This is Nate Mohr with self-concept.com It’s so nice to have everybody here today. I’m interviewing a fellow member of the self-concept group coaching Denny Ransom.

There’s so much going on in the world today. There’s so much wisdom in our group of people that we can connect with. A lot of people are stuck at home alone making it a good time to really get to know yourself. I remember first hearing your story about how you became very connected with yourself. Can we start at the beginning of how you first started learning the self-concept model and where things were at for you and how things evolved?

My very first experience connecting with NLP was way back in the days, I bought Tony Robbins book right out of high school and it was the personal and unlimited power and then immediately followed up by saving my money as a kid at high school and buying the tape set, I’m gonna date myself here, but I had this giant box of cassette tapes in cases, right that was his whole thing.

And I struggled with it. I felt like the one thing that I connected with internally was this idea of being able to manage and connect with your own neurology. Even though I struggled with the tapes, you didn’t get anything beyond just feeling motivated. Feeling motivated was great but I didn’t learn anything that I could take with me and build. I didn’t leave with a skill set. I later got into philosophy, meditation, and different religions looking for the answer.

Well, it definitely opened me up to connecting the dots on a lot of new ideas. It opened me up to the idea that a lot of people have shared internal experiences and they bring them together. That sometimes people who are seemingly really different are really not so different because they’re seeking, they’re seeking the same types of experiences that we all are. 

I got to a point in my life where I felt like I was doing a lot of internal searching and I exposed myself to so many ideas that I started to feel like this I needed to get something lit under his butt and get moving. 

It was almost like an addiction to reading something new rather than personally getting to know myself. Finally, I just put everything away and I’m like, I’m gonna just focus on trying to live. And I’m going to put all this stuff away for now.  Last year, I reached a point where I had sort of my whole life got turned on its head, a lot of different personal things sort of converged in a way I felt disconnected with myself. 

And I suddenly found myself really disconnected from myself and my life and like I was struggling to find my compass again.  I needed some mindset fixes here and I knew that I could go to NLP because I’ve circled around to it a couple times.

I ran across, ran across Damon his YouTube channel, and found some helpful exercises. And just because of that, I started watching his channel more. Then I was looking for some different books. I think I read one of Connirae’s books first. And then that led me to Steve Andreas and then like, right about there was this time where I’m like, Oh, this guy seems like he’s pretty legit.

You know, right about that time. I came across a video of Damon’s where he was interviewing Steve. Yeah. And I’m like, Oh, that’s sweet. These guys are connected. You know? And then he mentioned the self-concept book.  Transforming yourself by Steve Andreas.

I don’t think I even got through the first chapter is probably just like the prologue where he’s just basically outlining his model of here’s what the self-concept is.  When I read it, I was like this is the most brilliant way that I’ve ever heard connecting with yourself and internal boundaries explained. It’s so clear, it’s just spot on easy to understand. Yeah. And saw the Damon's website and saw that he because I went to his website, so I went back to see okay, I know he’s got this program. I’m already all in this, this idea of being able to reach in and tune up your identity level.

Yeah, what I did was I started trying to do things that I felt would enable me to sort of hit the ground running. I started nightly, working, digging up memories, and just trying to sit with the memory. And, you know, and some of the stuff that I mean, it’s all this stuff is all in the book.

Sure, no, but I couldn’t, piece it together. So I thought since I don’t have to figure this out all on my own, because I’m gonna have help. I’ll just, I’ll just try and get myself ready. So it was mostly, I’m not a very visual person, right? Um, visual is sort of my weakest, the weakest of the representational systems. So I spent a lot of time just experimenting with, with my memories, okay, just with, you know, playing with the modalities and what if I, you know, adding more sound and more kinesthetic and so that I had a good feel for that and in, felt more comfortable working with the memories by the time that the course opened up.

What were some of the moments or the, you know, sometimes there’s a certain exercise that someone will work on and they’re like, oh, wow, something has shifted, or sometimes they’ll there be a quality that because they transformed it. Life changes in some ways or anything that stands out or what stands out, I guess, kind of the moments, you know.

I feel like I got lucky with what I picked as my template, right. So for my niche for the initial work. I picked tenacity because I felt like that, you know, it was easy for me to look back and look at times where I was really after something and I didn’t give up until I accomplished what I was after. Yeah, so I felt like Well, that’s good certain quality and that’s a good one to tune up because of tenacity great to have, you know, sure. Yeah. But it’s still And it felt positive. 

But I, I also, it was a very, here’s an example of it. Here’s an example of it. Here’s an example of it. And going through for the first time going through the process with the calls and with the exercises in the program. And with the feedback that I was because I was posting, I was, you know, as I was working through stuff, I was posting stuff to the Facebook group. There was one night I was, I was in my room.

I was you know, sitting and working on it. And I had this like, major aha moment. That was it was almost like, like, it’s like when you understand something like really understands it for the first time it was right. And I’m like, Oh, I like it’s everywhere.

Like my whole life. it was everywhere. These little examples here and there. It’s everywhere. And it was, I mean, it made me laugh to like, be like, Oh, how now I see it. It’s so obvious now, you know? That got me really excited because I’m like, if I if that can happen with you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was very cool and really cool that I got to have that experience upfront. You know, um, I found that not everything I’ve worked with has happened that way. 

