When I hear people, 'I

choose to do this every day.

This is what I love doing,' I know I'm

going towards an inspirational life.

It was Henry David Thoreau who talked

about living a quiet life of desperation,

and Ralph Waldo Emerson that

talked about living a life

of inspiration. Of course, you have

a choice at any time on how you live,

based on how you prioritize your

actions and how you decide your

daily activities.

Today I'd like to talk to you about what

I call the seven words that describe

the seven levels of

inspiration in your life,

where you feel like you're either in

control of your life or the world outside

you controls you. So you might

want to write some notes.

This is something that might be

useful. I've been involved in these,

the language of this and the description

of what I'm about to share with you for

over 40 years,

and watching this in people

as they are engaged at work or

in their life,

and I really believe that this is worth

considering and factoring into your

daily thinking process.

So let me just go and give you

the seven stages or seven levels

of inspiration. At the bottom level,

where you're living by duty and

you feel like an external source is

running your life,

and you're feeling obligated where

you're having to do something outside,

you'll hear yourself in

your language saying,

I have to do this, I've got

to do this, I must do this.

Now,

that's not something that's congruent

with what you value most at that moment.

It's something that's an injected

value of some outer authority,

maybe it's a boss, maybe it's a spouse,

maybe it's a preacher or teacher,

somebody outside you,

that you've inculcated and

injected into your life about what

you think you have to do

or got to do or must do.

And these are languages

that is a resistance factor.

There's no inspiration there. When

you feel like you got to do it,

you feel like there's a break on and

you're resisting what you're doing.

And so anytime you hear yourself

saying, I got to, I have to, I must,

that's a lot of resistance inside because

you feel like some outside force is

doing this to you and you're

having to respond to it,

and you feel that this responsibility to

get this thing done in a certain period

of time or a certain way, or

to please somebody, et cetera.

You don't say, I got

to, I have to, I must,

on doing something that you're inspired

by. It's just not something you say.

You say, I love it, I'm inspired by

it. Anyway, that's bottom level one.

That's the first layer. That's

'got to,' 'have to,' 'must.'

So when you hear that, just know that

there's a lot of resistance going on.

It usually means that you're doing

something extremely low on your values.

Let me give you an example;

a young boy who's maybe 12

years old who loves video games,

he loves doing video games. He's

inspired spontaneously to do video games,

but his mom comes in and says, you

need to do the chores. Oh, mom,

I've got to do the chores. I have to

do the chores. I must do the chores, or

I can't play the video games. And

once I do it, then I can play it.

So we get outside influences

directing that with that language.

The next layer, above 'Got to,

have to, and must,' I found,

and I found this working with doctors

in clinics many years ago in the 80s,

back in 1983, 84,

I was noticing that the

language in the staff,

if they were doing something they

loved to do, it showed and they said,

I love it. I'm inspired to do this.

But when they feel 'I got to do this,

I have to do this,

I must this,' that means that they're

not really engaged and not inspired to do

it. They feel like they're forced

to do it. It's not the job.

They don't see how that responsibility

is helping them fulfill what's most

meaningful to them. And that's why

they say it. Got to, have to, must.

And whenever you see that language,

you know in a business that

the business is going down,

they're disengaged and people

don't want to be at work,

they don't want to do the work,

people don't want to be around people

that don't want to do the work.

It affects the company.

So I used to watch this and log people's

comments and listen very carefully to

find out how much engagement it was,

which led me a lot to

how important values are,

and making sure that you hire according

to values and make sure you inspire

teams according to values.

Because if they're not,

nobody goes to work for

the sake of a company,

they go to work to fulfill their values.

If they feel they're getting

their values met, they're engaged.

But they're not engaged when

they're saying 'I got to, I have to,

I must.' The second layer

is, should, ought to,

supposed to. I really ought to be doing

this. I really should be doing this.

I really am supposed to do

this. Again, outside authority.

This is something that you think you

should be doing according to some outside

authority. You don't ever should yourself.

The shoulds that you say to

yourself, I should have done this,

I ought to do this, I'm

supposed to have done,

is what they call the

superego in Freud's term,

it's an injected value from some outer

authority that's maybe from previous

earlier times in your life, or

maybe currently in your boss,

or maybe somebody you infatuated

with and look up to and you think,

I should be working out like them.

I ought to be working out like them.

I got to, I got to do this.

But this is another sign of an

outside authority, again, injected.

We don't realize that anytime you

infatuate with somebody and put them on a

pedestal,

you inject their values and then they're

inculcated into your value structure.

