Activating Your Aspirational Identity: Confidence from the Inside Out

UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: The following transcript may contain typographical errors or other mistakes due to inconsistencies in audio quality, background noise, or other factors. We cannot guarantee its precision or completeness. We encourage you to use this as a supplement to your own notes and recollection of the session. 

 

Tami Simon: Hello friends. My name is Tami Simon and I’m the founder of Sounds True. And I want to welcome you to the Sounds True podcast, Insights at the Edge. I also want to take a moment to introduce you to Sounds True’s new membership community and digital platform.  It’s called Sounds True One. Sounds True One features original premium transformational docuseries, community events, classes to start your day and relax in the evening, special weekly live shows including a video version of Insights at the Edge with an after-show community question-and-answer session with featured guests. I hope you’ll come join us, explore, come have fun with us and connect with others.  You can learn more at join.soundstrue.com.

 I also want to take a moment and introduce you to the Sounds True Foundation, our nonprofit that creates equitable access to transformational tools and teachings. You can learn more at soundstruefoundation.org. And in advance, thank you for your support. 

In this episode of Insights at the Edge, my guest is Giovanni Dienstmann. Giovanni is a meditation teacher, a self-discipline coach, and an author who focuses on the intersection between wisdom, peace, and personal empowerment. Giovanni was born in Brazil. He started meditating when he was just 14 years old, and then he migrated to Australia at the age of 28. He nearly became a monk at two different times in his life. This is really interesting about Giovanni. He has studied deeply in different spiritual traditions, including Zen, the nondual path of Advaita, as well as the Yoga Tantra tradition that he’s been focused on for the past decade. And he’s taken the totality of that rich training and applied it to supporting people that he refers to as type-A spiritual types of people, people who want to fulfill their highest aspirations. Giovanni is the author of a book called Practical Meditation, another book, Mindful Self-Discipline—and we’ll be talking about what he means by mindful self-discipline—also a new book that came out earlier this year with Sounds True. It’s called Wise Confidence: Overcome Self-Doubt and Build Lasting Self-Esteem. Giovanni, welcome.

 

Giovanni Dienstmann: Thank you very much, Tami.

 

TS: Yeah, great to be with you, friend.

 

GD: Likewise.

 

TS: How did you start meditating at 14? How did that happen?

 

GD: Well, I was actually interested in the role of the esoteric and metaphysics and occultism of all things, and I started buying books that I could find in Brazil in Portuguese, and one common exercise that all of these books recommended was the practice of meditation. Then I started trying that and I felt, you know what? I haven’t felt like this with anything else in my life, so I made a commitment that I would meditate daily for as long as I live, and I’ve been keeping that commitment.

 

TS: Okay, meditate daily for as long as you live. So you’ve done that every single day?

 

GD: Well, I started five days a week, so in the first two years it was five days a week, but I wouldn’t skip and then right after it became seven days a week. So yes, for over two decades.

 

TS: Okay. Well we’re going to talk about this because you embody and represent an aspect of spiritual practice and spiritual commitment that I think is challenging for a lot of people, and dare I say, I find it challenging myself and I want to really get behind your eyes in this conversation. Let’s start by talking about what you mean by self-discipline. What is that to you?

 

GD: Self-discipline is living in alignment with your values, whatever are your values. When you think, decide, feel, and act in alignment with your values, you are practicing and that involves saying a big yes to what you want most, a big yes to the things that are most valuable for you, be it spiritual transformation, be it some other aspiration, and in saying yes to those big things in your life, in your heart, you’re going to have to say no or you’re going to have to say, not now to lesser impulses, and that is the journey of self-discipline, being aware of that trade off of that sacrifice and being committed enough to what you care about that it’s worth it.

 

TS: Okay, so when I heard you say committing after this couple of years of five days a week every single day, and then defining self-discipline as being aligned with your values, what if someone’s values are more kind of like go with the flow, being open to breathe and be when I feel inspired, how do you respond to that?

 

GD: Well, that person naturally will not be attracted to the idea of self-discipline may not seek it and may not like it, but if we look at people who have achieved great things in any area of life, and even if we look at the great spiritual masters, all of them had self-discipline to a great degree. All of them made sacrifices, all of them made decisions that was not what they wanted to do in that moment, but they recognized that the way that their mind is flowing in that moment is not aligned with the bigger flow that they want to be part of.

 

TS: Alright, your new book Wise Confidence, I want to go into this in quite some depth. What do you mean by wise confidence? What makes it wise versus just ordinary confidence?

 

GD: An idea that comes from Aristotle is that every virtue is a balance between two extremes, and if we apply this idea to confidence, then in one extreme we have self-doubt, which is you are doubting yourself. You think you’re not good enough, you think you are not capable of doing what you’re actually capable of doing, you’re beating yourself up, and in the other extreme, it’s overconfidence or arrogance. You think too much of yourself and you underestimate the challenges ahead. Both of these extremes are traps of the ego. You are thinking about yourself even you’re putting yourself down or you are elevating yourself. The middle is what I call wise confidence. You are not thinking about your, you’re simply focusing on showing up with determination, integrity, self-belief, courage and optimism. These being the five elements of Wise Confidence. You’re not underestimating yourself as in self-doubt. You’re not underestimating the challenges of life or thinking that you’re above other people. You’re simply showing up as your best.

