Personal Alignment & Congruency | The Better Than Rich Show Ep. 14

Live Your Values

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Live Your Values 〰️

Personal Alignment & Congruency

There is more to a fulfilling life than a productive and well-run business that produces financial wealth. Congruence helps create a fulfilling life.

Personal Congruence is when a person’s actions and values are aligned. The opposite is hypocrisy, which is when people do or say they will be one way while acting completely differently.

Congruence is the question of who we are when no one is watching. What standard do we hold ourselves to and how often are those standards forgotten or bypassed? What do we do that aligns our beliefs with our everyday actions? What cycle are we creating?

Am I holding the agreements that I'm initially making with myself?

We aren’t one or the other either, at times we will be super congruent and then at others, we can feel like hypocrites, whenever we fall out of routine or don’t uphold those consistent standards, which is completely fine. It is unrealistic to expect 100% out of ourselves at all times, but what matters is how we recover, how quickly we break that pattern to get back to personal congruence.

The art of recovery is what’s most important when personal congruence is low. Having a drop-down menu of recovery is important because when congruence is low the ego is normally in control. The ego might not want to apologize or be reconciled, that is why having the recovery list performed is important. Recovery is useless if the changes we make don’t stick, so when we turn a new leaf we need to keep the course.

The marketplace is built on trust, and there is no better way to build trust than being congruent. No one wants to work with someone who has a realization of their current hypocrisy, says they will change, and ends up acting the same two weeks later. To start building trust we need to be willing to admit faults and places for improvement. This means we should be consistently conditioning our identity so we can catch those faults.

Identity conditioning helps align our identity with our values. Identity is who we believe we are or, knowing what our contribution or life means or is within the collective. We can say that our values are whatever we want, and most people do, but how much are we actually living?

We can say our values are family, health, and religion, but if our calendar doesn’t match up they aren’t true. The goal is to be intentional with our identity.

What could I do today to become Better Than Rich? How can I leave today better than yesterday?

Or, we can choose the opposite which would be ignoring congruence altogether. If we ignore congruence for a few weeks, eventually we won’t be able to recognize the person we become, nor would we like that person.

Sometimes, people aren’t intentionally living outside of their values, it’s that they forget what their values were because they don’t have a constant reminder. We can relate our values to showers, if we don’t shower we stink, and the same goes for if we aren’t reminded of our values.

Keeping Track Of Our Relationship With Ourselves

There are plenty of ways to check in with ourselves, like journaling, meditation, or even contemporary thought. The reason we do these tasks is to develop an intimate relationship with our conscience. We want to analyze our actions, why we do them, and what values are reflected by that action. What did we do that was bad or good and how did we end up with these behaviors?

Taking constant stock of our actions can be convicting, but to build that intimate relationship with our conscience can also be super rewarding and is the only way to live a fulfilled and congruent life. Watching the reactions of our actions is also a great way to keep stock of our actions and self-reflect. If we receive a negative reaction to our action we should assume we did something wrong to ensure we lead with curiosity instead of judgment. We all have insecurities and places to learn and people will appreciate that level of transparency and congruence.

This is one of those situations where we need to decide which hard we want to pick, the difficulty that is involved with the transformation of improving ourselves, or the consequences that come with not putting our best foot forward in living a fulfilling and congruent life.

When we get good at us vs. us we can start reflecting that congruence within our conversation, relationships, and businesses.

Bringing Congruence Into Your Business

Who we are should never change. The way we show up to one thing should be the way we show up to everything. Our values don’t change when we walk into the office space or log in to our program. The roles that we play do change but we shouldn’t act drastically different at different times or with different groups of people.

People should get to experience the most congruent version of us. We can bring our humble, vulnerable, personal growth person to the workplace as well. Think about the original purpose, mission, or vision for starting the enterprise and find a way to include personal growth that ties into the original goal. The business is a vehicle for our personal mission.

We must believe that whatever we are offering to the marketplace adds tremendous value because the marketplace will respond to whatever problem we solve.

Mike Abramowitz 0:11
Welcome to the better than rich show with your hosts Andrew Biggs and Mike Abramowitz. The better than rich show helps ambitious leaders who are on a mission to leave the world better than they found it changed their perspective on what's important, increase their income and impact and systemize their life and business. If you've ever struggled with finding your purpose and felt disconnected or distracted or found yourself going through the motions, this show will remind you that what you do matters and will re inspire you to chase your highest dreams. It's time for you to become better than rich.

Andrew Biggs 0:46
Alright, welcome back, everyone to the better the rich Show. I'm your host, Andrew Biggs and I'm here with my co host, Mike Abramowitz. Mike, how are you today?

Mike Abramowitz 0:52
Good. It's sunny here in Jacksonville, Florida, where I'm streaming live from today. So that's right.

Andrew Biggs 0:59
It's pretty good. Little traveling and you have a ski trip or something coming up this weekend. Is that right?

Mike Abramowitz 1:04
Yeah. So we made our way up to Seville, with James, his first road trip, made it here to grandma's house. So it's about four hours. I've made it here. And then I fly out tomorrow morning for a boy's weekend and in the mountains in Denver, and don't ski Vail and have a good time. So we'll miss you.

