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In this episode, we explore the profound impact of authenticity and vulnerability on personal growth. David shares his own struggles with addiction and how embracing his imperfections led to healing and happiness. He discusses the importance of being true to oneself, shedding the facade of perfection, and the energy it takes to maintain a false identity.

Through heartfelt stories and practical insights, David encourages listeners to let go of societal expectations, be real, and create space for genuine connections and personal transformation. Join David for an inspiring conversation on living authentically and finding true happiness.

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Available on Amazon: A Changed Mind: Go Beyond Self Awareness, Rewire Your Brain & Reengineer Your Reality

Download the Audiobook: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCKF721M

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What We Explored This Episode

02:03 Reverend TD Jake's Impact

03:04 Authenticity and Self-Discovery

08:08 Finding Happiness

14:15 Acceptance without judgment

18:24 Journey of self-discovery

Memorable Quotes

"You being you is the pathway for you to discover your purpose in the world. It takes so much energy to pretend to be someone you're not."

"Throw your scars, not your stars. It's about sharing my imperfection that has allowed me to build the most amazing relationships and create an extraordinary community."

"Happiness is a habit and you can develop it right now. The irony is, when you choose to be happy, which you can only become when you're being yourself, all the other stuff starts to fill in."

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Interested in coaching programs and more support?

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👉 DAVID’S NEW BOOK

Check out ‘A Changed Mind’ on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1642939862

Check us out on your favorite social platforms:

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Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/davidrbayer

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YouTube - / @davidbayer33

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Mentioned in this episode:

