P4/5: Self-Respect; Do You Really... Have It?

There’s a kind of self-respect that can’t be measured—but you feel it. In this clip, Tiger explores the quiet inner reckoning that happens when we see ourselves avoiding our sincerity. Through raw, honest reflection, he invites you to look at the moments when you hide from truth, from challenge, from the part of you that knows better.

And then, he points to what happens when you don’t: when you look in the mirror and say, “Thank you.” This is about integrity, not performance.

Please note: This track may include some explicit language.

Transcript

Life is extraordinarily moldable,

And as human beings,

My goodness,

It is so important to look at this again through your own experience.

The mind wants to distract us and think about other people's experience,

But to look at your own experience without comparing yourself to somebody else,

There's so much raw potential in you to make what we might call progress.

And what is progress?

In one way,

Yeah,

There's what appears to be progress on the surface,

But to me,

That's so secondary.

Look at it this way in a relationship.

We can say progress in a relationship is adding years to the journey,

Right?

Like,

Oh,

We made it to 20 years.

Oh,

We made it to 50 years.

That's progress.

We're still together.

But do you see the real progress is an internal thing?

It's a depth of connection.

It's a love that's felt.

It's an appreciation.

It's a courage to be honest and vulnerable.

That's a sort of progress that you can't really measure in the world.

Now,

On the surface,

It manifests as an appearance of progress,

And that's nice.

But what's the real progress?

Even in business,

Like in my experience,

In the progress that's made,

It's not so much the outcome,

Which is nice.

It's seeing that I did the hard thing.

It's seeing that I showed up.

It's seeing that I honored an inner call to do a work that my heart felt was important.

You know what this reminds me of?

Let's call it a heart-based self-respect.

Because that's something that I've experienced a lot,

Which is the opposite of self-respect,

Where you look at yourself in the mirror and you say,

What are you doing?

In one way,

As a particular flavor,

It's like you lost respect for yourself,

Like you see yourself hiding.

You see yourself cowering down from challenge,

Avoiding a sincerity in your heart that feels like something's important,

Avoiding an adventure that's calling out to you.

And you look in the mirror and you're like,

What are you doing?

And you see on the other end of that,

When you actually change,

And then you look at yourself in the mirror and you say,

Thank you.

Thank you for honoring what we both know is actually very important to you.

Thank you for doing the hard thing.

And there's something profoundly meaningful about that,

Especially as it relates to the relationship you have with yourself on this journey called being human.

Because the relationship between you and you is the primary relationship of your life.

Imagine you were in a relationship with somebody,

Let's say like a romantic partnership or a marriage,

And they were always avoiding your sincerity.

They were hiding from you.

They were not being honest about what's really going on,

How they really felt.

They weren't willing to have difficult conversations because it exposed their inadequacy and they wanted to hide from that.

Could you develop a beautiful relationship with that person if they're not willing to participate?

Do you see how we can do the same thing to ourselves?

It's like a good honest talk with your partner.

Or it's like,

Oh wow,

We need to talk about some things.

There are some things that are out of alignment.

We're not on the same page at all.

And we do that with our own human.

We're not on the same page.

We just distract ourselves.

Right?

It's like two people in a relationship and they're both just sitting on their phone while both feeling that inner discomfort of we should probably talk about this,

But no,

Let's just be on our devices.

Let's just stay distracted.

Let's just pretend like everything's fine and hope that it passes.

Isn't that what we do to ourselves?

And yet there is this profound opportunity to do something about it.

Is there not?

Or are we just going to go with the story of,

I can't?

And underneath that is,

Yeah,

But I'm just going to fail.

You are going to fail.

That's part of it.

That's how you learn.

That's how you grow.

You do not grow without the experience of failure.

You have to fail.

Again and again and again.

That's why it's hard.

But you keep going.

And really we say,

I don't want to fail.

It's because you're so damn concerned about what everybody else thinks.

Isn't that wild?