Andrew Biggs 1:23
Fantastic. Yeah, I wish I could make it out. But maybe next time. Well, how about have fun. And today, I'm super excited to unpack this topic. You know, we've been really diving deep on various different business related topics, you know, talking about like systemization, and how to optimize user experience and all these things. And today, we wanted to hit on the other side of what it means to be better than rich. And that is really about how to live a fulfilled life. Right? Not just a successful life. Because we want you to be rich, right? Everyone listening, hear us loud and clear. We want you to be rich. But we also want you to be better than rich. And so today we're going to kind of talk about what that means a little bit. And we're going to talk about the power of congruent see. And what is congruent, see, why does it matter? And how can you live it in your daily life? Mike, when we bring up the topic of concurrency, I know you were fired up when I threw this topic out there as a potential and for us. Why are you so excited to talk about concurrency? And how do you even define concurrency? What does it kick us off?

Mike Abramowitz 2:20
Well, the reason why I'm excited is because when I brought it up, I was like, yeah, hey, you know, I'm going to talk about your concurrency and they're like, What the hell is that? I think that's, that's a perfect reason why we need to talk about it is a short, unspoken, or unknown to some people in the public space. But I was recently having a conversation with one of my new clients about the four tools of influence the rapport questions, state management, and number four is personal congruency. Meaning that I believe you benefit more than me when we're talking about interaction with a product or service. So poor questions, state management, personal congruency, meaning you benefit more than me. So under that umbrella of having this internal conviction of personal congruency that I'm aligned with my product or service, that's what it comes in an influential standpoint. But it means when you have person congruency with yourself, it's really my values and my actions are very much in a line are also known as congruent. So what I say, and what I do, are 100% aligned or congruent. And that's what personal congruency is to me. And that's why I'm really excited about jamming on that today. Because I think too often people say one thing, but do something else. I don't know if you are in agreement with that, where we witnessed that in places around us. But many people live in the opposite of concurrency, which I would call hypocrisy, and they live more of a more of that type of lifestyle. So I think it's a valid place to start.

Andrew Biggs 3:57
Right? And so where I come in, on this is like, okay, yeah, concurrency versus hypocrisy, right? It's a very, a stark contrast to grow and see is doing what you say you're gonna do. It's following through on your word, is living a life that's in accordance with your beliefs? The old question of who are you when no one's watching is a really, really important one. And to be frank, what I noticed a lot of times is, it's the difference between somebody kind of experiencing a mild bit of success and experiencing huge success is the difference between somebody kind of scraping by not just financially and success wise, career wise, but just mentally, spiritually, emotionally, really feeling like they're happy and fulfilled. Um, you know, are they feeling that way? They're probably living a congruent life, their values and their actions are probably aligned. And you know, if you're not Doing that you're going to feel like a hypocrite. And when you feel like a hypocrite, you can't help but kind of hate yourself. And by the way, you know, Mike's bringing up, you know, this idea of if you grew in Seavers typography. And certainly, I think there's a lot of hypocrisy out there in the marketplace in the world in general. But I would also say, at times, I feel like I'm a hypocrite, right? At times, I'm not always living up to what I think is my highest values. And so I also want to help the audience understand that, like, you're not in either camp, like one or the other, you're going to kind of fluctuate from like, being super congruent, and on it and kind of being off. And then, but when you find yourself off, how do you bring yourself back? Right? How do you rectify the wrongs that you've made, and the mistake and the misstep, and maybe the veil that's been kind of pulled over your eyes? So these are all very interesting topics that I was editing, pitching, catch what comes up for you, Mike?

Mike Abramowitz 5:57
Yeah, and when you say that it's, I think about the art of recovery, I think the art of recovery is important that if you if you do find yourself, re reaping the consequences of living through the lens of hypocrisy for a moment, which we know we have, because we have the ability of having conscious choice, and sometimes we don't choose the correct option in the drop down menu. And then if we choose the one with the higher level of consequence, then we got to kind of reap what we sowed. And how do we recover from that? And I think having also a drop down menu of recovery, like the ego might not want to apologize, the ego might not want to, you know, experience damage control. Or they might like say, Well, you deal with it, even though I messed up, you have to pay the pay the price. And sometimes that's you know, that's not what leaders do. That's not what, that's not why we run this podcast, it's not what better than rich means. If we really want to be leaders of our life, and live incongruency we need to know and own like, I'm better than that, you know, I chose the I chose the wrong drop down menu on that one, like, how can I make this right, you know, might not be perfect, but how can I at least make it right?