Now Available: A Changed Mind Book

I don't share my scars as a marketing tool. I do it because it's who I have to be if I'm going to continue to move through this journey of realizing my wholeness. The happiness is already there. The wholeness is already there. It's just a matter of reconnecting to what I came into this world with. To what you came into this world with. But it's such an early age. We become programmed to live in this distorted reality of pretending to be somebody that we're not for fear that other people won't accept us. And what we have to do is unlearn that behavior. So I am whole already. And you're whole, too. Welcome to a changed mind. A journey into the topics that matter to you most. From the neuroscience and spirituality of mindset and personal growth. To groundbreaking strategies for health, wealth, and relationships. To open and honest conversations about pressing global issues such as the environment, censorship, corporate capture, and democracy. Each and every episode reminds us of the certainty of the goodness of the future and provides the teachings, tools, and timeless wisdom inspiring you to create real, lasting change in your life and in the world. If you've been desiring a sanctuary for your spirit, a place to go to tune out the distraction, negativity, and doom and gloom so that you can tap into the deep power, the vibrancy, and the potential you have inside, you're in the right place. Welcome to a changed mind. Hey, it's David. Welcome to a changed mind. A sanctuary for your spirit. A place where each and every episode I remind you of the certainty of the goodness of the future. I'm your friend, your host, your guide, David Bayer. Today I want to talk to you about a superpower that you have, which is actually your imperfection, that your flaws are your greatest strength. I had an opportunity several years ago to meet a mentor of mine, a guy who I looked to during a very dark period of my life when I was struggling with drug and alcoholism and pornography addiction. My thinking was so toxic that I had to put someone else's voice in my ears. And it was this gentleman. He's a very powerful motivational speaker, a guy by the name of Reverend TD Jakes. And we were both speaking at an event, and I had an opportunity to meet him backstage. And I said, reverend Jakes, I just want to let you know you were there for me, whether you know it or not. During the darkest time of my life, your voice was the light that I needed in order to carry me forward into my recovery, into my personal growth, into my spiritual development. And I just want to thank you, because your words have helped shape the person that I become today. We had a wonderful conversation, and then he went out. He was the big keynote speaker at this event. And he got on stage and he said, hey, before I get started, I just want to let you all know that you're going to hear from someone pretty extraordinary, a guy by the name of David Bear. I had an opportunity to meet him backstage, and he did something very, very different than what most people do. I read his bio before I came out here. He's done some amazing things. He's created a very successful transformational company. He's helped a lot of people. He's got a lot of things that he could brag about, but he didn't mention any of it. And he did one thing that I think the rest of you could do more of, and that is throw your scars, not your stars. And that really stuck with me. And I've learned over time what a incredible truth that is. And there's so much out there today that's convincing you that you need to be perfect. But it's exhausting, isn't it? I don't know about you, but I just got tired of it. And so what I want to talk to you about today is the importance of you being you. You being you is actually how you heal. You being you is about how you become more prosperous and abundant. You being you is the pathway for you to discover your purpose in the world. You being you is how you're actually going to grow your business to the next level of success and impact or transform any aspect of your life. Because it takes so much energy to pretend to be someone you're not. You know, not speaking your truth is one way that we pretend to be somebody that we're not. At least that's what I did. You know, I was afraid to share my ideas at work with my coworkers or my management. I'd have ideas. I think there were things that might improve what we were doing, but there was this voice in my head that said, ah, Dave, you know, you may not know what you're talking about, or people might criticize you or make fun of you. So I kept those ideas to myself. I wasnt being me. I was trying to be perfect, or I was spending time with a lot of people who, frankly, I didnt need to be spending time with anymore. You may have people in your life right now who youre still hanging out with. Even though youre listening to episodes like this, youre focusing on your personal growth. Youre looking to create betterment in your life and the lives of other people, but youre still hanging out with friends that you should probably let go of because thats who you used to be, but its not who you are anymore. But because we're afraid to live in that small gap which can feel very, very lonely. As our old friends transition out the people who we're comfortable with into this alone time to create space for the universe, which it will, every single time, bring you next level people and friendships and extraordinary relationships, you're hanging on to something that it isn't yours to hang onto anymore. There are a lot of different ways that we kind of keep the status quo or that we try to stay perfect. It's easy to hang out with people who are not up to anything meaningful in their lives. If you're actually up to something and it can feel comforting, it can make you feel good, you're sort of at the top of your local friends totem pole. But ultimately what happens is you have to step into the unknown. And when we step into the unknown, a big part of that is starting to become more vulnerable. You know, not being vulnerable, not talking about our problems, not sharing our problems, and I'm not talking about complaining, but not having the courage to be imperfect, to be able to say to the right friends and the right people around you who are on the same journey with you, you know, hey, I'm scared about this thing, or hey, I'm worried about this. Can I talk through this with you for a moment so I don't have to bottle all this up? There are a lot of different ways that we try to feel good about ourselves based on who we surround ourselves with, keeping our ideas to ourselves, avoiding criticism, not wanting to bother anyone, or even hustling, grinding and pursuing success so that we can live some sort of fake material lifestyle that we can post on social media. While deep down inside we're comparing ourselves to other people, we're feeling like we're not enough. And it's this bottling up, not being able to be vulnerable, not being able to be authentic, not sharing or throwing, as TD Jakes said, your scars, that's making us sick. It's what keeps us poor. Its what