, just whenever you're going for an interview or a date or whatever, just be yourself. And it wouldn't make any like, what do you mean myself? I don't know how myself is. I had, at that time as a, as a teenager, as somebody who was just trying to figure out, I was pretty much like trying to, like, I, uh, there are parts of me is like, okay, that's me, but parts of me, I was actually copying other people around me.

Like, oh, I, what, if I was like this person, then I'd be good. Uh, or I was trying to develop parts of myself. I didn't know. I didn't know who I was. I didn't know my personality. I, I was Figuring out all that stuff. So when somebody told me, be yourself, it was very odd to me. I was like, I don't know what the hell that means.

And this is why Ideal self is a little bit different. Ideal self one. Most, most people have a, and we know this through psychology, most people have a conception of what that ideal version of A would look like. And this is how naturally, when you ask somebody. What is an ideal version of you five years from now on look like or three years from now on you want to look like Um, they they will either answer it in a couple of different ways like well, I want to be more confident I want to be more powerful.

I want to be more honest or I want to be more Skillful at something so they haven't they have something Uh, they they have a conception of a better version of themselves. Sometimes people will say well I want to be like this person so they have an ideal to go towards or you might have heard in the christian world I want to be like Jesus.

What would Jesus do? Or if you have an ideal in the business world, well, I want to be like Elon Musk or I want to be like whoever Jeff Bezos. Um, so you have either an ideal image or an ideal version of yourself value wise that you aspire towards now, um, integrity to integrity towards your ideal version of you requires you to do something that requires you to put off a lot of current Pleasure things for future gain, but just by the nature of you thinking about it that you know what if I see an ideal version of myself as being fit and strong when you pick up that bite and it's junk food, you will remember that, that, oh, this is not going to take me towards that.

And yeah, Michael's got those almonds. That's Probably I would say you have a value around this is who I want to become. I want to be stronger. I want to be healthier. Um, and when I see, and even Greg, when he thinks about his ideal version, uh, when he, he wants to live up to 130 years old, somebody wants to live up to 130 years old, they have a very different kind of mindset about health than somebody who's like, oh, I might die at 70.

Uh, like it's like, no, you want, you want to keep. Your longevity, you want to do stuff for that. So I bet Greg is driven in another way to take care of himself mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually. So that's an ideal version of you. And it shows up in different versions of you, like none of us. And when people say, just be yourself, that, that also kind of breaks down because a lot of us are asses to be honest, in many situations, I am sometimes.

Uh, it's like at times my wife might say you're an asshole, I'm like, yeah, I was, I shouldn't have acted like that. If I say I just want to be like that, then, then I'm like, uh, oh, then there is no growth in that relationship. I need to get better as a human being. I need to become better as a leader. I need to strive to be better as a, as a, as a husband, as a father, because I'm going to make mistakes.

But how am I growing through that also trains you to start looking for lessons when you think about an ideal version of you. So how do we do this? Well, first of all, you need to have a conception clearly of what that ideal version is. And we do a lot of work in the community here. I'm going to be doing a session next week.

I'm literally walking you through a visualization. We've done this so many times in our community. I do that over and over because just like you would look in a mirror and see a version of you right now, I need your mind to be able to recognize a version of you ideally in five years, 10 years from now on.

So your integrity, which means that you need to be in alignment with that ideal version of you, not just with who you are right now. This also actually solves a lot of problems in relationships. When people are in relationships, business or personal, it's like, Oh, you're trying to change me. Of course you should be changing, but changing for the better.

Not changing for the sake of somebody else's agenda, but for the better. What, and you can decide that. The other person doesn't have to decide that. So, that will also push you to raise your standard in relationships. So, if you're somebody who's always growing and you see a business partner or a life partner around you is not, Guess what?

It's your responsibility to challenge them. It's your responsibility, not in a way to be mean or harsh or anything. Sometimes that challenge means you're just modeling the way you're, you're, if you, for example, if you see yourself to be a healthier version, you're exercising a lot. Um, then that actually shows to people why that's important.

They should see in your example, if you want to, if you want to be, uh, if you and I see an ideal version of you as more honest or truthful or transparent, you need to model that for example, for your kids, for your team members, for your partners. If you want to be, you see your ideal version to be more vulnerable.

You need to model that show that people need to see that that might be the challenge, or sometimes it might be, Hey, somebody in your team does something and you see that there's not a lot of integrity and you see a better version of them before they see it. By the way, great leaders, they see a better version of the people around them before they can even say, see it themselves.