Andrew Biggs 7:14
Absolutely. I mean, reconciliation, right, as a starting point, when you find yourself, not living up to your values, not living up to your standards, you know, is a really, really useful tool. And maybe that looks like, you know, publicly going to somebody and and being reconciled to them and apologizing, Hey, I've been a little off the last few months, you know, I just want to I just want to be honest about that and transparent with you and just say I'm committed to doing better. Now, by the way, don't say you're committed to be doing better or not, right. I've also seen that where it's like someone has this like one moment of realization that they've been acting hypocritical. hypocritically, they go to their team or something at a team meeting, and they're like, Guys, I'm gonna step up, I'm gonna change, I'm gonna make a difference. And, you know, the team's like, wow, that was really humble and inspiring the way, you know, our leader showed up today and, and was transparent about the challenges they're, they're having mentally and emotionally and spiritually. And then like, a week later, they're right back to who they were. Right? And it's like, the team's like, didn't he said, Did she say that they were gonna turn a new leaf. So these are all examples of you know, what congruency looks like? You know, and the truth is guys, like, you know, the marketplace has a has a really good, you know, pardon my French but a bullshit detector, right? And I think people are super intuitive. There were more way more intuitive than you think. And if you're wondering, why don't people want to follow me, why don't people want to learn from me? Why don't people want to buy my stuff? Or sign up for my coaching packages? Or, or, you know, listen to the leadership that I'm going to provide? You know, the truth is, you know, they probably shouldn't, right, they probably are catching a little whiff of something that that just doesn't sit right with them. And they might not even be able to put their finger on what it is right? But they just feel like, hey, you know what, I just don't fully trust this person. And if the marketplace really is an exchange of trust, right, we need to ask ourselves, how do we build as much trust as possible and the best way I know how to do that is to be congruent. And again, I'm not sitting here telling you, you know, I'm perfect at that. But I also think when we do recognize that, you know, being willing to even just admit that is probably a good starting point for building trust. Yeah. What do you think?

Mike Abramowitz 9:29
And you think about our motto at better than rich leave today better than you found it, what that means and what that means to the marketplace and what it means to us. I personally leave today better than I found it. I will catch myself I was like, I'll give you specific examples. Walking home from the gym and I saw a plastic wrapper of a water bottles like a shorty sure pack of water balls, saw it on the sidewalk. I knew there was a trashcan probably 100 yards in front of me. And I said to myself, leave today better than you found it leave this location I found it I pick up the trash with like my two fingers because it was like wet. It was like kind of gross and I walked with my two fingers like this carrying, you know, this trash and I throw it in the trash can leave today better than you found it leave it better than I found it. If I see like a mat at the gym, I'll pick it up and I'll put it away, leave leave the space better than I found it. And I just say this constantly to myself, and nobody's watching. It's not because I'm like, Let me prove to the world I am awesome. Let me prove to the world what better than riches, let me go out there and try to get clients for us. Let me drive traffic to our our events, because I'm going to leave today better than I found it and everyone watched me. That's not that's not the goal. The goal is for me to live, congruent Lee to do what I believe and to believe what I do, and align those actions and beliefs together. And the more I can do that, I hold agreements that I make to myself, and when I hold the agreements that I make to myself, that is what's going to anchor in even more congruency, even more actions, even more believes and it's going to create an upward cycle. What's the opposite the downward cycle, I see the trash on the ground, I don't pick it up, I walk past it. It's like leave today better than I found it sometimes. And then it's like I see the mad I don't pick it up and sleep today better than I found it sometimes. And then I add this clause of sometimes in and now it's this cycle of sometimes sometimes sometimes sometimes. And now I'm I'm actually creating momentum in the in this downward cycle where it's like, it doesn't have to be all the time. I don't have to hold agreements that I keep to myself all the time. And what's the consequences of that? Well, if I don't do that with myself, maybe I start doing it with other people, maybe I start slipping with, you know, my habits or my goals or my behaviors. And then there's even more momentum. So sometimes we get into this, this cycle. And then all it is is just a habitual pattern of am I holding the agreements that I initially made to myself, which I believe is where person congruency lives. So I and there's so many examples of this, I can jam on that. Anything to show for you on that.

Andrew Biggs 12:03
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it what you're doing is your conditioning. Right? Your identity to be aligned with your values. And you know, so often, you know, if we think about, you know, identity, what is identity? Identity is who you believe you are, right. And that's that's kind of foundational, you know, I kind of call it the 10 foundational questions, we have some content called the DNA, the personal identity DNA helix. And there's 10 questions on the on the on this DNA helix. But one of them is like, what are my values? Right? Who am I? Where did I come from? You know, where am I going. So understanding your place in terms of, you know, your personal history, how that fits into the collective history, whether that's a family history, or it's the collective history of the species, all these different things match into an identity, as part of our kind of like core identity content. Values is a huge part of it. And so, you know, what's interesting is, you know, there's kind of an old saying, like, show me a person's bank account and their calendar, and I can tell you their values. And the whole idea there is that, you know, we can say that our values are honesty, integrity, family, you know, faith, we could say, it's whatever, you know, sounds really good, right? Courage or whatever. But how are we actually living? And the truth is, oftentimes, when I help people design their values, we come up generally, with five core values. I feel like that's a really good number. But then we have to really ask them, okay, how much are you living this? And how much is this seeped into your everyday life? How much is it even seeped into how you operate in the business world, right? And how much of this? Are people getting? This even even in the context of your day to day business operations? And the truth is, a lot of times, it's not there. So what we have to do is, we have to bridge that gap. And so it becomes this thing of saying, Okay, today, how can I be as aligned with these values as possible and make the next right decision, make the next right call, pick up the next piece of trash if I didn't pick up the last one. Assuming I'm, you know, I feel called to do so. So, you know, these are just some more things that come up for me is this, this sort of conditioning and basically, what the the other side is, like, is like, almost like a slow erosion of your character, to where you, you know, if you just ignore this congruency, for a month, two months, six months, next thing, you know, you're gonna look in the mirror and be like, Who is that guy? Who is that girl? You know, that doesn't look like anything that I want to be. So these are just some things that I see.