keeps us spiritually disconnected because it requires so much energy to hold that false sense of perfection or the old self together. Are you with me? Like, its a lot of work. Its a lot of work to walk around trying to not make a mistake. Its a lot of work when the next level of your life or your business or your purpose is calling you forward, but you keep hanging on to the old friends and the old ways that youve been. It's a lot of work and energy and effort, and it breaks us down over time and it prevents the new from flowing into our lives. And what I found over the course of my own journey, which is absolutely imperfect, is that it's about sharing my imperfection that has allowed me to build the most amazing relationships, to create an extraordinary community, to discover what I meant to do in the world, to create financial abundance, to attract the woman of my dreams, to have the material things, because there's nothing wrong with wanting to have the material things, but they come as a byproduct of you being you. You know, my life before was about needing to be perfect. I was terrified to make mistakes. I needed to make a lot of money. I pursued success. I pushed academically. I was very entrepreneurial and ambitious. But deep down inside, I was in a lot of pain because I was afraid to share who I really was for fear of rejection. I thought I needed to be perfect. And it took a lot of energy to hold that facade together. You know, I thought that there was something wrong with me if I wasn't in a relationship. So I bounced from girlfriend to girlfriend to girlfriend, women that I probably never should have been dating because I was too scared to be alone and what it would look like if I was. And I needed to be seen as successful, you know, successful in everything that I did. Not really being present or appreciating anybody else, not listening to what other people had to say, not sharing what was going on with me in my life and how I felt and the challenges that I was having a lot of energy to hold that fake David in place. And fortunately for me, that tension, that overbearing weight, led to my addiction, because in recovery, I found vulnerability. It was the only way that I could get clean and sober. It was the only way that I could stop drinking, stop smoking marijuana, stopped looking at pornography, stopped trying to sex, because I was using all of those tools to cope with the discomfort of trying to hold it all together and not be real about who I was and what was going on in my life. In recovery, I found vulnerability, and I found other vulnerable people. And I'm not talking about walking around complaining all day long and living inside of your problems, but I'm talking about feeling safe, to express your feelings because you've surrounded yourself by other people who feel safe doing that with you. And I discovered it was the only way that I could heal and be happy. And it's amazing today because I look at where I was before, going out partying, going to nightclubs, spending every Sunday watching sports games with other people that I thought were my friends who seemed like they were maybe achieving some things, successful lawyers or investors or professionals or whatever it was. It's not like they weren't doing anything, but they were paying more attention to the stats of their favorite football player than they were to the stats of their own life. And I started waking up and realizing, I don't want to do that. I don't want to wear somebody else's name on the back of my shirt. I want to wear my own name on the back of my shirt. And in order to do that, it was very scary because I had to let go of the old. But what I discovered was when I did that, I let go of the old and I started being real with myself and with other people. I was able to heal and I was able to start being happy. Because happiness is a thing that's inside of you right now. Happiness is not something that is out there or that you'll experience once you solve some problem in your life or you achieve some level of success. Most of us have this false idea that, like, if I can just blank, then I'll be happy. And so we spend years and years, decades and decades, pursuing whatever that blank is, a perfect relationship, overcoming our chronic health challenge, making a certain amount of money, getting some level of accolade, being a New York Times bestselling author, or one of the top thought leaders in our category, or a super successful business, then the terrifying thing is when you actually achieve that and you realize you're still not happy. Happiness is a habit and you can develop it right now. And the irony is that when you choose to be happy, which you can only become when you're being yourself, which requires you to be real and authentic and vulnerable, and being willing not to try to one up everybody else around you so you can feel good about yourself, but actually connecting with people by being real and sharing the types of things that they're going through that they're not willing to share by being vulnerable, that's the way that you can be happy. And when you do that, then all the other stuff starts to fill in. I don't share my scars as a marketing tool. I do it because it's who I have to be if I'm going to continue to move through this journey of realizing my wholeness. The happiness is already there. The wholeness is already there. It's just a matter of reconnecting to what I came into this world with. To what you came into this world with. But it's such an early age. We become programmed to live in this distorted reality of pretending to be somebody that we're not for fear that other people won't accept us. And what we have to do is unlearn that behavior. So I am whole already. And you're whole too. And you know what? Whole isn't perfect. We wear these masks pretending to be someone we're not. And the crazy thing is, so is everybody else. And so there's this weird theater of make believe that is our day to day lives. And maybe you've started to feel like it's confusing. Or maybe it's been confusing for a long time. The reason why it feels so confusing is because nobody's being real. We're all so terrified of being ourselves because we're comparing ourselves to other people who aren't being themselves. And that's why being yourself is such a novelty. That's why being yourself is really like being a diamond right within the coal mine. Because everybody else is preventing their light from shining through. When you start being yourself, you relax. Just feel through it for a second. If you knew that you didn't need to be perfect, if you knew that you didn't need to make other people happy, if you knew that there was nothing wrong with you, that you were already whole, that happiness was inside of you, then you relax. There's no gap between where you are and where you want to be. And you can just be yourself. When you relax, you start to let the emotions out. You have a good cry. You allow the anger to kind of work its way through you. You metabolize all of this psychological and emotional constipation that is being held in the tension that we're living in on a day to day