So you can actually go up to them and say, Hey, you know, um, Matt or whoever, I don't mean Matt here, but I'm just making up names here. Uh, you're better than that. I saw you react to this in this way. I know that you're better than that. How, how can you bring that part of you out? That's a challenge. That's that you're appealing to the ideal version of that person that you know exists there.

Even though you might think that, oh, that's, that's some people won't take that. Actually, people want you to believe in them. A lot of times we don't have a lot of standards around us. So everybody, people around us, they don't grow. And our leaders are really good at creating standards in themselves primarily, and then, and the people around them.

The other, uh, and, and once you understand ideal self, where, uh, integrity has. to be aligned with that. But then the next step of that is alignment versus conformity is what I wrote. Alignment conformity. And this is probably one of the hardest pieces of this. Whenever you think about an ideal version of it yourself, usually that goes in opposition to what most people do.

Usually not always the case. Sometimes you're part of groups, especially small groups, advanced elite high performers where they're actually challenging each other. But in most cases, you will notice that you will have to do things that are uncomfortable that most other people will not do around you.

You'll have to start things that looks ridiculous to other people around you. You'll have to focus on things that people might think is a waste of time. You'll have to go towards things that other people might not understand. And the reason why it's so hard, again it comes down to our nature, we're a social species.

We want other people's acceptance and support around us. As soon as we don't get it, our body reacts to that. Our body thinks that, Oh, we're being rejected. My survival is in danger. Why? Because for thousands of years, hundreds, hundreds of hundreds and thousands of years, Human beings have survived in small clan groups.

Our biology has evolved that way, which means that whenever we, we get a sense of rejection, it's actually to our body. It's equivalent to death because we would either get outcasted or we would get, if we get outcasted. It's not like the world that we live in now that's been around just for a few decades or a century at max, um, where even if somebody around you tells you, you know what?

I don't want to have anything to do with you. You just move to another city. We have a much bigger systems in the past. It was not like that. Our biology and our DNA responds differently, um, to those things. So that's why it's actually, that's why they say, um, uh, it takes courage to not conform. Yeah.

Because most people will just follow what other people do for you. And by the nature of the things that you're doing, for example, you're seeking freedom. You're seeking to create a purposeful life, fulfilling life. You're seeking to, uh, to create value out in the world. You're seeking to contribute. Those things are not common out in the world.

Those are, this is why, um, and this book Think and Grow Rich. Napoleon Hill says, at some point you need to ask yourself whether you're a consumer or a contributor. And of course we're both consumer and contributors, but what is going to be your identity out in the world? If you decided you're a contributor, which means that you're building businesses, you're building things that serve people, create things.

That by the nature of that requires you to be okay to, to, to not conform to others. It means that it needs to be, you need to be in alignment just with yourself. And that goes back to an ideal version of yourself. It has nothing to do with other people. And you need to be okay with the discomfort of, other people not accepting you.

I just got up for a call this morning with, um, uh, with somebody that I just met and a potential client. And one of the things that kept repeating in her head was because she had started a business, it wasn't working out a couple of businesses. And she kept saying that people around me think that I'm not smart enough.

And she kept repeating that. I'm like, um, somebody who is on a call, who's learning, who's trying to start things. That is not a definition of smart. Somebody who's not, uh, who's unintelligent. Why do you think they think of you as not smart? And why do you think you have taken that on as an identity? And she's like, well, I guess I hear it a lot.

I'm like, is it possible that they don't understand the things that you're doing? Is it possible that they, they're judging you based on maybe a long time ago versus what you're becoming. They've boxed you into your past versus how you're growing to be. She's like, yeah, I'm trying a lot. I'm trying different things.

I'm learning, I'm applying things. Like, that is the process to growth. It doesn't matter and she's stuck with why don't other people understand around me. Well, there are two things you can do. You can either wait for them to understand you or you can start working on things and start to build the people around you that will understand you in any group.

That doesn't mean you, you, you leave the people that are in your life that don't understand. Sometimes you might have to, but a lot of times it just means that you need a new group of people that would understand you. That's why we have a community like this where people understand each other. Yeah, man.

So remember alignment to your ideal self versus conformity. And the last one is Reactionary, actually, second to last one, reactionary versus intentional. Most people are reactionary, and all of us have been reactionary at one time or another. Reactionary is when somebody shares a news, oh, I made a mistake here, or you hear about a sales not going through, or the economy, or whatever it might be.

And all of a sudden you go into this mode, like, oh my god, what are we going to do? Or somebody around you says something that hurts you or affects you someday and you right away respond without thinking about it, without feeling it, without processing it. Probably one of the hardest things to do. And how are we being intentional?