Mike Abramowitz 14:38
And what I one of the things on that Andrew is that sometimes people it's not that they intentionally don't want to live congruently with their values. Instead, they forget what they put down as their values is because they don't market this is this is something I was guilty of you and I had this jam session probably back circa 2017. Maybe And I created my values list. And I remember this conversation specifically where, you know, everyone was talking about what are your values was like, faith, family, fun. It was like the app. So it was like all these different apps.

Andrew Biggs 15:13
Yeah.

Mike Abramowitz 15:16
And it's, it's, in theory, it sounds really good. And I said, I just not that I don't value my family, not that I don't value these things. But it's like, there's something different about what I'm what I'm trying to get accomplished. And what you taught me was, values aren't necessarily how you view the world right? Now, sometimes values is how you want to view the world with practice. And with intentionality. It's like how do you what are the values that you maybe even need to develop further for this year, and spend a little bit more time in because you really want them. And I remember this, and that was about 2017. So I made it clear, I started write down my values. And I had this whole giant list of like, 200 Worth pick from I picked my top six out of that after going through it. And remember, it was abundant, life, influential, jovial, though I'm optimistic. So there's, there's these really beautiful words, and probably six months in, I forgot, I forgot about I forgot the words I picked because they were words that use all the time it was like jovial I might have said that word like maybe a dozen times in my life. And now this is one of my core values, I'm going to remember that forever. So now it's, you know, where I'm at. And where I've been. It's, it's it's very simple, you know, my core values, influence faith, fun, courage, love. You know, these are very simple words that are meaningful to me. So I look at them every day, I get to remind myself just like, if you don't shower a day, you stink, I don't look at my values for the day I stink, I don't journal, my goals for the day, I might get distracted. It is this constant reminder of what it is that we want and who we want to become. And if we don't do that, like you just said, there's that erosion, that settles it. Now the erosion doesn't happen overnight. Doesn't happen today. It doesn't happen tomorrow. And that's why that recovery, the relationship with club recovery is so important. You know, we have the accountability group, and I know some of our better than rich clients are in it. And every day like today, actually, specifically one of one of someone that we're holding accountable to I don't want to put them on blast, but hold them accountable to it. His nighttime rituals means like, I want to be held accountable to my neighbor and I temperature was and last night, he said, he woke up this morning, he did his Wim Hof breathing and fell asleep on the couch. And he only did one of his tiny actions daily. So I only did one and I said, hey, it happens, what's your recovery plan? And his response was, I'm for sure gonna hit at least my five tats today. So now, we'll see Is he gonna hold true to the, to the, to the recovery to honoring his word and doing what he says he's gonna do? That's the fun of that's the fun of this, it doesn't have to be so deep. But man, there's consequences if you don't make it intentional.

Andrew Biggs 17:59
Absolutely. And, you know, that individual, you know who you are, okay, listening to this. The the, the reality is, you're either putting, you know, deposits into the, I trust myself bank account, or you're putting your deposits into, you know, I don't trust myself, bank account. And you know, ultimately, what we're trying to do is build up the trust you have in yourself, because also also, like, if I'm gonna, you know, especially from a leadership perspective, trying to lead people, the biggest question is, why should anyone want to follow you. And, you know, so often even, you know, just regular contacts in business. It's just the leaders who are living personally, their values the most, who are the most admirable and the most that people want to follow. So I want to get a little practical. You know, one of the things that I wrote down practical sense was just how to, like, actually take stock of, you know, kind of what is your internal relationship to yourself? And, you know, there's many methods to do this. One might be journaling, right? Another though, might just be deep contemplative thought, or meditation. But you need to ask yourself some serious questions. And one of the things that I kind of said at this last retreat in Mexico, that kind of got an oo from the crowd was the best leaders develop an intimate relationship with their conscience. And I think that developing that intimate relationship with your conscience is absolutely critical for living a congruent life, and therefore is absolutely critical for living a fulfilled life. But how do you do that? And you know, one thing I would just say is, how often are you actually thinking about your behaviors? How often are you actually even just self aware to recognize what did I do today? What did I do that was good? What did I do that was bad, too, taking constant stock of your behaviors, and how you actually ended up at them, where they really, you know, intentional behaviors where they kind of automatic behaviors Did you get triggered early on in the morning from something and therefore the rest of your day just spun out of control? And coming back to that question consistently, what how did I act today? And was it consistent with my with my values? You can ask that and it'll contemplate it. You could ask that in a journal question, right? What how have my behaviors bad? Have I been cruel with my top five values, you know, today or this week. So developing that intimate relationship with your conscience is a really good starting point. And somewhat kind of allowed, like, most people don't want to do that, because it can be so convicting. So because a lot of times, it's like, no, you've been acting, you know, completely out of control, you're not, you're not living in a value in alignment with your values, and you have some shaping up to do and that can be really convicting, but it's also super rewarding. So I really want to challenge everybody here today, to ask themselves, how close is my relationship with my conscience ban? And have I allowed myself to be convicted? Lately, Mike, I know you had some tips about how to bring this practically also, not just person into your personal life, but also into business. I'm curious what your thoughts are there? Well, first