 

TS: What do you mean by self-belief as one of the elements?

 

GD: Self-belief is that conviction that whatever I need I can achieve, I can acquire whatever knowledge I don’t have and I need for my path. I can gain that knowledge, I can gain that skill, whatever obstacle, whatever challenge or suffering life throws my way. I have what it takes to overcome this and to continue on the path and it’s a belief. Belief is not a logical conclusion if you have a logical conclusion. We don’t need belief. We have a belief for something that we cannot have a logical conclusion. You cannot prove this belief to be right or to be wrong, but what you can prove is that if you live life with this belief versus the opposite, things flow better.

 

TS: I notice when you describe that whatever obstacle or challenge comes my way, I can find my way through it, I can learn what I need to learn, I can get the help and support. It’s very inspiring idea. What would you say to someone who says, I wish I felt more of that, but I don’t. I feel some of that, but not often when obstacles come my way, I think I might be hooped right now. I’m not sure.

 

GD: Yes. Well, the first good news is that this is a trainable skill and that’s why I wrote the book. Otherwise, there’ve been no purpose. It’s a trainable skill. Some people who were born in a family who was unconditionally supportive, who helped them build a strong healthy sense of self and believe in themselves and had the right type of wisdom and self-talk, maybe those people already have all the self-confidence that they need, but that’s not the case for most of us. For of us, we were conditioned to believe certain things about ourselves and about life that are just not helpful.

 

TS: Now, in Wise Confidence, you take us on a journey of our conditioned identity to what you call an aspirational identity, and here you’re referencing what we could say is our conditioned identity. This notion that I wasn’t supported when I was young and I’m not going to be able to do this and I have all this self-doubt. Help me understand the aspirational identity and how that’s an identity, how that’s who I am, not just a kind of bunch of possible words and thoughts, that movement from conditioned identity to aspirational identity.

 

GD: Yes. Before that, lemme just take a step back and talk about identity. Why is identity so important?

 

TS: Thank you. Thank you.

 

GD: The main mission of the brain is to survive, and that is true of consciousness manifested in all living beings. There is that impulse towards survival, towards self-protection and thriving. Now, for us to survive, we need to save energy. If we run out of energy, it’s game over and we need to know how to navigate the environment which has potential dangers. An identity is one of the ways the brain responds to these challenges. An identity is a set of beliefs, an image about this is who I am, this is what the world is like, and this is how I navigate this place and this identity, this set of beliefs is at the core of all our thoughts, our emotions, our impulses, the decisions we make, and therefore everything that happens in our life. It is the most important element in our psyche, but the problem is we didn’t choose it.

We didn’t create it. We were conditioned to have a certain identity as per our early life experiences, and most people will live their whole lives inside that box seeing the world through those lenses. Now for some people in the path of personal growth or spiritual growth, as we all are here, they’ll realize like, Hey, this identity is not my truth. It’s a story. It’s a story that I didn’t create and it’s a story that is that the programming of my whole life. Now when you come to that understanding, then freedom, the path of freedom opens up and what can you do? You can attempt to completely move beyond this identity to a space of pure awareness, and that is the spiritual practice of going to that place of pure awareness that leads to enlightenment. Or you can say, you know what? As long as I live, I’m going to have to operate through an identity. The brain is not going to allow you to operate without an identity in this world. Even the yogis, they open their eyes from samari. There’s an identity, there is an ego there, however subtle. So if that is the case, let me at least consciously choose my identity. Let me be the creator of my self, my conditioned myself in manifestation. And so your aspiration identity is you consciously creating the person you want to be, how you want to see yourself, how you want to see the world, how you want to operate.

 

TS: Now Giovanni, I mentioned to you that I have some serious questions about this and I wouldn’t necessarily be asking these questions if you were coming at this conversation as a performance coach or if you didn’t have this, I almost became a monk twice. I mean, you yourself are, I’ll just use my everyday language, a deep spiritual cat. You’ve really thought about this all in profound ways. So I think people who are listening here to Insights at the Edge have an understanding that are conditioned. Identity is something that we need to see clearly and be willing to let go of, to open beyond. Okay, alright, but now you want me to design a new aspirational identity. Why can’t I just allow this open, mysterious way of being to express itself in naturally benevolent and helpful ways without declaring here’s my new aspirational identity and I’m going to focus on it. Why do I have to do that? Why can’t I just trust spontaneous expression?

 

GD: It’s a very good question and there are different ways to navigate it. In the world of spirituality, in the universe of spirituality, there are so many different masters philosophies, ideas, and goals, and these different goals comes with different practices and with different concepts. In some spiritual lineages, they are not very goal oriented at all. Like Taoism Zen and many other lineages, especially many modern teachers are not goal oriented at all. So it’s about just being the flow, being the moment. No need to create suffering for yourself, no need to go into an ego mode and just continue like that and continue letting go and continue surrendering and going with the flow. That is one approach. Other spiritual traditions have a very goal-oriented approach. That’s the case for example, with Theda Buddhism. Classical Buddhism, that’s the case somewhat with some lineages of Tibetan Buddhism and that’s definitely the case with yoga and tantra and it’s natural that people who are more goal-oriented will gravitate toward this form of spirituality once they identify it, once they see that there is this difference and people who are less goal-oriented will gravitate more towards the other.

