We started this year’s Episodes looking into what we need to do to create the possibility of success in 2018 with our self storage business.

And it was not knowing specific self storage ninja tactics.

If you didn’t read or see last week’s Episode, please click here.

We explored distinguishing the disempowering belief systems that have blocked prosperity and success from manifesting in our lives and our business and replacing them with empowering ones.

But here is what I have seen.

If someone does not have a deep rooted, fundamental belief that they deserve the riches that life has to offer us, they don’t ever experience it.

One has to have empowering beliefs systems in place for the possibility of Prosperity, Success, and True Wealth to even have a chance. But with low self-worth, a fundamental belief we do not deserve prosperity, anything good we get, prosperity will not stay.

Again, I can hear you thinking, that is not me.

Well, there are very few of us that can’t stand some improvement in self-worth.

I am not a psychologist or doctor. I have not been trained clinically in this realm.

But I have done a lot of work, and continue to do so.

I am also not interested in how or why low self-worth seems to permeate our society.

I am sure it has to do with the conversations we are born into.

I had good parents, but they also perpetuated the conversations they were living into.  And that they were unaware of how that impacted me negatively.

I really don’t care. I invite you not to burn many calories figuring out why and where anything that impacted you in a negative way in terms of your self-worth came from.

It won’t make a difference in changing it. It is just intellectually satisfying and in some ways takes us off the hook for being responsible for it.

What makes the difference is to change.

Now there are a lot of techniques out there for improving self-worth, and many are good.

In fact, a process I use and explained in Episode 140, works well when you actually distinguish a thought or belief you have seen that limits your self-worth.

But here is what I have seen that really begins to make the difference immediately.

Do what you say you are going to do.

Integrity

I was trained that it is the true definition of integrity. When you say you are going to do something, who you are makes sure it is done.

Most importantly, when you say to yourself you are going to do something, who you are to yourself is it is done.

The reality is that most of us have a very weak relationship to what we say.

If we have a 9 AM appointment, that means somewhere around 9.

If I said I am going to lose 10 pounds, “I just hope I lose something and not gain any more.”

If I say I am going to make $100,000, who I am for myself is, “I hope I make something more than I am making now.”

If I say, this is the year I make the self storage business happen, who I am for myself is, “I sure hope something happens this year.”

We collectively let each other off the hook and relate to what we and others say in this manner.

This goes on for most people, year after year. This creates an impact.

When I am late to a call, I know there is an impact for the person on the other end of the call. They organized their life to be on the call, and when I am not there, there is an impact.

If you year after year, never truly know when you say something is going to happen, if it will or not, there is an impact on you.

What is it?

There are a lot of answers, but one of them is low self-worth.

It begins to impact your relationship to yourself. We start not wanting to put ourselves in  a position to really make quantum leaps in the quality of our lives.  We feel, or know, it probably won’t really happen anyway.

So we settle. We settle for a life that is OK. Not great, but It works.

It’s nowhere near the life we could have, the life we want, or the life we deserve.

Now you may say, wow, that’s pretty extreme. You mean to say if I show up on time to my appointments, my life can be wonderful?

Well…Yes.

The Power of Integrity

Here is what I am saying.

When there is integrity in place, life works.

Integrity is not good or bad, or being a good person and not being a bad person. Or even keeping promises.

Integrity is workability.

When the car is maintained well, oil changed, tires rotated, it works. There is integrity in the situation.

When the spokes of a bicycle wheel are all in place, the wheel works, and the bicycle works. There is integrity there.

Where there is integrity, there is workability.

Things work.

Life works.

Where there is no integrity, there is no workability. Things don’t work.

Doing what you say you are going to do, by when you say you are going to do it, creates workability. It creates integrity.

Where there is integrity there is workability. Life works.

Business works.

If who you are is, “when I say something, it is done” and you will do whatever you need to to make it happen…well that creates real integrity.

That creates real workability.

And over time, who you are for yourself is just that. When I say something, who I am for myself is IT IS DONE.