Mike Abramowitz 21:11
to double click on what you just said is sometimes we can't evaluate our actions, because we're like, we don't, we're like, Oh, I did great. I did everything I was supposed to do. So sometimes we need to look at the reactions of others to our actions. And just by analyzing, like, Hmm, how did they receive my behavior? I felt pretty good. But how is it received because sometimes life doesn't respond to intent, we could have intended something, and in the intent was great, but it might not have been received, the way we want it to be received. So sometimes looking at the reactions can also be a great, a great way to keep score on this personal congruency, or on this this practical methodology as you're doing some self reflection

Andrew Biggs 21:56
to that's so smart. Mike, that's, I'm so glad you said that. And also, when you're looking at the reactions, make sure you're not judging other people's reactions, right. And saying, Well, you know, yeah, I got a negative reaction, but that's just because he's an idiot, right? Or, you know, that's just because that person is immature. It's like, No, you know, maybe, but also, you know, look and see, especially if a lot of people, right, there's like, multiple data points. And it's like, you know, everyone is kind of trending in this direction with their reactions, then it's a you problem, right? It's kind of the classic like, you know, if someone's been divorced three or four times, like, it's not their, you know, their exes fault.

Mike Abramowitz 22:38
You've been so, so helpful with me, is tapping into this deep curiosity. Because judgment, and you taught me this years ago is judgment is like that baseline of this baseline of violence and judgment. And it's like, I want to go into judgment, how can we replace it with curiosity? And you brought that to me years ago, and it made a world of a difference for me. So if you're, someone's listening to this and says, shoot, I'm like, I kind of judge a good amount I don't intended I don't mean to, but I just do. How could they explore curiosity deeply? More so than judgment?

Andrew Biggs 23:17
How can they explore curiosity more than judgment, and you're putting it on the spot? I love it. Um, so I would say, as a starting point, we always want to just be curious before we're critical, so the concept there is, always assume that there's something you could have done better. So that's maybe like a starting point. So if you're getting a particular reaction from people always assume that they're reacting and responding to, to something that you're putting out, right. And again, communication to circle back on what you said, Isn't what you intend to say, it's what's received. So you need to ask yourself, what was received, sometimes that's in my communication, sometimes it's somebody has a particular communication receiving style, and the delivery method wasn't, you know, congruent with their way of receiving information.

Mike Abramowitz 24:16
And then also implied that I have ownership that I am actually responsible for those around me. And I don't think that every single person takes on that responsibility or takes that much ownership over others in their life and how people respond. So would that be a presupposition that everything and everyone that is in my environment, I have the ability to influence or their reaction to how is that is that a presupposition here then?

Andrew Biggs 24:47
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's I any result that I see, I almost start with the base assumption that it's my fault, right? Or like it's any problem. I'd say like, I remember listening to Gary Vee once. And he's like, if it's raining outside, I just assumed that, you know, it's my fault. And it's like he was joking, of course, but the whole point there is taking 100% ownership for your situation. But that's personally professionally, what have you. So using that as a starting point is, is really important. And then I think it's just like, how do you how do you practice deep exploration? Because the reality is, we're constantly that we might think that we are presenting ourselves in a particular way. But ultimately, like our own insecurities, our own idiosyncrasies, our conditioning, all these things, our subconscious mind, is oftentimes driving most of our behaviors. And so if you haven't done any work to dig deep on, like, alright, like, what sort of conditioning did I pick up from my childhood? What sort of limiting beliefs that I pick up and you've never examined to these things, you are, you know, really kind of flying blind to your own, you know, blind spots, and you probably should get somebody to help you see what those blind spots are, or, you know, hire a therapist or a coach or something, to help you unpack that to understand, these are all my insecurities, because every single time I come into a conversation, you know, all my insecurities come with me, right? It's, it's not so easily compartmentalized. So doing all of that work, you know, is super important so that when you are communicating with somebody, you're able to kind of present as coherently as possible, instead of a dis integrated, right, this integrated identity is like these little compartmentalization boxes, and an integrated identity is, you know, hey, I'm bringing all of me sometimes it's, you know, the, the best parts of me. And also, sometimes it's the worst parts of me, but here I am, and take it or leave it. And generally, especially in today's marketplace, people love that authenticity. You know, I'm talking to somebody on a sales call yesterday, and they were like, well, I don't know, do you know, should I sign up or not? And I was like, I don't know, maybe you shouldn't, you know, and just being honest, if you if you if you're going to sign up, here's why you would, honestly, though, it's up to you. Here's what I think I do. Well, you know, if you go with someone else, here's maybe you know, what they might do better. And people appreciate that level of transparency and can grow and see. So hopefully, this is hitting on some points for people that that they can take with them and say, Whoa, how do I how do I practice this in my daily life?