Isn't that wild?

We don't allow ourselves to be ourselves,

Which is to learn and grow because we think somebody else is going to think we're an idiot?

Because we think somebody else isn't going to understand?

My goodness,

Do you see how we just trap ourselves with all of these bullshit excuses?

And yet there is this playground called life that is saying,

I love you.

Go play.

And we're like,

Nope.

Nope.

Someone's going to think I'm dumb.

I can't do that.

Nope.

I might fail,

Which means people will think I'm dumb.

Can't do that.

And you see this points to the power of the spiritual inquiry because you really get to see how absurd this is.

Like because the spiritual inquiry,

If you go down that rabbit hole,

It is,

Holy shit,

There's only love.

And if there's only love,

What the fuck am I doing?

Because my whole life is ruled by fear.

Which is to say,

I'm not even living reality.

What am I doing?

Imagine it if you have to.

Imagine it was true that there's only love and there's nothing to fear.

What would your life be like?

And you see why it's not like that because of all the fear.

You know what it would be like if you saw that it was only love and there is nothing to fear.

I think some people would assume that they would just relax and sit on the beach.

But I think really what you would do is you would go on some epic adventure.

You would test the boundaries of those perceived limitations.

You would set your heart free and you go play.

Right?

Like imagine a child full of wonder and mystery.

They want to go explore.

They want to go play.

They want to find out what's possible.

They want to play.

They want to engage life because it's a miracle.

And not only that,

There's so much love to be shared.

That's the adventure.

And inside of you,

There's so much love to be shared.

And it's infinite in the ways that can be expressed through all different human beings.

So much love to be shared.

And no,

It's not easy.

It's not supposed to be.

Yes,

You're going to fail,

Which means you're going to learn.

Yes,

It's going to be full of uncertainty.

That's part of learning.

It's an adventure.

You come into this world,

Into this vast unknown and say,

Oh my God,

What is this?

Go find out.

And what do you find out?

It's amazing and dangerous.

You might die.

Yeah,

That's wild.

Will you consider that,

Please?

Will you consider that life is actually an adventure and a playground for your human to express itself in a way that continually releases more love?

And let that mean for you,

Whatever it means for you.

It can simply be in a way that shows up in a way that resonates with your heart.

And then in contrast,

Let this be playful.

Don't let it be an exercise in self judgment.

Let it be playful to really examine how much of your life is dictated by fear.

And you are fearing the most impossible things.

You're literally fearing imaginary monsters that are stopping you from playing.

Are you telling me that you don't want to dive into that and slay those imaginary monsters?

To see that they're imaginary?

And how do you do that?

You face them.

Which means you have to start by being honest about them,

Which is taking radical responsibility for your life.

And why you don't do the things your heart feels moved to do,

Which is another way of saying,

Be honest.

Because you're scared.

Scared of what?

Imaginary monsters.

And if they don't seem imaginary,

Then go down that depth of spirituality.

Got lots of content on that.

Makes it really obvious.

There's only love.

And then your human opportunity,

Your human adventure,

Is to allow that depth of truth to move through you in a courageous way,

Which is like deeply honoring a truth that you know in your heart,

Even though your mind is imagining all sorts of shit,

Like what other people think about you.

What if it doesn't work out?

It's an adventure.

Let it be a playful adventure.

Yeah,

It's gonna be hard sometimes.

Yeah,

It'll feel super serious sometimes.

That's fine.

This is what you signed up for.

This is why you're here.

Thanks for playing with me.

That was fun.

Reviews

I feel like I’m on the older age spectrum of this talk. At age 69 I’ve taken so many chances and made so many mistake and I can look back and say I’m glad I did. Which inspires me now that I’m widowed to continue to take chances and my prayer every morning is, God surprise me.

Wow, this was exactly what I needed to hear today 🙏
Thank you for sharing 🫶😊

You have a wonderful gift. Thanks for developing and sharing it. Helps me believe something like it is possible for me.