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PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY vs VICTIMHOOD - Peter's ABC's to Taking Control of Your LIFE! - 024

21:39 Things You Didn't Learn in School

Peter Saddington's video delves into the critical difference between embracing personal responsibility and falling into victimhood. He argues that a victim mentality, characterized by blaming external factors, hinders personal growth and leads to a pessimistic worldview. He emphasizes that recognizing oneself as the primary constant, and owning one's role, is the first step towards taking control. Saddington defines personal responsibility as owning one's ability and power to attract, build, and choose. He breaks down each element, explaining how individuals have the agency to attract positive influences, build constructive habits and systems, and consciously choose beneficial thoughts and actions. He asserts that even in the face of adversity, individuals possess the power to choose their responses and shape their lives. Ultimately, Saddington challenges viewers to shed the victim mindset and actively embrace the ABC's of personal responsibility.

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Full Transcript (3381 words)

And that's been you. You see, you're the problem. Everyone else, every other entity, every other variable within that event is exactly that. It's a variable. It's not a constant. You're the only constant. You are the enemy of you. You are the problem of you. You're the one, your brain is the one working against you telling you that it's his fault, that it's her fault, that it's somebody else's fault. Oh, it ain't there fault, it's your fault. I built many startups, most of them are failed. So Bitcoin is exactly the place that I like to be. We're gonna end it right there. I'm gonna end it right there. I'm gonna end it, I'm gonna end it right there. I'm gonna end it. Personal responsibility and victimhood. That's what I want to talk with you guys about today. And I laughed because it's taken me this long

in this new project to finally begin talking about it again. I did a Google search, Google search. I did an internal search of how many times I've talked about this in previous Sunday sermons, previous Patreon behind the scenes, other topics B90X. I have talked about personal responsibility 14 times, 14 times over the last three years in separate occasions. This is how important it is. So let's dig in. As we dig in to personal responsibility and victimhood, I know, I know, I know, because this is how the heart and the mind works, is that your mind is immediately going to move to someone that needs to hear this and you'll want to send it to them. Pump the brakes. Don't do it yet. Listen to it. Write a couple notes down and then you can send it to them. Let's jump right in. As I began

thinking about this idea again, personal responsibility and victimhood, I began what happened was, in like, began welling up this passion. I always get passionate about these particular types of topics, but the passion in me was this sense of, just like angst of, why can't people just take control of their lives? I see it time and time and time again. I'll tell you a story about it in just a little bit. But let's dive right into some really harsh realities around victimhood. Shall we? Let's do it. Quote, here's a quote from Belinda Brown, who is a great author, she wrote a book called The Private Revolution. This is on victimhood. Listen up. She says, victimhood gives us a great moral superiority and entitles us to unquestioning sympathy while expecting us, while exempting us from examining any single one of our actions. A victim is utterly devoid

of responsibility or blame. And this, of course, leaves us vulnerable as we will carry on engaging in precisely the behavior, which provoked an unacceptable response. That is what victimhood is all about. Let me read the first part, because this is the most important. Belinda Brown, author of The Private Revolution, says this on victimhood. She says, victimhood gives us a great moral superiority and entitles us to unquestioning sympathy while exempting us from examining ourselves. That's what she's basically saying. You see, what victimhood is, victimhood is the grandest, most calculated way of ensuring that no one ever takes repersonal responsibility and the responsibility is on every one else. The problem is, is that having a victimhood mentality or having a victimhood behavioral pattern in who you are, is that the issues or the behavior patterns that create the issue opportunity for you to be a victim are

sympathy while exempting us from examining ourselves. That's what she's basically saying. You see, what victimhood is, victimhood is the grandest, most calculated way of ensuring that no one ever takes repersonal responsibility and the responsibility is on every one else. The problem is, is that having a victimhood mentality or having a victimhood behavioral pattern in who you are, is that the issues or the behavior patterns that create the issue opportunity for you to be a victim are never at rest. You never mature. You never grow up. You constantly stay in a state of victimhood and what's so poisonous, and what's so poisonous about victimhood is that you now color the entire world with this sadistic and poisonous worldview. You believe you're a victim everywhere. It's never your fault. It's always someone else's fault when you're at the McDonald's line. They didn't serve you. It's racist. If