Mike Abramowitz 27:37
Yeah, I'd like to, you know, just to jam on that. It's actually funny, because I was on a sales call, I took the opposite approach.

Andrew Biggs 27:42
Awesome. Tell me.

Mike Abramowitz 27:45
So I was on a sales goal. And they were like, What do you think do you think? And I said, without a doubt, 100%? Definitely, definitely, definitely, you need to sign up for this. And here's why. And it was like, my personal congruency coming back to it was 100% 110%. That is in their best interest to say yes, for them, not for me. And I truly believe that. So right, I'm going to transfer my congruent C and my certainty on to the other person. And if I'm 100% Certain, then I'm going to help that person kind of get over the over the edge with my certainty because I'm fully congruent with what with what, what I'm offering. And in this case, this person, I know needs, what what I was offering. And and, and I think that I think many times individuals that are having conversations with themselves are neglecting or forgetting what it is that they are offering. Meaning, if I'm having an internal conversation with me, it's just me versus me. So therefore, how can grow into I need to be when the sales call, it's like I can project this personal congruence, I can project that it is in your best interest to buy because blank, blank, blank and blank. Well, me versus me, it is in Mike's best interest to do Mike, what the like, what is this mean? That's why if you listen to a couple of our previous episodes, I labeled the voices in my head. And it sounds weird, but it's sometimes it's like the truth has a conversation with wimpy and wimpy is the word was the version of me that tries to protect me. I have also have shithead who is the version of me who's like the arrogant projection of like the judgment. The judge is shithead wimpy tries to protect me, then I have the truth. The truth is the sage right? That's the one who's gone through all this self help and personal growth. And it's like the truth versus who wimpy, right? So it's not me versus me because then that loses context. So it's like the truth versus wimpy just like if it's me having a conversation with a client, where's the congruency? What is the belief structure of the truth? And what is the belief structure of wimpy and when they have a conversation with each other? That's, that's, I want to have more congruent to the truth than I do with wind because wimpy protects me too often. Oh, what if you get hurt? Or what if you hurt someone's feelings? Or what if you do that? Or if you go into the cold? What if you get sick? Or if you go to the gym with a sore back? What if you get hurt even more? Or what if like, you know, you know, your your car gets into an accident, are you sure you want to like, just try to protect me constantly. Like, if I don't, if I don't feed the job that if I don't feed the truth, where it's like the truth is old is actually really good. Let me feed that, you know, working out and exercises that actually really good. You know, taking risks is actually strengthens strengthens my confidence and courage with myself. So it's like feeding that Matthew McConaughey. Um, you know, Matthew McConaughey, and he talks about feeding the two wolves and this goes back to lots of different you know, outages, but it's like, you feed the wolf that is love, joy, compassion, courage, or you feed the wolf that is fear, insecure, you know, that that lower energy and both wolves have to eat, it's just which one you're going to feed. And the more I can feed the wolf that is, is has the self serving, positive high frequency, emotion and energy. That's what's gonna bring my world so I don't know, it just kind of triggered a little bit of a rant there.

Andrew Biggs 31:38
But no, I love it. I love it. And of course, that's why you jumped off the balcony in Mexico. And, you know, right into the pool. It was a it was, I was sitting there like journaling in the morning or meditating or something. And like, I hear this massive splash and like, what happened? like, Wait, how did Mike get down here, and I guess he had jumped off the balcony. In this, this beautiful Airbnb burn.

Mike Abramowitz 32:00
In this I burned in decisiveness. Let's say in the fire in decisiveness. And I had, I was like, I kind of want to jump off this thing. It's like, boom, took off the shirt in my underwear. And I

