Dharius Daniels - Do You Know Who You REALLY Are? (It Will Change Your Life)

I want to ask you a question. Here’s the question: Do you know you? Now, before you give me an answer, I want to ask another question. If you say you know you, how do you know if you know you? This is what I’ve discovered: many people think they know themselves, and they don’t. I’m going to tell you how to get to know you better, and I’m going to explain why it’s so important in this video. Stay tuned!

I was recently doing a training for people in the Academy I run, called the Premier Leadership Academy. This is what I believe: if you are going to do anything in this world that creates transformation in the lives of people, it’s going to require the utilization of three skills. First, you are going to have to do some speaking; second, you are going to have to do some coaching, which is leveraging influence; and third, you are going to have to do some leading. You don’t go as far as your dream; you go as far as your team. So, we’ve got our schools that train people in those skills. We don’t just necessarily train people to be speakers. Some people want to be speakers, but we train because most people won’t be speakers. However, everybody is going to have to do some speaking, and most people won’t be coaches, but everybody will have to do some coaching. Everyone is a leader because leadership isn’t a role; it’s a responsibility, and even if you don’t feel like you have a leadership title, you’re going to have to utilize some leadership tactics in your life.

So anyway, I’m doing this training, and I’m conducting a session on self-leadership, which is the ability to intentionally influence yourself toward a certain objective. The most important person you will lead is you, and the most difficult person you will ever lead is you. Everything you’re trying to do is all about self-leadership. There is no accomplishment of goals without self-leadership. For fitness goals, you have to lead yourself because nobody can do that but you. For spending goals, nobody can do that but you. For relational goals, nobody can do that but you. So you have to lead yourself in that regard.

As I’m doing this teaching, I spend a session on self-awareness because I realize that if a person is going to influence themselves toward their objectives, they must know themselves in a way that the average person doesn’t. The average person can lead themselves, but the average person doesn’t know themselves. You cannot lead with will; listen, guys, willpower doesn’t work. If willpower worked, we would have reached all of our goals. If willpower worked, we would have been all that we know God has called and created us to be. Some things are accomplished by strength; some things are accomplished by strategy. So we need more than will; we need skill. If people are going to succeed, they must develop the skill of self-discovery first so they can live with self-awareness, knowing how to influence the you that you are, not the you that you think you are.

«I can quit; I can stop when I get serious.» That’s an indication of a person who doesn’t accurately know themselves. I think it’s incredibly essential and important that we spend time here because these are the types of concepts that are clearly communicated in scripture. However, these sorts of scriptures that call for self-examination, self-discovery, and self-awareness are often underemphasized. In 2 Corinthians 13:5, Paul says, «Hey, examine yourself to see if you are in the faith.» He’s saying you have to intentionally engage in some self-discovery because you’re making assumptions about your spiritual status or the place you are on your spiritual journey, and you might not be where you think you are. But the only way you can see that is if you create some space for self-discovery. Paul says in another place that if we would judge ourselves, we would have no need to be judged. The most dangerous type of deception is self-deception; the nature of self-deception is that you don’t know you’re deceived. The Bible is replete with this information; it encourages you to be aware. Peter talks about being sober-minded. What does that mean? He’s not just talking about not being intoxicated with alcohol; he’s talking about not being intoxicated by emotions. Being sober is a call to intentionality and self-awareness. James even says, «Hey, don’t just be hearers of the word and deceive yourselves; do what it says.» This means I can hear a truth that is impactful and powerful, making the assumption that the truth I heard has changed me when actually that truth revealed that something can change. Whether or not something will change is based on my application of that truth. That’s what Jesus talks about in Matthew chapter 7 when he explains one of the ways wisdom works.