Again, you're being intentional around a version of you that you're growing towards. So you can actually also come up with some words for yourself. Um, and those words could be, for example, one of my words is awareness. Awareness is an important word for me. Expansive is an important word for me. What does that mean?

That if I'm around somebody, I want to be aware. And does that mean I'll be perfect? No, I'll, I'll make mistakes. I'll act reactionally, but I aspire to be intentional towards becoming a better version of myself. Why is it important? Because most of the time when you're reacting to situations. You're not thinking actually, you're not, uh, an analyzing, you're not doing anything to grow.

What you're doing is you're responding to your hindbrain that thinks that something has gone wrong and you're reacting based on fear, something could go wrong without even analyzing, without using your analytical mind, without you're using your creative mind and without the. Even being curious to understand where that reaction is coming from.

So usually one of the best examples that I have is one of my mentors. He wrote it in his book where somebody he invited on stage who actually was supposed to be somebody who was a spiritual teacher and all of a sudden starts judging one of his audiences. And he was like boiling furious. He's like, first of all, that was not her position to sit there and point out somebody in a crowd of 3000 people and single her out being a spiritual teacher.

And at the end of it, he's like, um, I wanted to say something. I wanted to kick her off the stage, but, but, but you realize that he was reacting to it. He's like, I don't know why I was reacting to it. So he took the whole night, 24 hours, and he processed it. He figured out, is it about me or is it about that person?

Once he processed that the next day in the morning, he knew exactly how to respond. And the way he did it was he actually invited that person who was singled out and empowered her on stage. Sure. And told her that you're the, you're the example of being somebody who's a role model. And the way she lit up, she didn't put the other person down, but she, she pulled this person who was put down up, heated, which meant that he actually thought about it.

He was intentional about, instead of putting the other person down, he, he raised this person up. That's what leaders do generally. But that required him to be intentional, not reactionary to that situation. Of course, he, he never invited the speaker on stage again and, and, and sent, sent a message to her about that.

She crossed the line there, but, um, but that, that is an example of being intentional, how can you not react to people, to circumstances, how can you step back process and think about who am I trying to be, who am I trying to grow to be, is this how my, I, an ideal version of me would do, and sounds so odd because most people wouldn't ask that.

But that's what it takes to grow. And finally, the last one is action. And why did I put that? So if you want to be an integrity, uh, anybody who is a high performer, they're, they're, they're, they're benders towards action there. They always lean towards action. Which means that if they need to make a decision, they want to make it quickly, intentionally, but quickly.

They don't wait around for decisions. If they need to start something, they start. If they need to have a difficult conversation, they have a difficult conversation. If they need to move something forward, they move something forward. If they need to call somebody out, they call and that is very difficult to do because it takes a lot of courage.

If they need to put themselves out in a difficult situation, they will do it because it takes, um, it takes, the reason why they have such a motivation is because they're thinking about Thinking they're not just thinking about right then because right then that's very uncomfortable to do that. How can you get your mind to think beyond that moment?

Well, they're thinking about a vision. They're thinking about the person they're becoming. They're thinking about their values and maybe that's a subconscious process, but they know who they're becoming and they're not willing to compromise who they are at a core or at a highest level to, uh, to just, uh, conform.

To just go along with what people are saying or to not take action. That's why they're so action leaning is that they know that the path towards growth is always action related. They don't just read a book, they go implement it. They don't just look at an action behind them. They learn from it. And they improve.

They don't just make a mistake and say, Oh, well, no, let's let's learn from that. How can I, how can I, how can I learn from that? How can I get better through this mistakes? They take relationships very seriously. Why? Because relationships are an important piece of being human being. It means that they take action to connect.

to grow, to nurture. So they're action leaning. So, um, just as a recap, start thinking about integrity, not just in the moment, but towards an ideal version of yourself. Are you in a line? First of all, do you know what that is? And are you in alignment with that version of you? Um, and start, uh, noticing situations where you're conforming to a group or authority.

And does that align with your ideal version or does that make you feel incongruent? Are you reactionary or intentional in your day to day life? Are you leaning towards action or are you allowing your mind to kind of spin you around? These are the qualities that will allow you to live out to be a more a person who is in integrity with the highest values.

And that's the beginning of growing in that direction. Once you can figure this out, once you can start to go in this direction, you will notice that, um, you become very focused on what matters. You become focused on the things that matter. You become, you start to value your time, you start to value yourself, you start to challenge the people around you, you essentially become a powerful leader or on the way to becoming that powerful leader.