Andrew Biggs 32:11
love that. I love it. So, so like, you know, one of the things that we were talking about, you know, pregame was we were thinking about how to bring concurrency into your business, right? And one thing that it's really cool when you do all this personal work, and you're able to figure out, like, what are my values? How, who am I? How do I want to live. But sometimes people almost have like this, this line between my business self and my personal self, how I show up at home, and how I show up in business, but I would never want to bring this like loving compassionate energy into the workplace, like I'd be taken advantage of, or people would respect me, or whatever stories that you might have around that. And so, you know, I have some thoughts. I'll take it to you, Mike here in a second. But one of the things I want to just say, as a starting point, invite everyone, you know, listening to is that ultimately, who we are, really shouldn't change all that much from context to context, of course, it'll change slightly, right? Because in different positions, you know, I'm the leader in some positions, I'm, you know, the subordinate in some positions. You know, I'm very knowledgeable and wise, and I should take lead in other positions. Maybe I'm a novice. And so we're constantly sometimes kind of taking off paths, putting on new ones, we all play different roles, right? I'm a father, I'm a son, I'm a brother, I'm a friend, I'm a business owner, I have these different roles. But But ultimately, there's definitely parts of my identity that are not changing throughout. And so as a starting point, if you're listening to this, evaluate your relationship to the different roles in your life and ask yourself, Am I kind of like a chameleon? You know, do I kind of hang out over here, and I'm one way, and then I hang out over here. And I'm a very different way. And if you ever had like that experience where like two groups of friends, it's like your church friends, and then like your drinking friends, like meet for the first time, and you're like, super nervous, like, you're probably being a chameleon, right? So it's like, understand that we don't want that, right, we want to have congruency in all contexts. And then in the business world, you know, of course, we have objectives that we need to hit Yeah, we have sales numbers, we want to we want to get to, but I also want to nourish people's souls that are on my team, and help them live in her lives, help them determine what their values are, help them develop really healthy habits. And what's really cool is when you bring these these these learnings that you have in the personal growth side into business and you start teaching it to your team, a their performance gets better. And B the retention for the team the morale for the team goes way up because they're like I love working here. I'm learning I'm growing. And my my, my leader really cares about me. And so I really want to encourage as a starting point, every single person listening to this to bring whatever it is that that is the most congruent version of yourself personally bring it into the workplace. and make sure that people are getting that experience, you know, in the workplace, and is it a little bit less like Doggy Dog cutthroat? You know, sort of, you know, business classical business teachings? Yes, of course. But also the markets changed in, you know what people value in the workplace has changed too. So don't be afraid to bring that humble, vulnerable, personal growth oriented self to the workplace, Mike, what do you think?

Mike Abramowitz 35:28
And then align? And that brings up what is the purpose of your workplace in the first place? Like, what was the reason that you started that enterprise? So if you have a purpose, or reason or a vision or a mission as to why you started your organization, then I would just encourage you to see and explore how can you tie some sort of personal growth element to whatever that mission is. So it doesn't matter what that mission is, like, if your mission is, I want to provide exceptional customer service. Okay, well, how do you define exceptional customer service? Well, one of the maybe one of the needs of your customers is for you to expose them to some sort of personal growth, maybe that is exceptional service, possibly, right. And where this comes into play is, you must believe that what you're offering to the marketplace, adds tremendous value. And I'll say that, again, you must believe that whatever it is that you're offering to the marketplace, adds tremendous value, because the marketplace will respond to whatever problem you are solving. And if you're solving a big problem, then you are going to have to add massive value to the marketplace. So I invite you to really think about that. And I said this again, on a previous episode, that, you know, we I've been selling Cutco, and being in the industry now for 18 years, and when I have a conversation with a new sales rep, and I say, if you're just selling them, knives, because their knives are going to replace, that's a small problem. If you're selling them on the idea of eating healthy and getting the family together and spending more time together, that's a little bit of a larger problem. And people are more likely to spend money on solving the latter, the solving the problem of spending more time with my family and being healthy, then let me just upgrade my knife. So whatever problem you're solving in the marketplace, is, is going to determine your value. So you want to add tremendous value to that when it comes to personal growth in your sales team or for your organization. When it when it comes to bringing in this element of vision and mission and, and, and why we do what we do. Well, it's got to start with you. You know, I tied my personal mission into the mission of my business, what is my mission, my mission, my personal mission, the purpose of my life is to educate, inspire and be a force for good for myself and others. The mission of my business, to educate, inspire, and help every representatives become become exceptional individuals. And by making a difference in each representative as an individual, and developing ourselves as leaders, we will make a powerful impact in our community. So it's very similar. But the business is a vehicle for my personal mission.

Andrew Biggs 38:24
What would you say to somebody who's, you know, let's say they're like, an accountant at you know, a fortune 500 company or it's a big company, they have this this, these values, they want to live that their values and bring the bring that into the workplace, but also like, they're kind of like, ah, you know, I sound like it's my business. I can't just like, come up with a new mission statement. Like how does someone work this into quote unquote, like everyday life? If they feel maybe they aren't? Like the sole decider? If that makes sense. What would you say that I