Now that is a life with integrity. Workability.

“Because I said it, there is only time between now and when it will be.”

That is a person with high self-worth as well. Not a boastful, puffed up, I am great kind of “self-worth”, but a quite, powerful underlying Integrity that creates strong self-worth.

Now that takes some muscle. It takes some development.

But it starts with the small things, not the big things.

It starts with showing up at 9 AM.

What It Looks Like In Real Life

Now some pro tips here:

Putting “Integrity” back into all areas of life takes something.

And it doesn’t mean you are never late, you are perfect all the time, or you never make mistakes.

It means is your relationship to what you say (and ultimately what you think because that is a function of what you say), alters.

It doesn’t mean if I can’t be there at 9 AM I am now a bad person with no “Integrity”.

Integrity is the relationship to what you say. That is where the workability is. Not in just being there at 9, but in the fact you “said,” you would be there (i.e. your “word”).

If you have a powerful relationship to your “word”, and your relationship to you word is a sacred bond, you realize you are not going to be at your meeting at 9 AM, what would you do?

Well, it is simple.

You would let the person know you are not going to be there at 9 AM and tell them by when you will be there.

That puts “Integrity” into the situation because you are still relating to your word as important and are restating what will be so in reality.

Now I know this might sound crazy, but really stop a minute and think about it.

Imagine a life where you have had a year of being someone who actually relates to what they say to people and to themselves as sacred.

When you say something: something about your business, or your relationships, or to yourself, who you are “that is a sacred bond and it will be so”; what do you think your self-worth will be like?

It will be altered, right?

To live a powerful life, and you need a powerful life to create a self storage business, you need a strong foundation and high self-worth.

The strong foundation of self-worth is based in integrity and workability.

I recently realized I had let my wife down. I have been so focused on business and all I have created in that realm, that what I say to my wife, who I say is the “most important person in my life”, has become less important than what I say in business.

It has lost integrity.

Again, it is the small things that are way more important than the big things.

Last year, I put up Christmas decorations outside, and they didn’t come down until towards the end of January.

“I was too busy”.

This year my wife asked me to get them down before New Years Day.

When she asked that, I said a quick, not very conscious “sure” without thinking much about it.

But I saw her look.

At that moment, I saw, that she had absolutely no confidence it would happen. My “word” with her was weak.

It made me realize that in work, I am very focused on having power and integrity there. But, I have let it slide with the most important person in my life.

Now when the Christmas decoration actually come down makes no difference at all to the quality our life.

But my wife’s belief in me and what I say to her is one of the most important things in my life.

So I told myself to power up and start relating to everything I say to her as sacred.

Well, Dec. 31 came and the decorations were not down. That day it was 7 degrees with the wind blowing, but the decorations came down.

I never said anything about it to her.   But doing that was a sacred moment for me because I was restoring Integrity in our relationship.

A few days later she thanked me for getting them down. Noting more said. But next year, do you think I will get that look from her?

Tomorrow when I tell her something, will there be more trust in it?

Real Power and Self Worth

If I can be that person all the time in every area of my life, not only is there workability.  Others will relate to me as someone who will do what he says.  And not only will I relate to myself as someone who does what I say; …What I actually say in the world has real power.

A life lived with real Integrity, gives power to what is said. So when I say I will have a $60 million self storage portfolio by 2020; the fact it is been declared on a bedrock if Integrity, means “It Will Be So”.

I, and the Universe don’t know how it will happen. But because when there is that much Integrity and workability in place (i.e. what is required for self-worth by the way), it will happen.

That is the ultimate possibility of a life lived inside “Integrity” at this level.

Start this year with one area of your life you want to restore Integrity to.

Begin to relate to that area of your life differently. Don’t talk loosely or make promises loosely. Be very intentional, and when you say something, relate to it as a sacred bond.

Don’t tell people you are doing this, just do it.

Get some traction in that area, then expand.

If you did nothing but make 2018 about this, your life will be totally altered on Dec. 31. no matter what the weather is like.