you get treated inappropriately at the publics, they're sexist. If someone cuts you off, they hate the color blue because your car is blue. It's like, there's always an excuse. There's always someone to blame. And I'll tell you guys to be quite frank, I can't stand victims. Like I, I have victims, people who claim victimhood, people who are constantly feeling like they're oppressed by everything around them. I'd stay a miles away from these people because they are utterly depressing individuals. Unruly depressing individuals. So now that I've sufficiently depressed you, and now that your mind has wandered to someone in your life who constantly plays the victim, let's look at the opposite side. Let's look at the opportunity. The opportunity clearly is personal fucking responsibility that had added in there, guys. Let me define, if you'd like to take some notes, let me define for you what

I have defined personal responsibility to be. It's three things. Personal responsibility is owning your ability, owning it, owning your ability, and your personal power. You have abilities and personal power. Personal responsibility is owning that ability and that personal power to the ABCs. Attract, build, and choose. Good or bad? That's it, every day. You have the personal ability and personal power to attract, build, and choose. Attract, build, and choose. ABCs, attract, build, and choose. Good or bad every day. So let's break these down. What are the, let's just say high level three things that you can attract? Well, you can attract good and bad people. You can attract good and bad or bad events. You can attract good or bad attitudes. You can attract good or bad energy. All right, you'll have a choice every day. Personal responsibility. You can surround yourself with positive people, positive

energy, good attitudes, good events, or you can choose to go to bad events. Bad ideas. Hang out with the wrong people. Hang out with negative nancies. Like you have the personal power and the personal choice and ability to choose who you want to attract. Attract good, not bad. The ABCs of personal responsibility. You have the personal ability and personal power to build good or bad things. Now let's talk about it, ABCs. Build good or bad relationships. Build good or bad disciplines, habits, and behavior patterns. You got some bad habits. You built them. You got some good habits. You built those two. How about build good or bad systems for life? Do you have a good schedule? Or do you have a neurotic schedule? Do you have a schedule for working out? Or do you not have a discipline for that, right? We can build our

let's talk about it, ABCs. Build good or bad relationships. Build good or bad disciplines, habits, and behavior patterns. You got some bad habits. You built them. You got some good habits. You built those two. How about build good or bad systems for life? Do you have a good schedule? Or do you have a neurotic schedule? Do you have a schedule for working out? Or do you not have a discipline for that, right? We can build our lives. You can create and build the life that you want. It's completely yours and it's your responsibility. The ABCs of responsibility, attract, build, last but not least is choose. Yes, every day you have the ability and you have the personal power and personal responsibility to choose good or bad people. You can choose good or bad responses or reactions to what happens to you in the day. Or

you can choose good or bad in terms of being thoughtful. How are you gonna think positive thoughts? Are you gonna choose to think negative thoughts? And these are all things that you can do for yourself. You have complete autonomy. You have complete agency. You have complete choice over how you attract good or bad, build and create good or bad systems in your life and choose how you're going to react and respond to the world. I find it ridiculously funny, guys. I always, and you guys have heard me say this many times, I find it so funny. Whenever I talk to people and they're in a victim mentality and they're talking about how, oh, what was me? This would happen to me. This would happen to me. You know, it wasn't my fault. It's like, dude, let's be intellectually honest here. The world ain't that complex,

bro. In every single one of your situations in life and every single one of the scenarios in your life. In every single one of the bad events in your life, there's only been one constant. And that's been you. You see, you're the problem. Everyone else, every other entity, every other variable within that event is exactly that. It's a variable. It's not a constant. You're the only constant. You are the enemy of you. You are the problem of you. You're the one, your brain is the one working against you telling you that it's his fault, that it's her fault, that it's somebody else's fault. It ain't their fault, it's your fault. I was talking with a, I was talking with a, man, it reminds me of a guy I was coaching. I was coaching an individual. This individual was struggling in life. The TLDR that took