So that’s one way of looking at this, and this comes from someone who for three years I followed zen. That was the tunnel that I was in and it was all zen. I say tunnel because whenever I go into spiritual practice, I read about nothing else. I listen to nothing else, I just want to bathe myself fully into that worldview. And then I came out of that and went into the view of ante, which is also not about goals or aspirations or purpose or anything like that for nine years. So half of my spiritual journey was in this type of way of looking at things and navigating things. And what I’ve come to understand, these are two different ways of navigating life. For example, in a of ante, in the path of non-duality, they see they call the world Maya and Maya means illusion. Now if you see the world as illusion, if you see your life as illusion, then you just want to wake up.

You just want to get out of here, you want to check out. That’s an illusion. Tantra calls the world a creation. Lila and Lila means play. Now, if the world is a play of the supreme, then let us play on and how are we going to play? We’re going to play according to the seeds of purpose that is planted, who knows from in our heart the Bava Gita says, and that’s the voice of the divine speaking to Arjuna that I sit at the core of all beings and I pull the strings of their heart according to their destiny. And so there is this sense in this spiritual tradition that I’m deeply embedded in and in some others that purpose is an inherent part of living a spiritual life that a caterpillar needs to become a butterfly and the seed of an oak tree needs to become an oak tree. And being in that journey and embracing that fully is to be in harmony with the bigger theme of life.

 

TS: Okay, help connect. I think for me and for listeners, this notion of identifying our purpose and how that helps us with Wise Confidence, I think people listening are like, yeah, I have a sense of purpose. Purpose is really important to me even as I’ve broken free of whatever limitations I received from my family. Yeah, I have a sense of purpose.

 

GD: Yes, yes. It seems that yes, I did not do a good job into linking. That’s okay. Yes. It’s just that they often come together, usually in the spiritual traditions, that they don’t emphasize identity, they don’t emphasize a sense of purpose or having goals other than enlightenment. But the idea is that you, in order for you to become what you’re meant to become and do the work that you’re meant to do in the world, and that’s a sense of purpose, you’re going to have to become a different person in the sense that we finished the journey is not the you that is here now. It’s a different you that will be a transformation inside that journey. And the invitation of this process of an aspirational identity is to look at that end state and to consciously link yourself to that and saying, that is who I am becoming. I am not a yogi, but my aspirational identity is to be a yogi. So that gives me a north in my life when I am going through a temptation, when I’m going through whatever challenge, I can ask myself, how would the yogi respond? How is my future self, my enlightened self? How would I respond in this situation? And that gives me a really clear compass.

TS: Okay, I’m going to bring us out of the lofty philosophical zone where you and I naturally immediately elevated to and ask this question that you ask right at the beginning of your book, wives confidence. You say, what would you do if you knew you wouldn’t fail at it? What would you do? And I think that’s a question that stirs people up when they hear it. They’re like, what would I do if I’d write that book? I would call this person up. I’d pick up that instrument. I’d learn how to be a X, y, z, a boat captain, whatever it might be. Oh, but I’m afraid I’m going to fail now. Going to ask you to bring this all together and how this identity transformation gives us the confidence to do this thing that we’re afraid we’re going to fail at.

 

GD: Yes, great, great. So in that moment you recognize that, oh, I am afraid of this because I was conditioned to be afraid of this perhaps because many times in my past, whenever I tried something that was slightly riskier, there was a big emotional negative response from one of my primary carers, for example. So you first, you start by recognizing your conditioning and knowing that this is just a story. It feels very close to the bone, my identity now it feels that it’s me, but it’s not me. It’s a story. Now I want to become a boat captain. What does that mean? What do I need to feel, believe? How do I need to see myself so that I naturally have the thoughts and naturally make the choices that a boat captain would make? And so you’re shifting your identity. Perhaps your in initial identity is that the world is a dangerous place and we better be conservative.

And if you think that the world is a dangerous place and you ought to be conservative, you’ll be vulnerable to anxiety for the rest of your life. And as long as that deep seated belief is not changed, I don’t think that any amount of medication or meditation is going to help unless that changes. But if you change your world view and you say, you know what, from now on, I am going to adopt a different identity. I’m going to see the world through a different eyes. I’m not going to see myself as someone fragile, navigating a dangerous world. I’m going to see myself as someone powerful navigating a world of opportunities, of world of wonder, going to something that I value.

 

TS: Alright? Now I’m sure this is something you’ve thought through a lot, but people think to themselves, okay, so I’m somebody who sees the world this way or that way, and I declare it as so I’ve crafted my new aspirational way of being, but it’s not really the truth that all the way through me, I believe this part of me does, but part of me doesn’t. How do we work that through so we’re not just putting lipstick on top of a bunch of suppressed questions about this new way that we supposedly are, that it’s not real?