And then what happens is when you're

doing something that's not inspiring to

you, that's not highest on your values,

you listen to these languages, I got to,

I have to, must. That means very

disengaged. Should, ought to, supposed to,

that means you're kind

of self depreciating and

beating yourself up and not

feeling fulfilled in it, but

you know you should be doing it.

It's not really highest on your value

or you wouldn't be talking like that.

When somebody says, I really

should be exercising, it means;

I'm not really focused on exercise,

but I know I should according

to what I've read or what I've,

the person I'm comparing

myself to. And anyway,

there's all these ideals

that we compare ourselves to,

but each of those ideals also come

from outside authorities in many cases.

So should, ought to, supposed to, is

level two. And got to and have to, must,

is the lowest inspiration, that's

living by duty and obligation. Should,

ought to, supposed to, is just above

it. The next level is 'need to',

I need to do this, I need to do that.

And that is still an outside

influence, but less resistant.

You're not having the

brakes on quite as strong,

but you're still not

necessarily inspired by it.

It's a lower level of inspiration

by any means. And again,

you're not fully engaged in it.

You can sort of see by doing it how

you're going to get sort of what you want,

but it's not, it's not something

that's inner directed. See,

whenever you hear, got to, have to,

must, should, ought to, supposed to,

need to, it's all outer directed. And I

usually tell people when they tell me,

well, I should be doing

this. According to who?

And they stop and they look

at me. But I got to do this.

According to who? I had a gentleman

the other day in my seminar,

the Breakthrough Experience. He said,

I've got to do this. I've got a family.

And I said, okay. The 'got

to' is maybe not true,

but what happens is you have not organized

your life and prioritized your life

and delegated things such that you

could be free to do something more

productive and more meaningful and

more empowering and delegating that.

So we use these languages and we don't

have strategies to get beyond the limits

of those things we've injected from outer

authorities. And so that's the thing,

if you meet somebody that has a high value

on family and you're a woman that has

a high value on business,

and then the mother that has a

high value on family says, well,

you should be with your kids more.

Now you're going out there, well,

I'm now at work which is high on your

values, and now I say to myself, I should,

because I've injected my mother's

values in there. And that's again,

one of those outside authorities. So got

to, have to, must, should, supposed to,

need to, are all outer directed

obligations and duties.

Deontological duties that you think you're

supposed to live by, should live by,

need to live by. These are, again,

it's like driving with a break on.

You're causing friction. You're

not a hundred percent in the flow.

You're not most efficient in your

energy and your energy is down.

That's why when you feel like 'I

got to do this, I have to do this',

you go 'I'm frustrated.' You burn

out doing that or bore with it.

The next level is 'want

to'. Now the want to,

is the level, it's halfway up the scale.

The 'want to' is now where you are

starting to participate in the activity.

When you 'need to', it's an outside. When

it's 'should, ought to, supposed to',

it's outside. When it's 'got to

and have to, must', it's outside.

But 'want to' is sort of

a, you're starting to now

participate and going, well,

this is something that

I get a value out of,

and I don't do it because I have

to, I don't do it because I should,

I don't do it because I need to,

I do it because I want to do it.

So you're starting to get now a shift

from an extrinsic motivation to an

intrinsic motivation. From an extrinsic

motivation to an intrinsic motivation.

And this intrinsic motivation now

is guiding you to, you know, say,

Hey, this is what I'll do. You'll start

to do this without a lot of resistance.

And you're a little bit more inspired

to do it. You're moving up the scale.

But that's kind of the

break even. And by the way,

when I noticed this when I was in

doctor's office many years ago,

I noticed that whatever they had

scheduled on the appointment book in the

morning, if they had, let's say 70

patients scheduled in the morning,

then what happened is by the end

of the day, if I was hearing,

got to's and have to's and must,

the volume dropped during the day.

If I heard should, ought to, supposed

to, a little less. If I heard need to,

even less. When I heard

want to, it broke even.

Whatever they had scheduled,

that's what they typically saw.

And so it was kinda like a break even.

You break down when you're in the

got to's, have to's, and must,

you break even when you're in the want

to level, you're halfway up the scale.

When you go up the next

level, you have the decision,

you decide to do it. It's like a,

it's now a conscious decision

where you're deciding to do that.

So now it's not something

external, it's something internal.

And now the drive is going up,

the inspiration is going up.

You're starting to really desire. You

have a burning desire, if you will for it.

You'd like to do it. And this is something

that is now a little bit more fluent.

