I listened to Tom Bilyeu's interview with David Goggins yesterday. About 42 minutes in, there is a quote that really resonated with me. "The most important conversation you'll ever have in your life," Goggins says, "is the one you have with yourself. You wake up with it; you walk around with it; you go to bed with it. Eventually, you're going to act on it - good or bad. You have to find out who you are."
I just ordered David Goggins' book Can't Hurt Me (2018). Goggins is a tough cookie. A retired Navy SEAL, Goggins once completed 4,030 pull-ups in 17 hours. And another time he ran 205 miles in 39 hours without stopping. Informing those feats of physical prowess is Goggins' mental strength.
Getting back to the quote above about the conversation you have with yourself being the most important. To state the obvious - it's so true. The only person who goes with you everywhere is yourself. Self-awareness means dialing in and really listening to and paying attention to that conversation with yourself. And by the way, as I think all of us know, attending to that conversation is not required. You can ignore it - and yourself. And pass through life without living yours.
I remember as a teenager someone saying to me, "You only live once - this is not a dress rehearsal." Those words have always stayed with me.
More recently, something Gary Vaynerchuk once said really struck a chord - "What if I told you this was the last Monday of your life?"
Our time here is short. We owe it to ourselves to tune into the most important conversation in our lives - the conversation with ourselves. Here's to greater self-awareness for all of us.