 

GD: Yes, yes. It’s not about overriding deeply negative or limiting beliefs with a wave of positive thinking. That’s not what this is about. The work of identity happens at a layer deeper than just thinking. It can start as thinking, but it’s at a layer deeper. That person as an example, was not born fearing failure that was taught. That person learned that from someone. And the way that that got absorbed so deeply into one’s consciousness irate was one powerful experience that made a deep mark or it was a thought repeated a thousand times. And we know the saying a lie repeated a thousand times feels like truth. And now that person from one woman to another decides to tell herself a different story. And that story feels like a lie because it’s new. It’s completely different from her. I believed my whole life. It feels unnatural. Yes, it’ll feel unnatural because that’s not who you are yet.

But you are using that model as a way to think, to navigate life. Consciousness has no shape. It will take on whatever shape we give it. In the case of this example, it has a very defined shape that this is how I see myself, this is how I navigate the world, and now I’m starting to, I want to give it a different shape. It’s not just going to immediately take that shape in full glory, it’s just going to take some time. But that the initial decision, that clarity of who I want to be, how do I want to operate in the world? That’s just the first step. That’s the aspirational pillar. Aspirational pillar in the book. And then comes that ongoing daily practice of operating from that point of view. So if one of the power words, as I say in the book of my new self is courage. When I’m living life, I have that word in the back of my mind. And when a situation comes and fear comes up, I would ask myself, what is it like to practice courage? What is it like to show up as my courageous self in this moment? And every time you make that little shift, you are strengthening your new identity and letting go of the old identity. It’s a process.

 

TS: You mentioned power words. Can you help the people who are tuning in know how would they find power words for something in their life that’s important to them? And maybe give an example from your life or from someone you’ve worked with.

 

GD: Yes. There are two ways of defining your aspirational identity. One of them is to use a symbol. My aspirational identity is that I’m a yogi or I am a master artist or I am a healthy person, whatever that is. Another way is to define it in terms of three words. So these are the three qualities or characteristics or virtues that would make the biggest impact in your life if you had it deeply developed. And most people already have a really good sense of what they might be, or at least what one or two of them might be. They’re usually the opposite of your suffering. One of the questions I have in the book is if you think about the emotion you most dislike feeling or if you think about the most painful moments of your life, what words represents the opposite? And that is one way of finding what your consciousness, your being is already going for what it wants.

 

TS: Can you share with us what the symbol is that you’re working with right now and or the three power words you’re working with?

 

GD: Okay, so I’ll share two of the power words that require less explanation and the symbol. So first the symbol is sda. SDA is a word from Sanskrit, which means the accomplished yogi, the perfected yogi, the enlightened yogi. So that is my ultimate aspiration identity. It’s not who I believe I am. Alright, just making that clear. And the power words, I’ll share two of them. One of them is slow and the other one is focused. Why do I choose these particular power words first? We never need to choose as a power word the quality that we already have. We don’t need to focus on that. We choose the qualities that we want to develop most. And for me, I know my own nature, there is a tendency of doing things with a sense of haste and that’s something, it’s a pattern of my condition identity. And for those of you who believe in astrology, I do, I can see it’s there in my astro map. Like this guy’s always going to be in a hurry. Whatever is a source of that doesn’t matter. What matters is this is the practice and I define that whole practice in one word, which is slow. So as I’m going through walking or eating or talking or making a decision, if I just remember that power word slow, I’m much more likely to navigate that situation as the person I want to be versus the person that I am.

 

TS: When it comes to power words as well as the identity symbol for your aspirational identity, do you believe they change? Are you I can change it four times a day if I want, I can or that doesn’t sound like it has a lot of mindful self-discipline in it, Tami, anyway, or how do you view it?

 

GD: The power words definitely change. So after some time where you have practiced a particular power word enough that that’s now part of who you are, you naturally operate that way without needing to think about it. It makes no sense to continue using that as a power word. Maybe in the beginning you were not patient, but now you become patient. So patience doesn’t need to be a power word for you anymore. Open space for another focus with the symbols, it’s if they are deeply thought through, they tend to be more lasting than the power words.

 

TS: Now you said something very interesting when you shared with us the sita as your symbol, you were very quick and in a humble way to say, Hey, I want you all to make sure I’m not saying I am this, this is aspirational. So that’s interesting to me. The symbol is something as well as the power words, we’re not claiming it’s true, we’re living into it in some way. Is that correct?

 

GD: Yes, it is correct. And it’s a very subtle distinction. People ask me, is this the same as fake it till you make it? And my answer is yes and no. It’s not fake it till you make it. It is be it until you become it. If you’re not confident and you’re faking confidence hoping that’s going to do, that’s one thing. But if you’re not confident and you are conceiving the new version of yourself, you 2.0 as someone who has no problem with confidence, as someone who naturally believes that yes, I can deal with whatever challenge comes my way, some of them will be hard, some of them will be easy, but I can do it, then you’re not faking it. You’re just choosing to consciously operate from a different model.