Mike Abramowitz 39:00
had this? I had this conversation with a teacher. One example. Yeah, I discovered there's one of the high schools and you know, we were overheard someone else say that it's like, oh, I can't wait till I get my tenure, you know, 10 years and I only have to put up with the this stuff for so much longer something like that. And like we ever heard it. And it was like one of those one of those curiosities is like, yeah, it kind of does suck like you are restricted to the guidelines and in the in the parameters of what is outside of your control. So it's like what is so we explored it, like, what is in your control? Like, what can you focus on to make this a better experience for you and also for your user, which are the students? And what we came up with is thinking about why we became teachers in the first place. Like, that's what I came up. Like, I'm not a teacher, I supported the teachers, but it's like, if we just got even more clear, why did we become a teacher in the first place? So why did you become an accountant in the first place? Was it because you were good at it? Maybe. Okay, what is it about that that what is it about what you do? Pet? How can you strengthen your meaning behind what you do? There's a great book, The Dream manager by Matthew Kelly. I mean, they were janitors for crying out loud, they cleaned toilets, but it's like, how do you bring even more meaning behind what you do. And you don't have to necessarily translate that to the entire workplace through your words. But you can do that through your, through your actions through how you approach or how you approach your position, because the position again, is a vehicle to demonstrate how you choose to lead your life. If you believe that to be the truth, so if I'm speaking to that accountant or that teacher, well, how do you show up in your relationship with yourself? You hold the agreements, you keep to yourself, how do you show up with your relationship with your significant other? Do you hold the agreements you keep to them? How do you show up as a son? How do you show up as a brother? How do you show up in church? You know, Bobby Lewis wrote a book called The Joy behind the headlines. And one of the chapters he talked was the ambition, the chapter of ambition. And in that chapter, he talked about the pb&j Feeding frenzy and the movement. And I had the privilege of being honored and mentioned and interviewed for that chapter. And one of the things he said is, I brought my kids to this feeding frenzy. My daughter was, I don't know, probably five years old. He's like, I brought my daughter here, because every Sunday we're a church, talking about what it means to be a good Christian and what it means to do this. And then she, she rarely ever sees what it is, she just hears about it. And this was an example where we were able to show her what it means by with action of what it means to go to church. This is what it means to go to church, handing out those sandwiches is what it means to go to church. And it's like just demonstrating the lessons through the way we lead our lives. And we don't doesn't matter our position, the position is irrelevant. Position is the vehicle to demonstrate that even further and do a hell of a job at it, you'll make good you'll make more money.

Andrew Biggs 41:57
Absolutely, absolutely. And it's, I love what you said, just deepening the meaning behind what you're doing. And I don't care what you do on the other end of this listening in your car or at the gym right now, wherever you are, you know, I don't care if you are a janitor, or you're CEO of a massive organization, the truth is what you do matters. And when we think about what better than rich is really here to do and why we talk about concepts, you know, that are somewhat, you know, abstract, like congruent. See, the reason is because, you know, I believe there's an epidemic of meaninglessness of purposelessness of disillusionment out there, people, you know, are out there trying to be successful, they don't even really know why they want to be successful, I guess it's just because they saw someone on Instagram, tell them that they should be, or whatever. And the reality is, there's so much more out there for you than sort of shallow success. And so if there's anything I want to leave you with here today, it's that through the power of congruency, by recognizing that congruency is king and how you do one thing is how you do everything, you can start to take steps to finding meaning and purpose in your life. And we really hope that you've gotten a lot of value from this mike, closing thoughts before we let everyone go for the day.

Mike Abramowitz 43:14
I invite them to continue to feed your mind, you know, feed your mind with with, you know, any type of I love that you're listening to this show, of course, and continue to follow us and feed your mind with our wisdom. But a lot of our wisdom isn't necessarily from us. Andrew and I are hungry students of life that we've been, we've been learning and reading and developing this, this Inner Inner Self doing a lot of work in that space for a decade and a half to two decades now. So it's not like this is something that just comes through us and we wake up like we work out it because we read, we listen to podcasts, like I just listened to Jordan Peterson on Joe Rogan show for hours now that was spread out over the course of like, a few days at the gym. But you know, just exposing just to the conversation listening to greenlights by Matthew McConaughey again, gotta go through makhani. And there's a fantastic thought leader in my opinion, right? You know, you're sending an email, and all inviting even thoughts, aren't you a lot with your own. To get even curious. I would invite you to be curious on other people's lands, especially with the polarities that are happening right now in the world. It's like, oftentimes, we'll just want to avoid what's different. And I invite you to embrace what's different and learn why, why is their lens of the world different than mine? And oftentimes, not all the time, but oftentimes, you'll probably realize what they want is exactly what you want as well. They just have a slightly modified approach on how to get there, but the outcomes are probably fairly similar. And if you start asking those questions of like, what are the outcomes and why do you want those outcomes? Why do you want that? Why would that be important to you? It's probably similar to what you think would be important to you as well. And the more you can start seeing that, I believe Andrew, you said in the very beginning that we're all a part of the same. You use the word what was the word of like, like network or

Andrew Biggs 45:23
collective, collective journey?

Mike Abramowitz 45:26
Collective? Yeah, that we're all a part of this collective journey together. And we all do our own part in that collective journey. I'm just continue to learn, honor each other, learn about you learn about your brothers and sisters in the world, and continue to make your positive change that you want to see in others and also in yourself. So that's my closing thoughts.

Andrew Biggs 45:47
Fantastic. Fantastic. Well, thanks, everyone for joining us. Remember, this week they concurrency is king and remember to leave today better than you found it. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next week on the better than rich show.

Mike Abramowitz 46:02
Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, and you'd like to help support the show, please share it with others post about it on social media or leave a rating and review. To catch all the latest from us. You can follow us on Instagram at better than underscore rich and join our Facebook group at the better than rich show. Thanks again for listening. We look forward to seeing you next time and remember, leave today better than you found it