Do You Know who You Are? | Bob Proctor

You went to, you attended seminars and you said your reason there was to learn more about yourself. [Bob] Yeah. My experience has been people attend seminars especially self-development seminars to look for the answer.

They wanna know, what is it out there I can learn so that I can be more successful? That wasn't your motivation? No, no, oddly enough.

And, I think probably you're right. I think that's what most people are looking for. I think they're looking for an answer outside of themself and they're never going to find it.

I think by this time I realized it was something in me. I met a man here in Toronto. He was the one that originally got me involved in studying this, Ray Stanford.

And, he told me if I didn't like the results I was getting in my life, that I was going to have to change me because they were my results. And, he said, if you're gonna change you, you're gonna have to find out something about yourself. And, that seemed to make sense.

I don't think it was an earth-shattering idea. It wouldn't give anybody a brain hernia, but it made a hell of a lot of sense to me. So, I started to study myself.

I found most people don't know who they are. They really don't. What do you mean?

I mean, I know my name, I know my age, I know where I live. What else is there-- - Yeah that's not you though. That's just it.

- I know what size (mumbles). If you ask the average person who they are, they'll give you their name. They'll say I'm Bob Proctor, but I'm not.

Bob and Proctor are two words. My parents gave them to me. They're called names but it's not me, it's my name.

Then somebody'll say well this is me, but this isn't me either, it's my body. Like you never phone down here to the studio and say, "Body won't be in today, it's sick. " [Tom] (chuckling) Okay.

You know we don't say am hand or am leg. We say my hand, my leg, my body, my name. Who am I?

Well that's an interesting question. And I believe if a person will start to study that and look for the answer, they'll find it. See, I think we live simultaneously on three planes of understanding.

We're spiritual creatures, we have an intellect, and we live in physical bodies. Okay. But, because we lack awareness or understanding of who we are, we're totally locked into a physical world and we let things outside of us control us.

95% of the population are reacting to life they're not really living at all. [Tom] Okay, and would you call that one of the barriers to success? Oh there's no question about it.

I think there's two barriers. Success is a funny word. Nightingale had a great definition for it.

He said, "A person's successful if they know where they are and they know where they're going, "nd they're progressively moving in that direction. " He said that success was "the progressive realization "of a worthy ideal. " Anyone that has a goal and they're moving towards it, they're successful.

Most people think that you're successful if you have a lot of money. Quite often you have a lot of money if you're successful, but it isn't, I wouldn't say Mother Teresa has a lot of money, you know, but she's a pretty successful lady. So, it's-- So, that barrier to success is reacting-- - Well there's a couple them.

- Okay. I think there's two barriers. One is our conditioning, the conditioning that takes place in our subconscious mind from the time we're infants.

All we can do is act and talk like the people around us. That's why we learn the language we learn. If there was 10 languages spoken in our home, we'd learn 10 languages without any trouble.

There's usually one and that's the only one we ever learn and we grow older and we think, oh I couldn't learn another language. We could learn 100 if we wanted to. You can do anything.

But, I think we're conditioned. We have a real strong conditioning usually with not some very good ideas. And, then that's the barrier that's inside us.

The one that's outside of us is our environment. We have a tendency to act like everybody around us. And, if you think about this, it doesn't make a lot of sense.

Because if you study statistics, 95% of the people live their entire life and never live the way they want to live. Did you know that 95% of the population in this country, let's say in North America. Okay.

The richest continent in the history of the world. They all work productively, let's say for 40 of their 65 years. Okay.

And, they all end up with hardly any money. Well there's gotta be something wrong. So, there's not much-- About 5% of the people end up financially comfortable or independent.

Are you trying to depress us, Bob? 'Cause that's-- No, actually I think it's quite an exciting idea because you see the idea behind it is that anybody can win, anyone at all. But, if we start studying these statistics, I think we'll arrive at the conclusion, geez, I better start thinking for myself rather than follow everybody.

Most people they get a job, they look around, they see how everybody else is doing their work, and they start doing it the same way. They should stop and think, I wonder if any of these people know what they're doing? You know, is there a better way to do it?