 

TS: Right. I’m still trying to make sure I understand this because of course when it comes to a topic like confidence, this whole imposter syndrome comes up for people. Am I just kind of acting like it? So am I just saying a sita is my understanding at least is a fully enlightened person, but they’re living an ordinary human life. They can be working in the world, they can be interacting in all different kinds of ways. People don’t even know that they’re this tremendous enlightened person. So is there a sense of I’m not really that that’s an imposter syndrome? How do you get around that, Giovanni?

 

GD: One example that I use in the book is imagine that you’re a superman. Let’s say that being strong in whatever level is one of your aspirations, one of your power words, and that’s your symbol. You believe that you are a superman and that you’re strong as superman. Now if you go and punch a wall, you are deluded and the wall is going to teach you that because you’re not superman, but believing the way you believe you will punch harder than if you didn’t have that belief. So when I sit in meditation, I remember my aspirational identity and in that moment I believe that I am a sida and I’m going to practice like a SDA practices. And the result is not that I go into perfect samad immediately like a sida does, but I do practice with much more depth than if I hadn’t done that, right

 

TS: So I mentioned that this is not naturally the way I think, which is to declare how I want my identity interface to be with the world. That’s not natural to me. And yet I’m trying to learn from what you’re saying. And I think part of the reason it’s not natural for me is I wonder if I come up with these things, whatever it might be, the symbol, what if there’s something even more tremendous that the universe could surprise me with if I wasn’t focused on this one way of representing myself in the world? What if I just wanted, I want to stay open to whatever might happen. I don’t want to kind of congeal around something solid like that. So I’m wondering how you respond to that.

 

GD: I feel that life is asking us, who are you and what do you want? And I feel that there are times for explorations in life where we don’t hold onto any identity. We don’t hold onto any aspiration, we just don’t know. It’s not clear and we are exploring. But there may be a time in life where you feel like, you know what? This seems to be the most valuable thing, the most true thing for me. And I can’t say what’s going to be five years from now, 10 years from now, but this is the diamond in my hand and I want to hold it. I want to explore this. And doing that always means saying no to everything else in a way, to all other possibilities. That’s what focus is. When the Buddha chose to leave home and become a wondering mendicant sad monk, he made a choice. He said no to many things and he said a powerful yes to only one thing, this search. And so when choosing, embracing our aspiration on one side, choosing who we want to be and how we want to unfold on another side is a choice. And it’s a choice that involves saying no to many things, but it also opens many things, right?

 

TS: So what I hear that’s really exciting to me about how you approach this is you are giving people who have perhaps done a lot of spiritual work and a lot of meditative work where they’ve let go of their inherited identities, what they’ve received from the world. You’re saying you can claim what you want, you can claim what you want. I give you permission, claim that diamond that you really want. That’s extremely empowering, Giovanni.

 

GD: In the Bible it says that, and I’m not like a Christian, but no, you’re all these other things. I have read from many sources, but the Bible says that we are created in the likeness of God. And if God is the creator, what does that mean? It means that we can, we cannot create a cosmic universe, but we can be the God or the goddess of our own universe. We can create ourselves and our life and that for me is the meaning of life to create, to express our divine essence in this way.

 

TS: Okay, so someone is identifying something that diamond, I love the way you put it, something they really, they want, it’s genuine, it’s in their heart and there are power words that go with that image and then they find themselves falling short of whatever the power word is because they’ve created these power words in response to the ways that they’re already falling short. So they’re going to fall short. So let’s just take an example like courage and it’s a situation and it’s like I feel afraid. I’m not sure I’m saying my word courage doesn’t seem to be working. What do you do in that situation?

 

GD: The metaphor I use in the book is that it’s like a ceiling fan. The ceiling fan has been spinning for a long time. You find the switch, it was hidden, you find the switch, you turn it off and it keeps on spinning and you’re confused and you think that that must not be the right switch and you turn it back on. It will continue spinning for as long as there is momentum and we have inhabited our box. Our consciousness has adopted a form with its beliefs and thoughts and emotions for a very long time, for years or decades. So it’s not going to immediately let go of that box because it found something that sounds better that the conditioning will keep on coming back. And that’s the challenge that you’re talking about. Now here’s where all of the tools from therapy, from coaching, from spirituality come in.

How do you deal with the thoughts that are not helpful, the emotions that are difficult or negative? How do you deal with that? And basically the rest of the book is me giving tools for the reader to be able to navigate the letting go of the old and affirming. The new four core tools that I talk about is mindset, witnessing imagination and embodiment. And these four have their representations in different lineages of therapy and also in different lineages of spirituality. So just briefly, mindset is when we are using thoughts to navigate thoughts, it’s more like the CBT cognitive behavior approach and it’s an approach that is used a lot in self-help box. You are seeing how your thoughts are inaccurate, how they are false, how they are misleading or incomplete, and then you’re constructing a different thought that is more helpful or more true. Then the second tool is the tool of witnessing.

This is the tool that is used in a CT for example in psychology and is the tool that is used in Buddhist practice where you’re just witnessing, you take a step back and you observe. You observe yourself showing up with fear. You observe yourself having ugly thoughts about another person. You observe yourself doing something that goes against your deeper values. You observe and you don’t identify. You just let it come and go. Then the third tool is imagination. Imagination is to use visualization practices to use the power of imagination, which is the creative power of consciousness to create how we want to operate. So for example, you could imagine I’ve had clients who have done this that they’re getting all the negative thoughts and they’re putting into shadow and sending up space. Now as silly as that may sound and the imagination can be whatever is helpful for you, we are using a faculty of the mind to make a change in the mind. So that is imagination. And finally, embodiment. It’s a very popular and well explored approach these days, which is to see how that state presents itself in your body, in your energy field and then to work on it on the level of body and emotions.