basis. Being somebody other than who we really are. And so when you start being yourself, and when you start to relax and you start to allow yourself to be real with others and to be true to your emotions and how you're thinking and feeling, you stop holding on. So tighten to needing to be something that you're not. And when you do that, you create a space inside of you. You literally start to open up. There's literally a cellular expansion. The tissues of your body start to relax. There's a neurophysiological reaction. You can actually feel it, but we could measure it as well. You start to open up, literally space inside of you. And when you open up, that space. It's space for your chronic health condition to heal, rather than all of the tension that's perpetuating it. You think about it from a health standpoint, what is it? 95% of major chronic diseases right now are stress related. A lot of that stress comes from us not being ourselves. As soon as you're willing to just allow yourself to be seen for who you are without any judgment or feeling ashamed about the fact that you're experiencing challenges, that you've had tough times in your life, that you're still carrying some of that with you and you're working on letting it go, you relax, you open up space. And in that, you find healing. It's a space for new ideas to emerge around your purpose. Because when you're living in a consistent state of fight or flight as a result of being afraid that someone's going to discover something about you, that isn't the thing you need to hide in the first place, and you're not relaxed. You don't have new ideas. You don't have clarity around how to achieve the things you want to achieve in your life. It creates a space to relax into your business instead of hustling and grinding. That relaxation also opens up a space for higher power, or God, or the universe, or whatever you want to call it, to start working in your life, and everything starts to reorganize, to align, to make sense. And now you get to start living in the flow of life. All because you started accepting yourself. All because you're no longer playing the game that everybody else is playing, of trying to be perfect so that you can get somebody else's approval. And then you get to have it all. You get to have authenticity. You get to be vulnerable. And those things are magnetic. There's a polarizing energy to being vulnerable and authentic. Don't you just love someone who's real? Like, it's not even about what they say, it's about how they feel and how you feel in their presence or when you're watching them or hearing them. It's vibrational. And can't you just feel when someone isn't being real, too? There's a lot of that going on in the world right now, and so that's okay, right? We sense that there's something not right, that people aren't being real, because all the fakeness just helps us tune in, hone in, lock in to the realness even more so. All of it serves a great purpose of guiding us back to ourselves and into the life that we're meant to live. We surveyed our community a couple of months ago and I look at all the comments on these episodes on YouTube and some of the reviews on the podcast platforms, and it's amazing to see the consistency of the feedback. But we sent a survey out via email because we've been growing so fast and I wanted to create some new trainings and programs for you and for you and I and the community to go deeper together into this work. And so we said, hey, what is it that you resonate with in terms of all these teachings that David has been delivering? And you know what was amazing? The number one thing that people said was, I love how authentic David is. I love how vulnerable he is. Hes real. It wasnt about what I say, it wasnt about what I teach, it wasnt about what ive achieved. Its about the vulnerability of who im being. So you throw your scars, not your stars. I dont know what your destiny has in store for you and you might not know either. But I know one thing for sure, you just being you is going to be the fastest, easiest, and best way of getting there. It's probably going to feel really scary at first. You know, it was scary for me to start being vulnerable. And by the way, I'm not suggesting that you go out and start telling everybody you're addicted to pornography. That's my journey. Right. I share it in front of thousands of people from stage because it's part of my story and it's an appropriate part of my story to share. And so as a result of that, ive had hundreds of men come up to me and say, hey, ive been holding onto this and not willing to tell anybody that I have a problem because I was afraid that there was something wrong with me. And you sharing that has made me realize that thats the only way that Im going to get better. And thats fantastic. So Im not suggesting that when we start becoming vulnerable and authentic and sharing our scars that we go trauma vomit all over everyone. But you start being real. And when you do that, you may lose some friends. And you know what? That's a good thing. You may have some people at first that aren't ready for it. That's okay too, because you know what? That realness is so powerful that it'll push whoever you need to push out of your orbit. And before you know it, you'll have a whole new reality around you that appreciates you and loves and rewards you for being you. So just be you. Just be you. You're doing a great job on this journey, just be a little bit more of you. The beautiful thing is that's not about finding something external to you. It's just about letting go of just what's not you and that you don't need to be holding on to anymore and you don't have to do it alone. This personal growth thing, this, you know, next evolution of where we're all going together, it's not a do it yourself project. It's a do it with others. So I'm glad you're here. We're glad you're here. Just keep being here. You know we love you. You're on the right path, and we're on it with you. So if there's somebody in your life who's in the process of learning how to be themselves again, do me a favor. If you love this episode, share this episode with them. Leave me a comment below. A question subscribe to the channel. Hit the Bell icon if you're watching on YouTube to get the notifications, give me a review if you're listening on the podcast platforms. That's how we get this workout to even more people, and we'll keep on keeping on together. I love you very much and I'll see you in the next episode. Hey, it's David. One more thing. If you want to go even deeper on everything we've talked about on today's episode, don't forget to jump over to WW dot davidbear.com. you can find the link in the show notes and subscribe to our newsletter. A couple of times a week, I'm going to be sending you the latest episodes that we've released, along with additional free trainings. You'll get immediate access to my free mindhack ebook and go even deeper into all the tools, the technologies, the frameworks that have helped tens of thousands of people established a changed mind. Don't forget to jump on over to the site and I will see you in the next episode.