You're not necessarily fighting the

system. You're not having a duty.

You're now having some design. I tell

people, if you're not living by design,

you'll live by duty.

If you're not filling your day with

high priority actions that inspire you,

it fills up with low priority

distractions that don't.

And the low priority distractions that

don't are all the got to's, have to's,

must, should's, ought to's, supposed

to's, need to's, below the want to level.

But the desire to level's where you are

now engaging and now you're choosing to

do this and wanting to do this.

And there's an inspiration a

bit that's starting to surface.

On the next level you have

the 'choose to' level.

This is where you've

made a conscious choice,

where there's more advantage

than disadvantage in your mind.

You're now doing it because you really

are looking forward to doing it.

When I hear people, 'I choose to do this

every day, this is what I love doing',

I know I'm going towards

an inspirational life.

I also noticed when I was in practice and

I was seeing doctors and I listened to

the language of the staff

and everything else,

whatever was on the book

that went up another 10%.

So we'd have maybe 77 patients

coming in that afternoon.

There was a correlation between the volume

of the patients and the business you

might say, because that's just a

business, and the engagement level.

When you're in a got to and have to

and must, you're disengaged. Should,

ought to, supposed to, disengage.

When you're in the choice level and the

desire level, you're partly engaged.

You're now wanting to do this. And people,

when you can't wait to get up and

do something and want to do it,

people can't wait to get that service.

And there's a difference. When people,

when you get in a taxi, I

used to live in New York,

when you get in a taxi and

you get in with a taxi,

the person that's driving

it and you ask them,

how long you been driving a a taxi?

And they look in the mirror and it's

filthy and it's dirty and it's not really

nicely kept. He says, about two

years. And I said, you love it?

And then they'll look at me and they'll

look in the mirror and they'll say,

are you kidding? It pays the bills, man.

And they're not engaged. Got to do it.

Got to pay the bills. And

then you meet somebody,

they get in a taxi and

whatever, and you said,

you how long you been driving a taxi?

Oh, 25 years. Really? Said, yeah,

my father did it. My

grandfather did it. I love it.

I know every street in this city

everything else, here's my card.

Anywhere you need to go, I'll

go. I love it. You can hear it.

And they have a clean car and they're

engaged and it's something that they have

a value to. And that makes

a difference, in your life.

It makes a difference in your business.

It makes a difference

in your relationship.

So the next level beyond the choose

to level is a 'love to' level.

And this is when you actually, now

I'm not talking about romantic love,

I'm talking about a love where you're

embracing and willing to embrace the pains

and pleasures in the pursuit of this.

It's something that's so inspiring to

you that you can't wait to get up in the

morning and do it. This is

the thing you love doing.

I love researching and

writing and teaching.

This is what my favorite

things to do in life,

I could do it all day long and I do.

And so this is what is inspiring to me.

I love doing it. So the question is,

are you filling your day with

the things that you love?

Are you filling the things

with the things you got to?

If you're in a 'got to'

level, you're disengaged.

If you're in the 'love to'

level, you're fully engaged.

And that does make a difference as far

as the overall outcome in your life,

as far as your vitality and et

cetera. So that's why I tell people,

and when I teach the Breakthrough

Experience my signature program,

I have them go through and do

a Value Determination process.

And once they've identified what

their hierarchy of values is,

the hierarchy of your

values dictate your destiny.

It determines how you

perceive, decide, and act.

So whenever you're filling your day with

the very highest priority things that

you're most inspired and engaged

to do, that you really love to do,

your freedom goes up.

You don't have a lot of duty

and responsibilities that's

down here that you feel

like you're dreaded by, you know,

there's a burden. You're inspired.

And if you delegate all the lower priority

things to people who would love to do

it and surround yourself with

people that would love to do it,

they're inspired and you're surrounding

yourself with people are inspired and

you're inspired to go and do the things

you love to do and delegate the things

that aren't.

And most people will trap themselves

and feeling obligated and living in got

to's and have to's and must's and

should, ought to's, supposed to's,

and need to's, and sometimes want to's.

Very few people literally give

themselves permission to make a decision.

That's why pre-planning,

foresight, strategic planning,

goal setting is so important.

That's why in the Breakthrough

Experience we spend so much time on that,

that topic. Because if

you're not living by design,

you're going to live by duty. If

you're not being inspired by your life,

it's going to be despired.

If you're not filling your day

with high priority actions,

it's going to fill with

low priority distractions.