 

TS: Okay, what would you say to someone specifically when it comes to this topic of confidence? Who comes up with their power words to help them feel more confident, but their experience is they discover this shakiness inside. I’m trying to be more confident, but my power words, I don’t quite have it, I just don’t quite have it to really live into this.

 

GD: Yes, if I’ll be working with someone and that person says I chose my power word and it feels so natural and I can easily do it, I’d say it’s the wrong power word. You don’t need that one by definition. If it’s going to be the things that will move the needle the most for you, it is going to be the things that are most difficult for you. So just saying that to normalize the challenge that the person would be experiencing, action is the ultimate confirmation of belief. That’s a point that I make towards the end of the book. If you believe yourself to be confident, then you need to choose acting in a confident manner in whatever way is possible for you because the old identity still has its hold. It’s not going to let go all at once. And so you little by little choose to think, to speak and to act in a way that your aspirational identity in its full glory would.

And that might mean that if you’re not confident about talking to that person, that you choose to go and talk to that person or if even that is too much, you choose to take one step forward. And psychology, this is known as exposure therapy. You’re facing fear. This makes sense when we are talking about moving from fear, anxiety, self-doubt to confidence and courage, but whatever are the pair of things for you, if you want to move from depression to joy, from anxiety to calmness, the same system applies. So how would it be like to feel joyful in that moment? What would a joyful person think, say and do? And then you go and do those things and it’s not going to feel natural initially, but that change is happening because the way you’re acting externally is aligned with the vision you have for yourself. Little by little your present will catch up to the future you’re creating.

 

TS: Now I mentioned I wanted to talk to you more about mindful and I do you bring it forward. You say having self-discipline in and of itself makes you more confident, which I thought was an interesting observation and I think that makes sense and I do know that from my own experience that kind of builds a muscle of confidence. But you introduced this idea that I found really intriguing, commit to never zero. And when we first started our conversation, you talked about how you’ve meditated every day since you were I think 16 years old, never zero, not one day that you missed. And I was like, whoa, what’s going on here? What is commit to never zero?

 

GD: So never zero commitment is one of the key concepts in both my books. It’s a commitment. Let’s start with this word. It’s a commitment. And commitment is different from motivation. Motivation is a feeling and feelings come and go. So if you want to make permanent change in your life, you have to base your actions on something that is also permanent and that thing is not motivation. Motivation may not be there the next minute. The thing that is permanent is commitment, which is making a decision and you’re telling yourself that, hey, this is a resolution. I made a resolution here. I made a commitment. I’m not going to review this decision after 15 days or even 15 years depending on the depth of your commitment. Now this is a commitment and when you make a commitment to do anything, it’s actually so much easier than if you’re like, yeah, I want this, I want this.

But there’s not that resolution that focusing of the energies of the mind into one direction and saying, no, I’m not moving from this path. That is something else. The never zero commitment is like it is exercising this ability to choose what you want to create, commit to it with all your attention and all your intention and then don’t deviate no matter what. It doesn’t matter how big or how small that thing is. If you want to exercise an hour every day because that’s aligned with your aspirations or your goals in life, I would say, okay, one hour is the stretch goal, but your never zero commitment should be let’s say 15 minutes or 10 minutes. That even if you are extremely busy, even if you are distressed, even if you have no time, you go and do those 15 minutes, even if it’s not good quality, it doesn’t matter. You don’t break that chain. It’s this depth of commitment.

 

TS: What about the idea that be merciful towards yourself? Be self-compassionate, cut yourself some slack. We all need some grace. Come on. What about that, Giovanni?

 

GD: The first article that I wrote on my blog was around this very sticky point. I would like to differentiate self-compassion from self-love that self-love is. You know what? I made this commitment because I love myself because I have a vision that I want to manifest because I want to live this purpose. I am doing this because I like myself, not because I hate myself. So it is an act of self-love to keep on the path. And if I fall off from the path as it’ll likely happen, it is an act of self-love to bring myself back into the path in whatever way is skillful. And we are all wired differently. Some people will speak strictly to themselves and that works and they don’t have an underlying story of low self-esteem. So that’s okay. They’re just being really firm about what they want. Other people will need a much gentler approach. But I don’t see that as a contradiction, especially if we see it under the lenses of self-love that love can be tough, but at the end of the day, you are doing all of this because you care about your values, you care about yourself.

 

TS: Have you found that with your coaching clients and students that this never zero commitment? Does it work for people or are you just an unusual super willpower filled human?