I’ve worked with some things where I feel like okay, I feel like I am that quality now. Sure. And but it doesn’t feel you know, and more of those more than ones I’ve worked with. I don’t have some, like, I don’t wake up the next morning. Like, I’m a different person. Yeah, but there’s this. There’s this like, slow roll of like, I keep seeing it. 

The internal boundaries work. When I read the book, I actually was like, if we’re just like, tagged on to the end is like, oh, by the way, you can do the same with the internal and external boundaries, you know?

This thing seems like it has all sorts of crazy potential to do things with you know, I didn’t have any you know, I’m like, well, that’s this is definitely in within a group. I’ll start bringing all my questions to Damon in the people in the group. Yeah, but specifically Yeah, so I had this experience with the boundaries. It was when we were doing the boundaries call. I played with the boundaries.  I posted this to the self-concept group afterward, but I’ll touch on it briefly. 

So, um, I had played with the boundaries, I discovered that I had this sense of, like a glass shell around my heart. Right. And I, you know, I tried expanding it and doing things with it and just there and like, even like, just, it would make money would think of it, I would hear that sound that like ding ding ding Really? Right. 

It was funny and I always felt like, okay, there’s something there. I don’t know. I don’t know what to do with it. And, you know, I’m not going to try and get too aggressive with it because it’s serving some function, you know? I finally got to the point in the track where we were doing the work with the boundaries and we’re all on this call together.

And it was with Peter and I was attending to this glass shell in my heart again and one of the other people in the group chatted out that something about a bubble and it gave me an idea and I’m like oh yeah, so let’s try and make it right and it was just the weirdest thing this this this shell-like, like turned into something softer like a bubble. And then because the bubble had was fluid then it like fluid in my body filled the bubble up and then there was no more need for the bubble because it was fluid inside and outside and the in the boundary of the bubble just disappeared, right and I had this like It was a truly moving experience.

It was I was just radiating with a sense of connection with myself with the world with other people. It was beautiful. I mean, it was it really was and I chased it down a couple of days later. By working with the quality of connectedness, right?  Oh, yeah. Yeah, I thought well, I’m gonna try and piggyback on this thing.  That’s been one of the most impactful things that that I’ve done here to connect with myself using this work. That hasn’t really left me I have this ability to be connected because I feel super connected with myself. 

Did it with my own life with other people in ways that in a way that I haven’t ever, you know, and I mean, this is this is the thing that happened a few months ago. So I mean, it’s not that just Oh, that was a cool experience that sort of faded away. Yeah, the intensity of it really was high for a couple of days, but then when it leveled off, it leveled off with a new state of this sense, connection to people.

What I do now, I have so I have a treat myself like I’m the center of gravity.  I have an atmosphere, right. So my boundary is an atmosphere, okay? And what I do is if I’m going to talk to someone or I want to try and establish rapport with them, yeah, I fill that atmosphere with a state of gratitude. Then I use that to connect with them. And it absolutely works.  It’s, weird how it connecting with yourself works sometimes, you know, but it’s pretty cool. It’s a good feeling. 

Regarding the connection with myself, obviously my ability to connect with people and to have a greater sense of community, but also to I mean, the connection with, with my own self with my values, you know, I feel like my compass, like my, I’m aware of my compass all the time now, ya know, and so so that definitely, I think that even on a larger scale of just this work, in general, my life, I mean, clearly I’m on some sort of an entirely different type of trajectory now than I was a year ago. Well, enormously different.

The things that I’m thinking about and the things that I’m trying to accomplish in my inner game for the last six months, it’s just astounding. It’s like your hair growing, you know, a little bit at a time day by day and you don’t notice the difference. But when you look back at a picture, you know, when you had short hair and I’m a hippie now I look at how they get this way. And when I look back to just six months ago, um, that’s how it feels.

My daily routines to connect with myself have changed, my habits have changed. The things I put my energy into a change and everything that’s a little change seem to be compounding in a way that that that is driving my life in a way in a direction. That makes me feel really good. You know, so

First off, be gentle with yourself. There are a lot of nuances to this and for me, I’m a newbie, right? I mean, there are so many people in the group who have accomplished way more than I have. And I’ve been at it for just a bit now. And there are still areas that I’m stuck with. There are still areas that give me problems. But if you commit to doing the work, you have so many resources here. So many people are happy to connect with you and help.

As long as you don’t lust too hard after, what other people’s experiences are. We each our own unique self within our own unique set of needs. And if you do the work to connect with that, you will get to what you really need the most out of the work. And it might look differently for you than it did for other people. I came into this I had this idea that I was going to be like Neo in the matrix and stole something in the next day a miracle would happen.

Peter had that kind of experience. transforming productivity. I gotta be honest. I haven’t had any like behavioral things were like the next day I’m just on fire with this or that. Sure, but I have definitely gotten what I needed. In so many ways, so. So be open-minded about what it is that that you might get and how it might show up for you. But if you trust the process and stick to it, good things are gonna happen. I promise you, good things will happen.