But, don't we have a need to fit in? I mean, we don't wanna stand out, we don't wanna get fired, we don't wanna make waves. Exactly, exactly, just fall into line, you know, take a number, be like everybody around.

You know, that'd be great in the animal kingdom, but human beings aren't supposed to live that way. I think we should make a few waves. We should maybe stand out, be different.

Not for the sake of being different. [Tom] Okay. But, because we are different.

We all think different thoughts and I believe we should start to think and build images in our mind of what we'd like to do and then set out and do it. Okay let me-- Emerson did that, Edison did that, Marconi did that, Samuel Morris did that. Buckminister Fuller did that.

We could go on and on and on and on. [Tom] Okay. They were different, they stood out, they made a few waves.

Okay, you started with you say, you started with a search for yourself, to try to find our more about yourself. And, you were somewhat successful along the way. Well, I didn't start it like that in the beginning.

I started that I wanted to earn a lot of money. I figured if I had enough money I was gonna cure all my problems. I found that that wasn't true.

I earned a fair amount of problems, or money and I seemed to have more problems. But, I, after working at this for a few years I decided that the real answer is get to know yourself a little better. [Tom] Okay.

And, I don't think you have to go off in the Himalayas and become a guru to do that. Okay, what did you do to learn about yourself? You said you went around to as many seminars as you could.

I attended seminars. I went and listened to different speakers who taught something about the mind. I think the answer's in our mind.

If we all start studying and trying to understand our mind. Okay let me get back to you if I can. What did you learn about Bob Proctor during that study?

Well, I learned that the biggest part of me, you'll never see. It's non-physical. And, what you see here in the physical body is nothing but the physical manifestation of the higher side of my personality.

And, of course that's true with you and Nancy that's on the camera. It's true of everyone. And, what we have to study, I think, is how does this non-physical part of my mind work?

What happens when I think? Where do thoughts come from? How was this chair built?

Somebody had to think. Thoughts are everywhere. And, we pull thoughts into our mind and we build pictures or images in our mind.

[Tom] Okay. What we want to understand is that's a non-physical side of ourself that's doing that. If I can build an image of something in my mind, I'm quite capable of building a physical replica of it in my world.

So, if I build an image of me as a happy, relaxed person, I can live like that. If I build an image of myself as being prosperous, I can become prosperous. So, if we think rich, we will be rich.

Absolutely. We're already rich, just short of money. (both men chuckle) [Tom] Okay, those of us that like to acquire more money and/or happiness or whatever we see success is, those of us that wanna reach the goals that we've set for our selves, We do it first by.

. . Well, the first thing you do is sit down and decide what you want.

If it's money you want, how much money? [Tom] Lots of money. Well, nobody knows how much lots of is.

So, you've gotta be specific. [Tom] Okay. You write down on a card exactly what you want.

And, you carry that card around and read it often. Now this is what I learned in this book Think and Grow Rich and it's what I teach in the seminars. I'll teach people how to set goals.

But, you decide exactly what you want. And, then you start to think. Now you're gonna have thoughts come to your mind of why you can't get it.

You have the ability in your conscious mind to reject that idea, kick it out of your mind. Thinking of why you can't do something is never gonna do you any good. And, keep thinking until you start to think of thoughts of how you can do it.

And, the way will be shown to you. It comes in the form of images in our mind. Think of how you can and not why you can't.

Okay so our first step is to set some goals. - That's the first step. Think about how we can go about reaching those goals.

Exactly. And, just think of how you can. Now, I would say even before you get into that, you should get a good book and start to study it.

Select a person who is already doing something that you'd like to do, get to know that person. Go to the experts for advice. Don't ask the person next door, your mother, father, brother, or the guy that works beside you.

Because they don't necessarily know. There's no point in asking a person how to earn a lot of money if they're only earning $10,000 a year. They don't know.

If they knew they'd probably be earning a lot. [Tom] I think that's fair. It's like don't go to a sick doctor if you wanna get healthy.