too long did not read of it is essentially that his father died. His father died and he had to take over the business. His father died. He had to take over the business. And you know what happened? You know what happened when his father died and he had to take over the business? He was unprepared. He was a freeloader. He just showed up and went to work for years at his father's and his family's office. He was a loser. He had no personal responsibility. He was making a great income, mooching and leaching off his family for years, never learned the business. And you know what? His father died. And he had to take over the business. Over 20 employees now had to be responsible to him. The problem is that he wasn't responsible in his younger years. Brothers over 30. At the time, he was

for years at his father's and his family's office. He was a loser. He had no personal responsibility. He was making a great income, mooching and leaching off his family for years, never learned the business. And you know what? His father died. And he had to take over the business. Over 20 employees now had to be responsible to him. The problem is that he wasn't responsible in his younger years. Brothers over 30. At the time, he was over 30. He couldn't survive the business. He couldn't survive the business and he had to shutter the business. And he had to sell it at a loss. So let's figure out the emotions here. Okay? This individual. Struggling in life, he's had the loss of his dad, a loss of a business, a loss of societal respect, peer respect, friends respect. He was not ready to be responsible for

a multi-million dollar business, local business. And he was blaming. He constantly blames everything around him. He constantly blames everything. It's crazy how many things that this guy is willing to blame. And then this one sit down with him in his office. I remember just telling him plainly to his face. I said, look, it's your fault. It's your fault. You were there. You were there. You didn't take personal responsibility. You had years to prepare for legacy, to taking over for this business. But you didn't prepare. You were too immature. You were free-loaning. You were a loser. You had no intention. You had no gumshin, no assertiveness, no initialiveness. And you failed. You failed your family. You failed your legacy. You failed yourself. And you have no one to blame. But you, and he looked at me and I said, look, I'm the only one who will

ever tell you this. I'm the only one who will ever look at you in the face and potentially risk this opportunity to work with you, to hang out with you, maybe even be your friend, to risk all of that because I'm the only one that has the balls to fucking tell you that it's your fault. You fucked up. It's your fault. You were there. He wept. He wept. This was a necessary and required response from me to him. He needed to hear me tell him the stark truth that he wasn't willing to come to terms with, that he was there. He had years to prepare. He was lazy. He has to look back at the past and reprogram himself and look objectively at his time at that company. And he has a come to realization that he slept walked through it. He didn't learn what

he was supposed to learn. He didn't take responsibility and he fucked the business. And he fucked the future that he could have. And he has to take it. He has to own it. You know what victims do? Victims do many things. He retakes notes, write them down. Victims deny. They deny. They blame. They justify. They put others to shame for questioning them. Or as my friend, a colleague, a person I was coaching here, what he did, he just quit. He just quit. That's what victims do. They deny, blame, justify. Put others to shame for questioning or they just fucking quit. He quit. And then he blamed everyone else and justified everything else. That's what victims do. Victims are weak. You know what people who take personal responsibility do in life? People who take personal responsibility in life, they take action. They are intentional with life.

colleague, a person I was coaching here, what he did, he just quit. He just quit. That's what victims do. They deny, blame, justify. Put others to shame for questioning or they just fucking quit. He quit. And then he blamed everyone else and justified everything else. That's what victims do. Victims are weak. You know what people who take personal responsibility do in life? People who take personal responsibility in life, they take action. They are intentional with life. People who take responsibility in life are people who understand a very simple fact that victims will never understand. Please listen up. What people who take responsibility, you know what they understand? They understand a very simple fact that no one will ever give to fox to flying shits about your life more than you do. No one ain't nobody gonna care about your life more than you do. Let's

extrapolate this. If you're a victim and you're in the victim Olympics, the oppression Olympics, guess what? Nobody's gonna care. Or nobody cares about that thing that you care about as much as you do, okay? Wake the fuck up victims, especially the political victims or anyone who wants to play any victimhood, period in life. Wake the fuck up. Nobody cares about you. Nobody cares about your goals. Nobody cares about your visions. Nobody cares about your victimhood. Nobody cares about your life as much as you do. And so while you're sitting on a street corner with the sign saying X, Y, Z is bad, you know, you know, victim, victim, victim, O-O-Buhu, look, people are driving by and you know what they're doing? They're looking at you for a moment, but after they look at you, they're wondering what sandwich they wanna buy at RVs or what,