 

GD: Well, the never zero commitment is something that I would recommend to almost every client. Let me say that about 20% of them will succeed at their first attempt at never zero because they have never done that before. They don’t know what it is to make a commitment that won’t change. When you have kids, you have made a commitment to be a dad or a mom, and it’s a lifetime commitment. It doesn’t matter how you feel. It doesn’t matter how tired you are, you’re still a dad, you’re still a mom. And if you take that seriously, that will guide your behavior. So yes, my clients will also struggle with that initially. Some of them will take more than one attempt. I worked with a person once that she wanted to hide from me that she didn’t, she broke her number zero commitment and then she herself, sorry, I lied.

I actually broke this and is for her. It’s not for me. I’m keeping my never zero commitments, right? It’s for you. So yes, it is something that until something internally actually clicks, when something clicks, when I had my first child five years ago, I didn’t want to hold the baby. I felt like I might drop. It is too fragile. I don’t feel confident that I can do this and that nothing bad is going to happen. But my wife was like, no, it’s okay. You’re not going to drop the baby, et cetera. But I had a concern. And then one day I made a decision. I made a resolution that I am not going to drop this baby no matter what. And it was a strong that if someone shoots me on my back, I’m falling with a baby, still holding the baby. It’s that type of deep commitment and I never dropped a baby, thank you. But it’s an example of when we make a strong commitment to something, we gather sources from our conscious and unconscious mind that we didn’t know we have.

 

TS: I was reflecting on this notion of a never zero commitment and I realized in my life the one never zero commitment I’ve made is to my wife of 23 years. And in terms of the sanctity of our marriage, and I feel very confident in that actually despite the fact that most people or many people, 50% of marriages until death do us part and it’s not real or whatever. I feel confident in my never zero commitment. But when it comes to things like meditation, exercise or tira, masu, I am not reliable. I have never made a successful, never zero commitment in that regard. And maybe that’s because I just don’t think the ramifications are that big a deal. Big deal. I skipped today. I didn’t brush my teeth today. I didn’t meditate today. So I’m curious what your view is of that because you gave the example of never dropping the baby. I get that one. I get that one,

 

GD: Yes. So you never broke your never zero commitment to your wife because that’s deeply important for you.

 

TS: Yes.

 

GD: I would go a step beyond and say because that’s part of your identity that you’re not the type of person that would do that.

 

TS: I’m not sure I would agree with you just because Giovanni, you and I love the fact that we can take our gloves on and have a good conversation here. I think it’s because I care so much, just like I wouldn’t drop the baby. I care so much. I care so much about this person that I wouldn’t create and I care so much about my life and my love life and how that’s the center of my life. I wouldn’t blow up my life like that and I wouldn’t hurt my wife like that. So that’s why now maybe you think that’s identity. It feels more to me like a function of the heart

 

GD: In your question. I’m trying to get back to the main thread.

 

TS: Yeah, the main thread was this notion of making these never zero commitments to things like yeah, exercise or these other things where I mean, okay, come on. So you skipped a day of meditation like big B, f, D.

 

GD: Yes, yes. And that’s the difference. It’s not that important. People who are trying to stop alcohol, for example, when it gets to a point where they hit the rock bottom, they thought they had hit the rock bottom before, but now it’s like three levels deeper, rock bottom, this is not an option anymore. And they can make a resolution and they can keep it because it’s not an option. So it’s very easy to make an intense commitment when we find something that is that meaningful, that’s powerful comes to mind. A lawyer that I worked with a couple of years ago where he was having trouble with an never zero commitment, and even in the beginning when he would made the commitment, he was like, you know what? I have no confidence that I’m going to follow this. And I know that he was a really good lawyer. So I said, have you ever missed a deadline in your career? He said, never in 20 years I’ve missed a deadline. That would be unthinkable for me. I said, if you feel the same way about your never zero commitment, you will not break it. And he was able to do it with that shift.

 

TS: Help me understand how applying this never zero commitment to our development of wise confidence, how that works is the important thing that we’re picking a commitment to something that really matters that much to us, is that really the important thing?

 

GD: It depends on the nature of the commitment. I just realized that we have spent the whole time talking of never zero commitment for a lifelong deep, difficult commitment, but never zero. Commitment is typically a for most people, it’s within a timeframe. So you may tell yourself that for the next one month, I’m going to wake up early and write every morning and not doubt that I can become a writer, not doubt that this is going to be good. I’m just going to leave all these doubts aside and I’m going to do this every day for a month. It could be that for the next week I’m not going to have sugar. It could be in terms of wise confidence. It could be that for the next a hundred days, every day I’m going to do something that I find difficult, something that scares me, something that stretches my courage and confidence. That would be an example of the never zero commitment with wise confidence.

 

TS: Now, I wanted to ask you another question. Towards the end of the book, you bring forward what you call four helpful beliefs that are rooted in your spiritual understanding, that you’re applying to this concept of wise confidence. You have an unbreakable core, you have a deep purpose. Your life is your training ground and your mind matters. And here’s the quote that I want to read. It’s under this section of your mind matters. You wrote, confident people are not more successful in life only because they take bolder steps, but also because their thoughts and desires are more powerful and magnetic. Their minds matter more. And I wanted to understand that, Giovanni, how is it that confident people’s minds matter more?