[Tom] Okay. So, you find someone that you can go to for advice, get a real good book, and lock into that book, and start to study it. Like, I've got this one that looks like a bible, you know.

But, this is Napoleon Hill's book, Think and Grow Rich. I've been reading this thing now for 23 years. I'll probably read it for another 23 years.

I get another good book that I brought over here today. It's called The Power of Your Subconscious Mind. I'm not getting a commission for selling this.

The author's dead now. He's been gone for a couple of years, but Dr Joseph Murphy wrote this book, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind. And that's probably one of the best books that you're ever gonna find because you're gonna learn something about your mind when you read this book.

[Tom] Okay. Now I read a lot of books. I've got probably 1000 books sitting in my den at home in my library but the one that I carry, I carry it everywhere I go and I read it all the time is Think and Grow Rich.

I never stop reading it. Where's the value for you to re-read that, read it again, I mean, you must know it well enough that-- I think I could probably recite it verbatim. But, the secret is I once read in a book where it said, when you read good book through the second time, you don't see something in it that you didn't see before.

You see something in yourself that wasn't there before. You see when I read this, I create a greater awareness. Let me just read you one line out of here, two lines.

[Tom] Okay. Hill said, "The missing link in all systems of education known to civilization today may be found in the failure of educational institutions to teach students how to organize and use knowledge after they acquire it. " He went on to say that, "We should understand that we should understand the real meaning of the word educated.

" It's not going to a brick-and-mortar edifice for 25 years. That's gathering information. You'll probably develop your memory, but I would question how well you develop your mind.

And, I'm not against education 'cause I encourage my children to go to school as we know it. Now, he said, "The word education come from the word "educo," and he says, "it's derived "from the Latin word educo meaning to induce, to draw out, or to develop from within. An educated person is not necessarily one who has an abundance of general or specialized knowledge.

An educated person who's one who has so developed the faculties of their mind that may acquire anything they want or its equivalent without violating the rights of others. " An educated person is the one that knows how to go and get what they want out of life. Without being selfish.

[Tom] Oh in sense a researcher, somebody who knows what they're looking for and knows how to go about finding that. I think we should forever be involved in research because learning is a lifelong process. You never stop learning.

Education means to draw out from within. We're drawing on an infinite source. We've got deep reservoirs of talent and ability within us.

We can learn to do anything. We have phenomenal powers. If we used our body like we used our mind, we'd probably just move our little finger.

Okay, we don't exercise our mind enough. Oh no, no. But, we're not taught to.

Kids in school should be taught before the school year ever starts to sit down. They should be given a blank report card and get them to visualize the marks they want to get and write your own report card. This is before school starts, first week in school.

And, then the teacher should say, "Now I want you just to concentrate on how to get that mark and I don't want you to think of why you can't. And, I want you to form the attitude that you're going to get it. " Now some people say that's not being realistic.

That's being very realistic. That's following the success principles that go back 6,000 years in recorded history. That's how everything was accomplished.

And, that's not engaging in fantasy thinking? In wishful thinking? - Hell no.

In daydreaming we talk about. No, no. Well that's where all greatness comes from.

Greatness comes from fantasy. I would imagine that when Edison first saw the light bulb he was fantasizing. But, he kept fantasizing and he built it into a theory and then he built it into an image and then he built it into a fact.

I mean, when I was kid, it was a fantasy to think of going to the moon. We've been up there with cars, playing golf. Okay, you mentioned in terms of success principles attitude, this business of attitude.

Attitude, attitude, it takes in the way you think, and the way you feel, and the way you act. I'd have a difficult time really explaining attitude right just in a conversation. I use a board in the seminar.

And, well I did an attitude seminar last night. We spent three hours dealing with that one subject, you know, so to do it here in three minutes, I haven't, I can do it, I haven't learned how yet, let's put it that way. [Tom] Okay, I recognize it's difficult because we talked-- You have to have a winning attitude, though, Tom.

Okay, in human relations we talk about the toughest thing with managing people, the toughest thing to deal with is their attitude. That's right. That it's almost impossible to change another person's-- That's the one thing where management falls down.