And all the distractions are all the

things you feel you got to do, have to do,

such a distraction. When you get up in

the morning and you have a prioritized,

high priority agenda,

and you knock it outta the ballpark

and knock out the highest priorities,

at the end of the day, you're

more resilient, adaptable,

you feel more fulfilled.

You're on top of the world.

When you feel like you've been putting

out fires and doing what you have to do

and got to do and must do all day long,

and you feel like you've had

duties instead of design,

then what happens is you come home and

you're now in your amygdala and you're

more emotionally reactive. You're more

impulsive and instinctual, more dramatic,

and you end up having more frustrations.

And the frustrations are the feedback

from your world around there to guide you

back to what's priority. Because when

you're doing what's highest in priority,

you're spontaneously inspired

to act and you love doing it.

So that's what you want to find.

That's why I have people in

the Breakthrough Experience,

do the Value Determination process and

help them prioritize their life and

clarify what's really important,

not what they think it should be.

When I ask people about their values,

and I've been doing it for 46 years,

asking people about their values,

it's amazing. Some people say, well,

it should be this, it ought to be this.

And they're not realizing that they've

injected somebody else's values and

they're trying to live and fit in

instead of stand out. Yet everybody,

if you ask them how many of you want to

make a difference? They all want to say,

I want to make a difference.

But you're not going to make

a difference fitting in.

You're doing it standing out.

You're going to make a difference by

being authentic and unique to you and

living by what you really love.

This is something that Warren Buffett

has in one of his things to make sure you

do what you love and love what you do.

Warren Buffett and

Charlie Munger said that.

And I've been watching that

almost everybody I know

that's doing extraordinary

things are loving what they're

doing, they're inspired by it,

and they've learned to delegate lower

priority things and give other people who

love doing those things

the opportunity to do that and expand

the economy and expand jobs and open up

doorways of opportunity.

You're rewarded to the degree that you

help other people get what they want to

get in life by giving them

job opportunities they love.

So the bottom level is 'got to, have to,

and must.' The next level is, 'should,

ought to, supposed to.' Then comes,

'need to.' Then comes 'want

to.' Then comes 'desire to.'

Then comes 'choice.' And finally,

'I love it.' And when you hear

yourself saying, I love it,

this is what I love doing,

because whatever's highest on your value

is what you spontaneously are inspired

to act on. That's why in

the Breakthrough Experience,

I also teach people the Demartini Method,

which is on how to dissolve all the

emotional baggage associated with the

should's and ought to's and got

to's and have to's and musts.

All the resentments that build up,

that accumulate as a result of that,

all the infatuations and fantasies

that you do as an escape from that,

from the drudgery of that. I show people

how to sort through their perceptions,

dissolve the baggage

that's holding them back,

that's trapping them in the lower levels

of the inspiration and giving them

freedom to go after what's

really inspiring to them.

And that's why the values and what

I teach in the Breakthrough plus the

Demartini Method are crucial for that.

That's why I have people own the

traits of the greats in the program,

by going and taking all the people

that they've put above them,

that they've injected values

from and level the playing field.

So you're no longer thinking

they have something you don't.

See at the level of the highest

level of your inspiration,

the highest level of authority

and authenticity in yourself,

nothing's missing in you. You have

whatever you see in the people you admire,

you just haven't honored it. Once you

honor that at the Breakthrough Experience,

you give yourself permission

to play in a new field.

And you don't inject somebody else's

values and you don't live by the duties,

you live by the inspirations in life.

So I just wanted to take a moment to

share with you that little message,

because I really believe

that that's something,

I've been watching it now for

46 years, since the late 70s,

and I'm certain what it does is

makes a difference if you learn to

prioritize your life and

live by the priorities.

That's why I tell people to come to the

Breakthrough Experience because in the

Breakthrough Experience, I show you

what those things are in more depth,

I make you go through and experience,

we go through and analyze

where they come from.

We go through and have a tool on how to

dissolve the influence of outer people's

expectations and give ourselves permission

to design our life the way we really

want to design it.

Because nobody's getting up in the

morning and dedicating their life to your

fulfillment, it's up to you.

So come and join me at the Breakthrough

Experience so I can show you those tools

and just know that

listen to your language.

Your language is revealing your

degree of friction or fuel.

And if you're basically living a quiet

life of desperation and a victim of

history, you're going to be going, 'Got

to, and have to, must, all your life.

If you're going to do something

you really love to do,

you're going to be a master of destiny.

So I look forward to seeing you at the

Breakthrough Experience and thank you for

joining me with this. I look

forward to seeing you next week.