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?