We can't change people's attitudes. Well, nobody can change another person's attitude and the only attitude we can change is our own. But, you see, if management have the idea it's their attitude and we can't do anything about it, then they're not gonna do anything about it.

But, if management arrive at the conclusion, yes it is attitude and let's teach the people something about attitude. Let's teach them something about themself. Let's make them realize that they're worth something, that they're valuable, they're the greatest resource we've got.

Companies spend about 65% of every dollar that comes in goes back out on employees, and wages, and benefits. And, yet management knows less about employees than anything else. They know more about the gidgets and the widgets than they do about the people.

Okay so you're suggesting that we develop a winning attitude. Absolutely. [Tom] Can you define that for me first of all?

What is a winning attitude? Well, if we could understand, let me digress for a second. The whole universe operates by laws and there's a law of opposites.

It's called the law of polarity. Everything has its opposite. There's a right and a left side.

There's a front and a back, an up and a down, a hot and a cold, positive and a negative, yin, the yang, you know. Well, you can think negative or you can think positive, but you can't think both at the same time. You're only gonna think one way at one time.

And, we have to train our mind to think or look for the positive or the good in things. There's good in everything. There's no such thing as no good.

[Tom] Car broke down on the way over to the station. There's something good about it. Now, you may have to look to find out what it is.

[Tom] Okay. But, there's something good in everything. There has to be a positive and a negative for anything to exist.

There's a law of gender that decrees that science understands it, it's taught in science. [Tom] Okay. Well, once we understand that there's this law of opposites, there's negative thoughts or positive thoughts.

As the thought energy flows into our mind, we decide what we're gonna think. Person's out of work, they can decide to think I can't find a job, but they can decide to think I can. If they're thinking I'm going to find one, then they'll start attracting a train of thought to them figuring out how to find it.

You really have to understand how your conscious and your subconscious mind works in relation to your body or your physical world to understand attitude. Attitude should be taught as a subject in school ahead of reading, writing, arithmetic, or anything else. Because it's a person's attitude that's gonna determine the marks they get.

Okay, maybe part of attitude or related to attitude is this business of self-image which you talked about. Yeah, well that would, like we were talking about success principles and I was saying you gotta get the winning attitude, you've gotta set a goal. Then you have to work on self-image.

Now, when we think we build images in our mind, Dr Maxwell Maltz discovered the self-image concept as we know it today in 1960 he was a plastic surgeon. And, he realized, he was operating on people, he may removed a, you know, a nasty scar from their face and he'd notice sometimes when he removed the scar, maybe did a nose job on them or something, there was a great psychological change took place in the person. Where they may have been introverted, they started to become very gregarious and outgoing.

And, he postulated that there must be two images that we have. An exterior image and we also have an inner self-image. And, he started to study this and he wrote a magnificent book on it called Psycho-Cybernetics.

In Psycho-Cybernetics, psycho being the mind, cybernetics being the science of control and communication. And, he goes into this and he explains how every one of us has an image in our mind of ourself and it's called a self-image. Too many people don't know much about themself and so they don't have a very good image of themselves.

And, you'll often notice that people will shy away from you, they won't look you in the eye, they'll look down, they'll look up. They'll never try to do anything of any great consequence because they don't think they can. They have a poor self-image.

Okay, part of that is because through school we're told about what we don't do well. We failed here, we had low grades. - That could be part of it.

Or you only got 60% or whatever. - Yeah, yeah. I think there's been a great disservice done with the IQ test in that respect when you're bringing out school.

Binet, the Frenchman back around the turn of the century invented the IQ test and then we brought it over from Stanford over here. And we'll test a person's intellect and then we'll brand them good, bad, smart, not and that's not true. We can change IQs by changing self-images.

But, yes if we're told we're not very good, "You're just like your dad," you know. "You're a bum, you're never gonna do well. " "You didn't go to school, you can't win.

" [Tom] Okay. Well that's all false. We can do anything.