what, what, what, what, what happy meal they wanna buy for their kids. They, they, they don't give two fucks about you. People who take responsibility realize number one that nobody will ever care about their life more than themselves. Take control of your fucking life. Take control. Stop blaming other people for shit that happens. Go, go, go back and listen to my reprogramming pain. Go, go back to my, my, my, my show on my episode on how to reprogram the past. Listen to that, please, it'll help you. Number two, people who take responsibility are highly conscientious. They're highly aware of themselves. They are able to catch themselves in the victim mentality. They're able to catch themselves when they start blaming or denying or justifying or putting the shame or wanting to quit. People who take responsibility don't quit. People take responsibility grind through the suck because

they know it's worth it. Conscientious and aware people know that they're weak and they know that they need help. That's what responsibility, people who are personally responsible do. And last but not least, number three, people who are, who take personal responsibility in their own lives are self learners. They improve themselves. They remove the bullshit, their constant learning and they're willing to confront themselves when they're being stupid. You see, I have to confront myself all the time. Not because I'm a mature individual. It's because I have negative thoughts. I have issues in my brain. I have ramblings that try to sidetrack me in time banits that try to take me away from my goals. I have to constantly confront myself and say, wake the fuck up Peter. Time is wasting. Things must be done. Personal responsibility and victimhood, guys. Personal responsibility and victimhood. Let's review it

You see, I have to confront myself all the time. Not because I'm a mature individual. It's because I have negative thoughts. I have issues in my brain. I have ramblings that try to sidetrack me in time banits that try to take me away from my goals. I have to constantly confront myself and say, wake the fuck up Peter. Time is wasting. Things must be done. Personal responsibility and victimhood, guys. Personal responsibility and victimhood. Let's review it and let's get you out of here. As quoted by Belinda Brown from her book, The Private Revolution, she says, victimhood, victimhood, victimhood, victimhood. Gives us a great moral superiority and entitles us to unquestioning sympathy while exempting us from examining ourselves and our behaviors. That's what victimhood is. It's putting the blame everywhere else. What victims do is they deny a blame, justify put to shame others who question

or just fucking quit. People who take responsibility take the Peter's ABCs of responsibility. They understand that they have the ability and personal power to attract good or bad. Build good or bad life and choose good or bad. How they want to respond. People who take personal responsibility number one are intentional with life. They take a hold of the life. They blame no one else. Number two, they're conscious and aware of how they respond and they're conscious and aware of when they're putting on some victimhood ideas. And number three, people who take personal responsibility correct themselves. They confront themselves because they know that no one in this world will ever care about their life as much as they do. Which is why a victim, everyone loses. When you're a victim, everyone loses. Especially you. So tell me, in today's, in the comment guys, in the comments

below, it was the last time that you self corrected. It was the last time that you learned something new. And what maybe, maybe what might you need to take personal responsibility for today? Remember, it's always your fault. You were there. This is Peter, the Bitcoin Lambo. If you liked this episode, subscribe. Smash the Lysily like button. And now is the time to send and forward this to someone that you know who enjoys playing the victim. Please don't.

About the Creator

This video is part of a library of 780+ episodes published by Peter Saddington on staas.fund. Peter is a serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist (StaaS Fund, RegD 506B), and AI practitioner who has trained 17,000+ professionals in agile and AI methodologies. He bought Bitcoin at $2.52 in 2011, built 4 autonomous AI agents (the Council of Dogelord), and operates 10+ websites with zero employees. His AI Workshop has been attended by Fortune 500 teams, and his newsletter "The Agile VC" reaches thousands of subscribers weekly. Peter holds 3 Master's degrees (Divinity, Computer Science, Computational Operations Research) from institutions including Georgia Tech.

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