 

GD: Right? I love the question and here’s where what I’m teaching is overlapping with what is modernly known as the law of attraction. Most spiritual traditions have held for centuries or millennia that our thoughts shape reality, that our thoughts create reality in one way or another. And this idea made its way into our popular self-help universe through the new thought movement. And then later on, many bestselling books, Napoleon Hill, the Secret, et cetera. The idea is that we live in a multilayer universe. What we see is just a physical layer, but the physical layer is the effect of a subtler layer. Some call it the astral world, some call it the subtle world or the invisible world. And in this world, thoughts are things. So what we think creates something in this subtler world. And if we think that same thought repeatedly with great intention, with the added energy of emotion, then that thought is actually very different from all your other thoughts.

That thought is energized more by your belief, by your intention and your attention. And that thought is more likely to make a real impact in the world around you. And so it’s the idea that we are all familiar with that our thoughts can attract things and can shape reality. But with the added understanding that not all thoughts are created equal, not all minds are equal in this capacity. The mind of a person who is distracted having 10,000 different thoughts and a hundred different desires in different directions and who doesn’t make commitments and the thoughts in such a mind will have little power to manifest as compared to the thoughts in the mind of a disciplined person, of a focused of a confident person. Those thoughts, they are more charged with energy with prana if you are from the same lineage. And so in that sense, confidence is a form of the power of the mind. In yoga, they have this concept of manas Shakti. Manas means mind, and Shakti is power. And what constitutes our manas Shakti, it’s our willpower, our focus, and our belief. If you really want something to happen, if you really focus on that thing, if you really believe that it’ll happen, that thought is very different in its capacity to manifest from the other thoughts, willpower, energy, belief. 

 

TS: Can you share with me what you mean by willpower? 

 

GD: In tantra, willpower will is one of the five elements of Shakti, which is the absolute in manifestation, right? It’s that creative force inside the soul that can determine something and create by that very act of determination. Now, in terms of putting these ideas into practice, if your aspiration is to, I dunno, to make a big impact in the field of ai, then it’s different. If that’s just an intention and you still go through the motions, you study, you apply, you think you code, versus you have a deep conviction that that’s going to happen, that you can do it and you want it, you are willing it to be. So with all your energy, it brings more energy to that thought. I dunno how to express better.

 

TS: Giovanni, I’m reflecting as we’re talking about why I have a kind of fiery attitude in this conversation, and I think it’s because I’ve encountered a lot of performance coaching teachers and presenters where it feels like there is not a spiritual route in what they’re doing, but they’re just trying to make our human egos perform better and reach our desires. And there’s something about it that just feels very self-serving to me, self-inflating to me and I have a kind of allergy towards it, truth be told. And then of course there are spiritual teachers, as I said in the beginning, and traditions, they’re focused on being, and there’s no sense of this goal orientation that you have and you’re someone who’s bringing both of these things together. And I think the question that’s emerging for me is how do we not get stuck in a kind of performance orientation that’s not rooted in the spiritual principles of genuineness, service, openness, heart, so it becomes some kind of self-serving thing. How do we navigate that within ourselves?

 

GD: Yes, I think that people who resonate with what you’re saying, they already have a different worldview, a different depth, and that is already a bit of a buffer against just productivity and time management and achieve your goals and be bold and all of that. As I was hearing your question, what came to me is your why, your aspiration that you are not into personal development. Just because you want to earn more and grow your career and find the ideal partner. And okay, let me put it like this. When your desires in life, when your aspirations in life sit against a background of greater depth and wisdom that I don’t just want this because of the little voice I’m going to get at the end of the journey. I want this because it seems to be aligned with who I am, with the purpose of this life, with the journey that I need to go through as a soul. And that’s the bigger why that’s I’m going through this.

 

TS: So it’s a sense of deep inner alignment from the inside. That’s the motivation. There’s a purity and an alignment in the motivation, if you will, that’s driving the system, right? Is it fair to say that, yes, you emphasize coming from the inside out, not the outside in. Maybe we can end on that note and you can share what that means in terms of really finding this motivation and why from the inside out.

 

GD: So these are basically two ways of navigating life. When you’re navigating life outside in, then your environment is conditioning you, then your thoughts are shaped by an environment. The way you feel is shaped by your thoughts and your identity is the product of that. It’s the conditioned identity. I say that when you’re living outside in, your identity is a question mark and you’re looking outside for answers. When you’re living inside out, your identity is an exclamation mark. This is who I am, this is what I’m after, this is what I’m doing. And then that shapes that which comes from your values that will shape how you see yourself, how you see the world, how you think, how you operate and how you speak. And in the former, you feel consciously and unconsciously you feel like a victim in life. You’re like a leaf blown by the wind while in the ladder, when you’re living inside out. There’s this real sense of being a creator, of being a creator. And as I shared this for me is what is really aligned to the purpose of life. University manifestation is here to manifest and we are called to complete and to continue the work of that divine creative energy that set the universe in motion,

 

TS: Confidence from the inside out with Giovanni Dienstmann, author of the book, Wise Confidence: Overcome Self-Doubt, and Build Lasting Self-Esteem. What a great conversation, Giovanni, I knew you were going to help me see things in a different way. And indeed that has happened. Thank you so much.

 

GD: Thank you, Tami. This is great.

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