And we should be encouraging a child. Give 'em a pat on the back rather than a kick. Okay, what can we do, members of our viewing audience right now that, most of us walk around with some degree of a self-image, is that fair to say?

We all have a self-image. [Tom] Okay, would you say most of us have a negative self-image to some degree? Well, let's say we can all improve our self-image.

I don't care how good your image is, you can improve it. [Tom] Okay, how can we improve it? Something specific, how can we go about making our self-image more positive?

Well, again, you know, you're getting into a whole day seminar. If I could give you just a simple tip on it. If a person would sit down and let their body relax, totally relax and then start to visualize in their mind, see themselves the way they want to see themselves.

Which may take a good deal of thought since we're not sure at first. - Well you relax, yeah. I mean in terms of how we wanna see ourselves.

Maybe we don't know how we wanna-- Relate it to something specific. [Tom] Somebody we admire maybe? Possibly.

[Tom] Somewhere we'd like to see ourself down the road? Yeah, see how you'd like to live your life. See yourself living it that way.

[Tom] Okay. Now understand that that's a picture in your mind. When you pick up a book, the book is nothing but a picture that an author has painted in words.

Van Gogh, the great artist, was asked one time how he did such beautiful work. He said, "I dream my painting and then I paint my dream. " To get the picture in the mind and then paint it on the wall or on the canvas.

Well, if we would relax and build the image in our mind of how we'd like to see ourself, how we'd like to see ourself acting in life, relating to other people, our social life. See ourself in the position we hold or how we make our sales presentations if we happen to be in selling or something. And, then take that picture and describe it, write it out in the present tense.

"I am so happy now that I see myself" and write it out. Now a lot of people will laugh at this and say, "That doesn't make any sense. " It makes a lot of sense.

They can't tell you why it doesn't. I could spend hours telling you why it does and I could explain it in such detail that everyone would understand it. But, write out a description of how you'd like to see yourself.

Start to read it and read it and read it and read it every day. Carry it around and keep reading it. The one point that all the great teachers all down through history have all agreed on, they've been in complete unanimous agreement on it, we become what we think about.

Now it may be fantasy at first, it might even appear to us as being a lie, but if you read it often enough, you'll start to believe it. And, when William James said, "Believe and your belief "will create the fact," you will see the person's personality change. I watch people in the seminars personality change right in front of my eyes.

And, all they're doing is starting to see themselves differently. They're starting to think different thoughts. So, our thoughts control our actions?

Oh there's no question about, no our thoughts control our feelings. - We control-- [Tom] Okay. Our feelings control our actions.

All right, and we control our thoughts. Absolutely. - Or we can control our thoughts.

We can control our thoughts, yes. Generally though on one of our difficulties, one of our problems maybe is that we tend to react to what other people tell us and we consequently get the negative thoughts and then that affects our feelings and that affects our behavior. That's right, that's exactly the way it is.

We read the newspaper, doom and gloom's coming. We just accept it. Doom and gloom doesn't have to be coming.

You know there's always been a depression for some people. I grew up with the idea that everybody went broke in the '30s. They didn't, some made millions.

I thought everybody went out of business. They didn't, some people went into business. There's always a depression for some people and there's always good times for others.

Let's ask ourself when we read something in the paper, do I wanna get emotionally involved in that idea? If it's a negative idea, I don't wanna get emotionally involved with it. I don't read the paper that often.

I do, but I don't dwell on it. You don't get emotionally involved when you see other news. - No, when an idea comes into your mind, whether somebody else tells you or whether you read it in the paper, we should reason with it, ask ourself will that idea help me get to where I want to go?

If it won't, reject the idea. Okay, all right, Bob I appreciate it. Our half hour's gone by already.

[Bob] Went fast. Very quickly. Those that are interested in learning more about your philosophy of success and I know you do give very specific tips in what they can do to become more successful are welcome to attend your seminars.

Absolutely, tell 'em to phone the office. (gentle electric piano music) We run seminars all the time. [Tom] Terrific, okay, I appreciate it.

Thank you much for joining us. My pleasure Tom, glad to be here.